David Ottewell's Politics

Maryam Khan with her father, former Manchester lord mayor Afzal Khan
Maryam Khan, solicitor and Manchester councillor, has been chosen as Labour’s candidate to replace David Chaytor in Bury North at the next general election.
Maryam received ‘overwhelming’ support as a ‘change-candidate’ – someone who represented a definite break from the past.
Labour has taken Bury North at the last three general elections but faces an uphill struggle this time. Mr Chaytor was seriously damaged by the expenses scandal, and may not be out of the woods just yet. He admitted making an ‘unforgivable error’ by claiming for a non-existent mortgage on a London flat where his children had lived.
Maryam represents a clean break from the Chaytor era and has proven a formidable campaigner in the past. If she manages to win – no mean feat with the current climate in Bury North, and Labour defending a majority of just 2,926 – she could become the party’s first female Asian MP. She will also be one of the youngest – just as she was Manchester’s youngest councillor when she took Longsight in 2006.
And a victory could mark the start of an historic father-daughter MP team. Afzal Khan remains many people’s favourite to replace Sir Gerald Kaufman if and when he stands down as MP for Manchester Gorton.

“James has said that he is devoting time to his constituents and I think that is the right way to deal with it. He is a friend of mind and I think he is very talented.”
- David Miliband speaking to me yesterday about James Purnell

There are things you can blame Gordon Brown for over the Jacqui Janes affair.
The fact he didn’t realise that the ‘mistakes’ in his letter might cause offence, for example; or the precise wording in his call to Mrs Janes.
And you might of course want to criticise him for wider issues relating to the war, or the way our armed forces are equipped.
But there are certain things you can’t really blame him for. Having poor eyesight. Having poor handwriting. Refusing to let his staff write or endlessly check his personal letters before he sends them out.
Anyone who saw him today – looking sombre and deeply uncomfortable, and referring obliquely to death of his own daughter – must surely realise that his problem isn’t a lack of feeling, but a problem communicating that feeling.
It’s a huge problem for a politician. But it doesn’t make him a bad man.

John Grogan, the Labour MP for Selby, has been campaigning for more train services over the Christmas holiday period.
He says transport secretary Lord Adonis promised him that he would take action on the issue this year.
But Chris Mole, the transport minister, has now made clear that – whatever progress has been made – there will still be major service gaps. In particular, says Mr Mole, ‘there will be no access to destinations such as Manchester international airport this year’.
There were, however, 23,000 extra trains over the Christmas and New Year period in 2008 compared to 2007.

Sometimes you come across a question asked in parliament and think: I know this is a politically-motivated question. But what the hell is this person trying to prove?
Typically, the politically-motivated question will take the form: how has figure x changed since 1997 (i.e. when Labour came to power)?
Now consider this gem from Chris Huhne.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) offences of bigamy have been recorded and (b) how many people have been (i) prosecuted and (ii) convicted for offences related to bigamy in each police force area in each year since 1997.
What headlines was he hoping for?

By Friday lunchtime, we will know whether the National Football Museum is staying in Preston or moving to Manchester.
The Lancashire Evening Post has fought a canny campaign to keep the museum in Preston. It has relied more on sentiment than fact.
The facts are that Preston’s rival bid to keep the museum is worth around £400,000 a year – one fifth of what is on offer if the attraction moves to Urbis. The Preston bid is predicated on around one quarter of the visitor numbers that would be expected in Manchester.
They have also managed to paint the planned move as a sort-of raid on Preston by a bigger, wicked neighbour. In fact it was the museum trustees who approached Manchester with the idea of a switch. Preston council bosses knew all about this – but did nothing until the proposal became public.
The trustees have asked an independent company to assess the rival bids. That is smart – if they come down in favour of Manchester (which the facts suggest they should), they will be able to distance themselves from the political fall-out.
And yet, and yet… sentiment still counts for something. Phil Woolas may be a Greater Manchester MP, but speaking as north west minister he said: “My own personal view is I think it was Preston’s baby and Preston should have the first chance of bringing the baby up.
“Shouldn’t we back the underdog?”
We’ve been here before with the supercasino. Manchester was picked as having provided the most effective bid. Blackpool fought a very effective retrospective campaign to get that decision quashed, based not on fact (Manchester best satisfied the criteria), but on emotion. As a result, the project was stalled – and no one won.

In its 1997 manifesto, Labour promised to reduce class sizes for five, six and seven years olds to 30 or under, by phasing out the assisted places scheme.
Did it work? Not according to new figures released in parliament this week.
They suggest that, as of January 2008, at least 23,000 infant-age pupils in Greater Mancehster were in classes of 30 or more. At least 123,000 school pupils of all ages were in these so-called ‘large’ classes.
Here’s the data, which shows the number of classes with 30+ students, broken down by borough and pupils’ age:

Over in Preston, the Lancashire Evening Post is claiming a major scoop – the prime minister backing the city’s bid to keep the National Football Museum.
Good on them for putting Gordon Brown on the spot. But I’m not sure Manchester – which is vying to take the museum to Urbis – should give up just yet.
The PM is quoted as saying that his government

will continue to provide financial support for the flagship attraction

…before going on to praise Preston North End as

“a great team”.

So far, so no-committal. The key passage, quoting Mr Brown’s own words, is this:

“Preston has a great reputation and history in football landscape so I wish the bid well… I think it’s really important that we have a National Football Museum. I was involved in helping a number of years ago with Mark Hendrick [Preston Labour MP] trying to make sure that there was funding from the Department of Culture and Sport. I think we are putting in about £100,000 a year into the museum and will continue to do so. We will continue to support the museum. The real issue is the joint venture that is coming forward from the two councils and also from the university and so I wish it well.”

Wishing Preston’s bid well is clearly not the same thing as backing it over Manchester’s rival bid. I’m pretty sure, if asked, he’d wish Manchester’s bid well, too.
In fact it seems to me that Mr Brown is bending over backwards here not to pick between the two. He says he supports the football museum; he will continue to do so; but that isn’t made conditional on its staying in Preston. It is cleverly worded, but essentially neutral.
It will be the museum’s trustees who ultimately decide its fate. That is as it should be. And don’t forget, they were the ones who originally approached Manchester council, and the North West Development Agency, about the possibility of a move.

The Department for Transport has replied to a request I made under the Freedom of Information Act a little while ago.
I asked for correspondence between Manchester council leader Sir Richard Leese and transport secretary Geoff Hoon in the light of the ‘no’ vote in Greater Manchester’s congestion-charge referendum last year.
Sir Richard, you will recall, was a leading light in the ‘yes’ campaign.
Here’s a letter he sent to Mr Hoon just before Christmas:

And here is the reply from Mr Hoon a few weeks later:

A spokesman for Phil Woolas:

Mr Phil Woolas MP has replied to the Legg Reports request for clarification over items relating to his Additional Cost Allowance. Sir Thomas Legg requested clarification on three items. 1 The apparent claiming of non-food items on a food subsidy claim. Mr Woolas has responded that the value of the money received was less than the amount on the receipt and that money was not received for non-food items. 2 The apparent double claiming of a gas bill. Mr Woolas has responded that the amount was due to reconciling of a gas bill payment with a direct debit payment. 3 The apparent over-claiming of mortgage interest payments. Mr Woolas has responded by pointing out that the interest certificates related to a subsequent year.