Politics live blog - in Oldham East and Saddleworth

Cameron to promote growth plans
Prime Minister David Cameron is promoting his Economic Growth plans on a visit to the North-West of England. He is being accompanied by Lord Heseltine, recently appointed chair of a new regional growth task force. The Tory leader has also promised to hit the Campaign Trail in Oldham East and Saddleworth, with a week to go before a crucial by-election. He has denied the Tories are soft-pedalling in the seat to give coalition partners the Lib Dems a better chance. Nick Clegg's party is in nee...

Ireland: Defence minister Fianna Failexodus ahead of election
Ireland's defence minister has said he will not stand in an upcoming parliamentary election, joining an exodus from the governing Fianna Fail party ahead of an expected record drubbing. Tony Killeen is the third senior minister in as many months to decide not to run in the General Election, expected to be held in late March, in which Fianna Fail's presence in the lower house could be halved, according to Opinion Polls. The party, ADVERTISEMENT which has dominated the republic's politics for mo...

Control orders are to be scrapped. About time too
Control orders are to be scrapped. Good. We don’t yet know what will replace them, and any combination of tagging, travel bans and the like will have to be closely scrutinised. But it now looks very likely that House Arrest will have no further place in our Democracy. The orders brought in by Labour represented the worst of both worlds. They were both an affront to liberty and an obstacle to justice. No suspect sitting at hime, cut off from all outside communication, is likely to provide...

In London, A Case Study In Opinionated Press
This is the first in a two-part series looking at ideology in the media. British newspaper reporter Polly Curtis strides around back corridors of the Houses of Parliament with a steely confidence in her paper's mission: Get the facts. Be fair. And reflect a particular political tradition. "We have the stated aim to be the world's leading liberal voice," says Curtis, the Whitehall (government) correspondent for The Guardian in London. "We are left-leaning, but primarily liberal at heart." In the ...

David Cameron, Top Gun: We were in the dangerzone
Every time I hear Mr Cameron using his favourite cliche about the economic situation he inherited from Labour, I have the same thought. Today, I’m trying to put music to the idea, with an early entry for the daftest political allegory of 2011… Turn the volume up and click here to see what I mean. “We were in the dangerzone,” Mr Cameron has just told a Cameron Direct event in Leicester, assuring his audience that he and his coalition co-pilots have flown the UK economy ...

First 100 days
Ed Miliband this week marked 100 days as Labour leader. The party is riding high in Opinion Polls but critics, including some Labour figures, say he's not making a big enough impact. First impressions are crucial in modern politics, but a look back at the first 100 days of 12 Labour and Tory leaders suggests they are not always a reliable guide to future prospects... Margaret Thatcher The biggest complaint about Margaret Thatcher, 100 days after winning control of the Conservative Party in ...

Alan Johnson's limp attack on the VAT rise carries no conviction
Alan Johnson, the shadow chancellor, really doesn’t have his heart in the job, does he? His attack this morning on the Government’s lifting of VAT from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent was pretty lame. “This is a broken promise - this was the big issue of the General Election campaign,” Johnson said. Really? The big issue of the campaign? I thought Labour’s destruction of the public finances and the consequent record-breaking Deficit was the big issue of the cam...

Vat rise: Ed Miliband does well; George Osborne less so
Some thoughts on today’s jousting over the new Vat rate. Overall, I think Ed Miliband’s having a decent day and George Osborne isn’t. The Labour leader has started the new year with a bit of vim, grabbing some headlines by denouncing the Vat rise. That raises some questions for Labour, but they’re not as important as some people think. Has Labour got a credible alternative plan on tax and spending? No. But does that matter? Right now, not really, no. Assuming* the Coalition goes

Great news for England's schoolchildren: the number of Academies doubles under the Coalition
Congratulations to Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education. This morning we learn that the Coalition has started more Academies than the previous government in spite of being in office for less than a year. Two hundred and three were started under Labour, whereas the total now stands at 407. That means that nearly one in 10 state secondary schools in England are now Academies. By any measure, that’s an incredible achievement. Critics of the Academies programme like Fiona Milla...

Newspaper review
The first editions went to press before the start of the final day's play - but most papers celebrate what the Guardian describes as "England's finest hour". That is, of course, the 3-1 victory in the Ashes series which was sealed in the early hours of the morning. "Heroes" is the single word headline on the back page of the Daily Mail. The paper says the "era of Australian greatness" has come to a "crushing end" while another takes hold - "...

Ed Miliband gets a kicking from the folks at home
The Jeremy Vine Show is not generally thought of as a bear pit. Politicians tend to regard it as rather cuddly - at least, by comparison to the forensic ferocity of the Today programme. So Ed Miliband must have been taken aback by the aggressive line of questioning that poured from the mouths of those usually benign Radio2 listeners who phoned in to interrogate him not only about his policies as Labour leader but about his character. At one point, he was even compelled to insist

Academy school numbers 'double'
More than one-in-10 state secondary schools in England are now academies, outside of local authority control. The government says there are now 407 primary and secondary schools with this state-funded independent status. "Head teachers and teachers - not politicians and Bureaucrats - know best how to run schools," said Education Secretary Michael Gove. The ATL teachers' union claimed the increase in academies would prevent "sensible planning" and would open up schools to...

Expenses cheat MP to be sentenced
Former Labour MP David Chaytor will be sentenced later over £20,000 in fraudulent expenses claims. Chaytor, 61, the former MP for Bury North, last month admitted three charges of false Accounting. He faces a maximum of seven years in jail, although his Guilty Plea will be taken into account by the sentencing judge. He was to have been the first MP to stand trial over his expenses, before he changed his plea. Two other former MPs, one current MP and two members of the House of Lords are due ...

PM: Control orders need replacing
Should control orders be scrapped? Control orders "haven't been a success" and need a "proper replacement", Prime Minister David Cameron has said. The future of the anti-terror measure has been a cause of contention between Tories and Lib Dems, but Mr Cameron said he was "confident" of agreement. The Lib Dems promised in their election manifesto to replace control orders, but some Tory MPs want to keep them. Introduced under the former Labour government in 2005...

Kitchen cabinets in politics: Can stand the heat
SURVEYS often find that even very senior politicians struggle to be recognised by an indifferent public. The advisers who serve them are even more anonymous. Toiling away in Westminster’s back rooms are aides whose influence comes without the burdens of public exposure. And at least for the handful of very senior advisers, that influence is considerable. All three Party Leaders now have a powerful right-hand man. Ed Miliband is a far punchier leader of the Labour Party than he was just a ...

Empty home seizure powers curbed
Councils will have to wait two years before seizing empty homes under plans by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles. Under laws brought in by Labour to tackle housing shortages they can act after six months. But Mr Pickles claims that was "heavy-handed" and infringed Homeowners' rights - and that some councils were seizing homes without just cause. Under his plans, properties will have to be boarded up and a proven magnet for vandals before being taken over. He has also scrapped rul...

Bagehot: A compromising position
The atmosphere of consensus extends to the campaigning. Down in the other half of the constituency, in the tough town of Oldham, the Conservative Candidate Kashif Ali struggled manfully this week to bash his Lib Dem rival without attacking the coalition. Prodded to explain why he, rather than the Lib Dem, should win, he resorted to pleas of more-local-than-thou. Declaring himself “an Oldham lad, born and bred”, he noted gravely that the Lib Dems’ man is from Rochdale (all of fi...

Osborne: VAT hike here to stay
LONDON, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Increasing the tax Britons pay for welfare benefits is more harmful than the hike in the value added tax, the chancellor of the exchequer said Tuesday. George Osborne told the BBC taxing consumption is more progressive than taxing earned income. "I didn't come into politics and become chancellor of the exchequer wanting to increase taxes. I'm actually someone who believes we want to try and lower taxes in this country," he said. "But when you've got a very large Budget de...

Ed Miliband mauled by radio listeners
Ed Miliband has conceded he has more to do as Labour leader after callers to a radio-phone-in told him he is underperforming....

Australian politics: Julia Gillard's rising waters
Wouldn’t Julia love to aquaplane? Australia’S Prime Minister marked the new year by visiting Queensland, a state ravaged by floods. But Julia Gillard had more on her mind than the billions of dollars in damage to mines, farms and cities in the boom state. Seven months after she unseated Kevin Rudd as leader of the ruling Labor Party, Ms Gillard starts 2011 struggling to establish her own leadership. August’s federal election left Ms Gillard dependent on support from Greens and...

Dealing with suspected terrorists: Last orders?
When the coalition was being formed, the two parties made much of their common commitment “to reverse the substantial erosion of Civil Liberties under the Labour government”. High on the list were counter-terrorism laws, notably the control orders introduced in 2005 to restrict the liberty of Terrorist suspects who could be neither prosecuted nor deported. The other big target was the previous government’s extension of the time that suspects could be held without charge. In Jul...

PM looking at fuel tax changes
David Cameron says he is looking at a way to "share the risk" of higher fuel prices between government and drivers. The Conservatives have previously looked at the possibility of cutting fuel duty when Oil Prices rise and increasing it when prices fall. The PM said he was "working with the Treasury" on the idea and said rising prices had been "painful" for drivers. Fuel prices have topped £1.30 a litre for unleaded and £1.35 a litre for diesel. Mr Cameron...

Manchester United 2 Stoke City 1: match report
Read a full match report of the Premier League game between Manchester United and Stoke City at Old Trafford on Tuesday Jan 4 2011....

United extend EPL lead after Stoke victory
Manchester United went three points clear at the top of the English Premier League table after a 2-1 win over Stoke on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Fulham climbed out of the relegation zone with a 3-0 win at home to West Bromwich Albion while Birmingham also exited the bottom three following a 2-1 victory away to Blackpool. Javier Hernandez, who scored United's winner in a 2-1 win away to West Brom last time out, broke the deadlock in the 27th minute at Old Trafford with a stylish flick behind his legs f...

Redknapp in dark over Beckham bid
Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp admitted after Wednesday's 2-1 loss to Everton at Goodison Park that he is in the dark over his side's bid to sign David Beckham. Reports on Wednesday suggested that the former England captain had signed for Spurs on a short-term loan from MLS side LA Galaxy, but that is not the case. Redknapp's team could have done with Beckham's delivery on Merseyside as goals from Louis Saha and Seamus Coleman helped Everton put a dent in Tottenham's bid to be considered genui...