Martin Kettle's Blog, page 60

NHS England figures show waiting time performance getting worse - Politics live

Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen

11.40am GMT

Gerard Coyne does not seem to have generate huge media interest in his manifesto launch.

In Birmingham for launch of Gerard Coyne manifesto for Unite general-sec, but I'm almost only reporter here pic.twitter.com/cID0Q02S5c

Our current leader spends too much of his time – and your money – playing at Westminster politics. I will never try to be the puppet master of the Labour Party. The most important job is standing up for you the members, wherever you live and work in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland or Gibraltar.

Your union takes more than £150m of subscription money from members every year. I do not believe there is enough openness about how your money is spent, so I will introduce proper transparency to Unite’s finances. At the moment members of the union cannot see what their money is being spent on. If elected as general secretary I will set up a new value for money and audit committee, directly elected from the lay membership, to ensure you get the best value for your subscriptions.

11.14am GMT

The Scottish government has urged the UK government not to implement section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act, the provision that would mean newspapers who do not sign up to a government-approved regulator having to pay the costs of people who sue them for libel even if the newspapers win. In a statement Fiona Hyslop, the Scottish culture secretary, said:

We are committed to ensuring the practices which led to the Leveson Inquiry in the first place do not happen again and we believe that all individuals should have the ability to seek redress when they feel they have been the victim of press malpractice.

However, the context of press regulation in Scotland is quite distinct from that in England and Wales and section 40 of the crime and courts act does not apply under Scots law. We have not introduced statutory measures to incentivise participation in the regulatory system, as has happened in Westminster, and I can confirm we have no plans to do so.

10.46am GMT

Here is the NHS England bulletin out today (pdf) with the performance statistics for November 2016.

And here are some of the key points.

The long-term trend is one of greater volumes of both urgent and emergency care and elective activity, with A&E attendances up 4.5% [the 12 months to November compared with the previous 12-month period], emergency admissions up 3.5%, diagnostic tests up 4.8% and consultant-led treatment up 4.4%.

10.01am GMT

The latest figures from NHS England show that only 88.4% of A&E patients in November were dealt with within four hours, Sky News reports. The target is 95%.

I will post more on this when I have looked in detail at the figures.

9.44am GMT

A Democratic Unionist minister has reversed his controversial decision to cut an Irish language initiative in the midst of Stormont’s eco-boiler scandal, the Press Association reports.

Communities minister Paul Givan’s decision to cut a £50,000 bursary to pay for children to visit gaelic speaking communities - the Gaeltacht - infuriated Sinn Fein and has been seen as a key factor in the republican party’s decision to pull the plug on the power-sharing institutions.

In a tweet on Thursday morning, Givan said: “My decision on the Liofa Bursary Scheme was not a political decision. I have now identified the necessary funding to advance this scheme.”

My decision on the Líofa Bursary Scheme was not a political decision. I have now identified the necessary funding to advance this scheme.

The shock development has been interpreted by some as a DUP olive branch to Sinn Fein as devolution teeters on the brink.

While the looming collapse of the ruling executive was triggered by the renewable heat incentive (RHI) affair - a green heating scandal that has left Stormont with a £490m bill - other disputes between the two main parties have been reignited by the furore.

9.34am GMT

Professor Anthony King, one of the undisputed giants of postwar British political science and a familiar face in the BBC’s live coverage of general election night results, has died aged 82.

Born in Canada, and arriving in Britain as a Rhodes scholar in the 1950s, King taught at the school of government at the University of Essex for half a century and never officially retired. After early collaborations on studies of the 1964 and 1966 general elections with David Butler, King replaced Butler as a fixture in BBC television’s coverage of UK general elections from 1983 to 2005.

9.28am GMT

Gerard Coyne has been tweeting about his manifesto launch.

Today, I'm launching my manifesto: I'll clean up Unite, freeze subscriptions & concentrate on union issues, not Westminster politics. pic.twitter.com/OzOFAAiigI

9.20am GMT

Union leadership elections tend to receive little or no attention in the mainstream press but this year’s Unite contest is different. Len McCluskey, the leftwing former docker, was first elected Unite general secretary in 2010 and he was re-elected comfortably in 2013. He is up for re-election again but this time he is facing a more serious challenge, from Gerard Coyne, Unite’s West Midlands regional secretary, who is launching his campaign manifesto this morning.

Unite is one of Britain two 1m-plus member super unions (the other is Unison) and it plays an important role in the British workplace. But Unite is also a very powerful player in Labour party politics, bankrolling the party, filling key seats on the national executive committee and exerting influence over candidate selection, and this leadership contest has become, at least in party, a proxy battle about Jeremy Corbyn. McCluskey is one of Corbyn’s strongest supporters. Coyne is arguing that McCluskey has been wrong to spend so much time dabbling in Labour’s internal politics, but he himself is seen as the candidate of the anti-Corbynites and a Coyne victory would be a significant defeat for the Corbyn project.

One of my main criticisms of Unite’s leadership is that with these huge challenges in front of him, Len McCluskey prefers to spend his time in office using the union’s money and resources to intervene in the running of the Labour Party.

I have no doubt that Unite members, and the workers Unite ought to be representing, would be better off under a Labour government, but it is not up to the General Secretary of Unite to act as Labour’s puppet master.

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For Theresa May, immigration matters more than the economy | Martin Kettle

Her Brexit speech will go against Tory instincts and say that hardship is a price worth paying for taking control of our borders

Exceptionally for a modern political leader, Theresa May does not employ a designated speechwriter. This singular fact about May’s Downing Street says many things about the way this prime minister works. The contrast with her recent predecessors is deliberate, and the explanation is obvious: May doesn’t employ a speechwriter because she doesn’t make many speeches.

Related: Theresa May plans major speech to defuse Brexit criticism

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If you think a progressive alliance will save us, better think again | Martin Kettle

The idea that parties will work together to oppose the Tories is seductive, but there are too many hurdles to prevent it actually happening

Labour has held the Cumbrian parliamentary seat of Copeland continuously for more than 80 years. Yet the Conservatives are odds-on with the bookies to win the byelection that is due there in early 2017 following Jamie Reed’s resignation. The odds reflect a wider scepticism at Westminster about Labour, as well as a feeling that a Tory win may bring on an early general election.

There are, though, good reasons to be doubtful about almost every aspect of this. True, the Labour majority in Copeland in 2015 of less than 3,000 looks vulnerable at a time when the national polls give the Tories double-digit leads and the Labour national share is as low as 25%.

Related: Corbyn critic quits as Labour MP, triggering tight byelection race

Related: Who will win the Copeland byelection?

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Were you paying attention? Classical music in 2016 – quiz

How many of the classical world’s comings and goings, openings and closings, bouquets and brickbats do you remember from the past 12 months? Try our quiz

Which one of these pianistic partners did Martha Argerich not play duets with in London this year?

Daniel Barenboim

Stephen Kovacevich

Alberto Portugheis

Which mezzo-soprano lost her head as Holofernes in a staggering concert performance of Vivaldi's Juditha Triumphans at the Barbican?

Ann Hallenberg

Magdalena Kozena

Delphine Galou

‘A civilisation that conserves is one that will decay’ said which composer, whose life and music nonetheless were celebrated throughout the year?

Pierre Boulez

John Cage

Peter Maxwell Davies

Which operatic anti-hero came to an unfortunate end in a disused sewer in Vienna in English Touring Opera’s new production?

Don Giovanni

Rigoletto

Harry Lime

Which one of these conductors pulled out of an engagement to conduct in the Bayreuth Festival this year in as yet unexplained circumstances?

Christian Thielemann

Andris Nelsons

Kirill Petrenko

Which of these UK opera companies did not welcome a new music director or artistic director (or both) this year?

Royal Opera House

Glyndebourne

English National Opera

Whose music was performed in a Peckham car park as one of this year’s Proms?

David Bowie

Benedict Mason

Steve Reich

Thirty-year-old Latvian Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla is the newly appointed chief conductor of which British orchestra?

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

London Symphony Orchestra

Philharmonia Orchestra

Whose opera debut, Pleasure, was set in the toilets of a gay nightclub?

Colin Matthews

Mark Simpson

Anna Meredith

Soprano Sarah Tynan sang Britten’s Les Illuminations at the Aldeburgh festival. Who did she perform alongside?

A group of acrobats, clowns and aerialists

An elephant and a camel

A virtual reality projection of Britten accompanying her on the piano

In May, Sheku Kanneh-Mason won the BBC Young Musician competition. Which cello concerto did the 17-year-old perform to take the title?

Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor

Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No 1 in E flat major

Witold Lutosławski's Cello Concerto

Sofia Coppola directed an opera - her first - at Rome's Teatro dell'Opera. Which one?

Verdi's La Traviata

Wagner's Tristan und Isolde

Mark-Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole

Who threatened strike action at English National Opera?

The board

The stagehands

The chorus

Why was Philip Glass's music featured at this year's Glastonbury festival?

There was an open-air screening of Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi with Glass's soundtrack

English National Opera took the opening act of Akhnaten to the Pyramid stage for a Sunday early afternoon performance

Charles Hazlewood and his Army of Generals performed Glass's Heroes Symphony, inspired by David Bowie's 1977 album.

This year's Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at Kings College Chapel features - as it does every year - a specially commissioned carol. By who?

Kanye West

Michael Berkeley

Judith Weir

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The world’s powers have to resolve their remnants of empire | Martin Kettle

The territories controlled by Britain, France, Russia and the US, among others, still have the potential to spark global crises. We need an islands and enclaves treaty

In 1904, George Bernard Shaw wrote a play about Ireland. He called it John Bull’s Other Island. With a memorable title like that, Shaw – if he were alive today – could have got himself signed up for a whole BBC series. Even in 2016, John Bull still has plenty of other islands and enclaves scattered about the world. And, as a presenter, Shaw prancing about the world in his tweed plus-fours would leave even Dan Snow or Lucy Worsley standing.

Related: The attacks in France show that its colonial past endures | Natalie Nougayrède

Related: Uncovering the brutal truth about the British empire | Marc Parry

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John Tomlinson/Christopher Glynn review - direct and dramatic Schubert and thrilling Wagner

Wigmore Hall, London
The British bass’s recital of Schubert’s Schwanengesang was absorbing and - at its best - formidable and questing.

Age does not wither Sir John Tomlinson. In fact it sometimes seems to make the British bass, who is beginning to resemble Brahms in old age, a more questing artist than ever.

On the opera stage, with an orchestra to compete with, the years have begun to show in the huge voice. Yet here, pacing around the Wigmore platform to vary the dramatic effect, with Christopher Glynn’s well-judged piano playing his only partner, Tomlinson sang Jeremy Sams’s new English translation of Schubert’s posthumously packaged Swansong collection (Schwanengesang) with remarkably few signs of vocal strain at all.

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Labour dealt with immigration in 1965 – and it can do so again | Martin Kettle

With terrible ratings on this key issue, the party must start to engage voters – as it did under Harold Wilson, when it faced similar problems with press and public

The Labour party is not in charge of Brexit, but it has nevertheless impaled itself on a dilemma about post-Brexit immigration. It can’t escape because it doesn’t know what to say. The uncertainty is understandable – because Brexit has sharpened the choices about migration policy – and at the same time bizarre, because the issue ought not to be causing the kind of trouble it undoubtedly is.

On one side of the argument, Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell obstinately make a virtue of refusing to talk about immigration controls. They prefer to focus on labour market regulation. “It is not an objective to reduce immigration,” a Corbyn spokesman famously said this autumn. These are “fictitious debates”, McDonnell said this week.

Related: Jeremy Corbyn may be unassailable, but he is not leading Labour | Rafael Behr

Related: A year of Brexit – Politics Weekly podcast live

Related: Glenda Jackson on her scary reputation: ‘I’ve never understood the fear thing’

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Martha Argerich/Alberto Portugheis review – one listens instinctively to Argerich

Wigmore Hall, London
Argerich’s uneasiness playing solo meant a programme of works for four hands that, due to her own exceptional skill and formidable technique, was unevenly balanced

Every appearance by Martha Argerich is inescapably an event. She is such an exceptional pianist by any standard, and her visits anywhere were for many years such rarities that she long ago acquired a legendary status. But there is a problem.

The problem with Argerich’s appearances is not, as it once was, whether she would actually turn up. These days, she plays in the UK a lot – steely Liszt at this summer’s Proms, the Schumann concerto a few weeks later, and this Wigmore Hall concert, only her third appearance at the venue in 40 years. Argerich is back in January too, playing Prokofiev. It’s a bumper period for her legions of admirers.

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In these days of despair for the left, there are still reasons for hope | Martin Kettle

As the writer Zadie Smith makes clear, the electoral bodyblows of 2016 could prove to be moments of inspiration

Receiving a literary prize in Berlin two days after Donald Trump’s election, Zadie Smith reflected ruefully that it is hard to find happiness in the face of immense political setbacks. “These are the darkest political times I have ever known,” Smith observed in her acceptance speech – republished this month in the New York Review of Books. As “President Trump rises in the west, a united Europe drops below the horizon”.

Related: Does the left have a future? | John Harris

The history of dashed hopes is as long as human history itself. Our era has no monopoly of despair

Related: The story of the Russian revolution: from the archive, 16 March 1917

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What's the significance of Wednesday's article 50 vote? Our panel responds | Martin Kettle, Anne Perkins and Giles Fraser

MPs have backed a Brexit plan to trigger article 50 by end of March with a majority of 373. Our writers give their opinions on Wednesday night’s vote

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