Sedgemore defection dominates Tuesday
Tuesday’s election agenda was dominated by the defection from Labour to the Liberal Democrats of retiring veteran MP Brian Sedgemore.
A Labour MP for 27 years, Mr Sedgemore most recently represented Hackney South and Shoreditch, and has long been on the left of the party.
Writing in the Independent newspaper, he accused Tony Blair of “stomach-turning lies” over the war in Iraq, and urging disillusioned Labour voters to give the Government “a bloody nose”.
Mr Sedgemore later appeared at the Liberal Democrats’ morning press conference, alongside leader Charles Kennedy. Mr Sedgemore declared: “It is against this background I decided I could no longer support the Labour Party and would join the Liberal Democrats” (full story).
Mr Kennedy, meanwhile, set out how Liberal Democrat policies would make Britain fairer (full story).
Labour focused on education at its morning press conference, where Ruth Kelly argued that a passion for education is the reason why many Labour figures – including herself – entered politics.
Predictably, however, questions from the audience focused on the defection. Mr Blair brushed it off, declaring: “that’s up to him.”
Speaking later in the day at a school in Lambeth, the Prime Minister argued: “We will never succeed if we believe that quality education is the prerogative of the few” (full story).
The Conservatives stressed their “cleaner hospitals” message again today. Leader Michael Howard promised £10 million for nasal swab technology to help combat hospital superbug MRSA (full story).
Mr Howard then visited the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, and attended a forum discussion on health issues in Birmingham at the National Motorcycle Museum.
In Hull, police arrested Greenpeace protesters who had climbed onto the roof of Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott’s house, in order to attempt to install solar panels.
Mr Prescott stated in response to the incident: “It’s now clearly a publicity stunt and it terrorised my wife in the early hours in the morning to see all those men scrambling over the building” < a href=”/election-2005/greenpeace-protestors-scale-prescotts-roof-$8362092.htm”>(full story).
Elsewhere, the SNP and Plaid Cymru joined forces to pledge to resurrect attempts to impeach Tony Blair in the next session of Parliament, claiming that he lied to the House of Commons in the run up to the war in Iraq (full story).
