Following allegations earlier this year that Coulson encouraged phone-hacking during his time at the News of the World, David Cameron announced his belief that everyone should have a second chance.

He even went close to suggesting that Coulson’s resignation from the NotW was a moral one, saying:

“It’s wrong for newspapers to breach people’s privacy with no justification. That is why Andy Coulson resigned as editor of the News of the World two-and-a-half years ago.”

The Press Commission, when investigating the original allegations, complained that

“Throughout we have repeatedly encountered an unwillingness to provide the detailed information that we sought, claims of ignorance or lack of recall, and deliberate obfuscation.”

This time, however, the claims are far more substantial than before, and the prime minister is under pressure to reconsider his choice of Director of Communications and Planning. Tom Watson, the Labour MP, has written to No 10 demanding a full judicial inquiry.

As the New York Times revealed in a 6,000-word report, the previously unproven allegations have been given new life. According to the NYT:

“A dozen former reporters said in interviews that hacking was pervasive at News of the World.”

Coulson is alleged by one source to have ‘actively encouraged’ phone-tapping. This is a serious challenge to Coulson’s claim to a Commons select committee earlier this year that “I have never had any involvement in it at all.”

Left Foot Forward has previously revealed Tory attempts to whitewash Coulson’s record, with Liam Fox wrongly claiming that he was not involved in the succesful tribunal claim of sportswriter Matt Driscoll, who won £800,000 from the paper on the basis of unfair dismissal. Cameron’s media adviser is unlikely to be Nick Clegg’s favourite member of the No 10 staff, as he appears to have been responsible for a smear campaign against the Lib Dem leader in the run up to the election.

Predictably, the NYT’s investigation has been ignored thus far by Rupert Murdoch’s News International media empire: The Sun and The Times websites are yet to cover the story. Even the Washington Post – the NYT’s main rival in America – has ignored the allegations. But, strangely, the BBC has also failed to report them. Beyond the indictment of Coulson, the report also alleged that the Metropolitan Police had colluded with News International to cover up evidence of phone hacking.

As Will Straw reported in June, Coulson continues to use his control over the press to his personal advantage, preventing his £475,000 salary from appearing in a widely-reported list of ‘top civil service fat cats’. It’s unlikely to work this time.

Although Parliament’s draft report has not been voted on, it is likely to be approved with a large majority.

It would establish common EU standards for the prosecution of traffickers and greater protection for victims, meaning that, for example, women trafficked for the sex trade could not be charged with holding false immigration papers given them by traffickers.

The directive also includes the protection of children from sexual abuse, exploitation and child pornography. The need for EU action is, in part, because many victims are trafficked through Europe. It would also allow suspects to be prosecuted for offences in other member states.

European treaties give the government the option to opt-in or out, but this right was not agreed for directives such as this. On August 4, the Home Office told the BBC that the directive offered no benefits to Britain, hence the decision to opt-out. In another instance, the Home Office spokesperson told the media:

“Human trafficking is a brutal form of organised crime, and combating it is a key priority for the government. The UK already complies with most of what is required by the draft EU directive.”

Working with our neighbouring member states to combat human trafficking was at the heart of a conference held by Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in Sheffield in 2005; Crown Prosecutor Mr Rankin said:

“At meetings such as these with our partners in the criminal justice systems across Europe, we discuss how we can work together to prevent and combat human trafficking through international co-operation, sharing best practice and improving the effectiveness of prosecutions.”

Britain’s record in tackling and convicting human traffickers has been criticised by grouns including Amnesty International, who stated in June that the UK’s new anti-trafficking measures were “not fit for purpose”. They added that the government was “breaching its obligations under the European Convention against Trafficking”.

Klara Skrivankova of Anti-Slavery International said:

“Without international co-operation, the government will lose the battle with the traffickers. By choosing not to opt in to the directive, the government is failing in its efforts to combat this transnational crime.”

New figures also show a failure to increase convictions of criminal gangs who have forced an estimated 2,600 foreign women into prostitution in brothels in England and Wales.

Only five people were convicted of human trafficking for sexual exploitation in the first six months of this year, according to the UK Human Trafficking Centre. This is compared with 33 and 34 in the previous two 12-month periods. A further nine were convicted of other offences, having been arrested on suspicion of trafficking.

Former Europe Minister, Denis MacShane has written to Nick Clegg to urge the ex-European Commission official that:

“Women in particular will be alarmed to learn that the Liberal Democrats are willing to support these efforts to weaken the directive. It is the wrong signal to send to the pimps and traffickers.

“I hope you can persuade the prime minister to drop his opt-out policy on this welcome effort to combat sex-slave trafficking.”

I don’t remember the last time Labour members were faced with such an array of ballot papers as the ones that will hit doormats this week. The big one is the Leadership of course. In London, I will be casting my vote for Ken to be our Mayoral candidate. We also have NEC elections and a couple of other key committees up too.

The Leadership rightly gets all the attention, but we need to make sure people cast their vote for the position of Party Treasurer too.

The next Treasurer will have a key role on the NEC. They will be vital to pushing the party nationally to think comprehensively about the direction of the party – politically and organisationally – and then put in place the resources to make it all tick.

Despite the valiant efforts of many staff, our party has been allowed to wither in the last 15 years or so. Just as Howard Dean’s 50 State strategy laid the groundwork for the Democratic victory two years ago, this election is crucial to turn that around.

We need someone with the experience and the passion to make it work – that’s why I will be voting for Diana Holland to be the Party’s Treasurer.

Her commitment to rebuilding Labour is second to none. Diana’s pitch is to think afresh about how we utilise the skills and resources of the whole Labour Movement.

The solution for the bind that the party finds itself in lies both with our members and our supporters currently outside of the party. Building the party as a movement of labour is a task that requires a lot of hard graft – widening our base is a crucial task. For the role of Treasurer that means deepening the donor pool.

Raising £1million from 40,000 people in £25 increments is harder than getting one rich fella to write a cheque, but we have to do it. And the advantage of that is that we don’t just get the resources we need, we also get 40,000 new people financially and politically invested in what we do. A Party funded by the movement is something more powerful than the sum of the donations.

I have known Diana for years, as a stalwart Labour campaigner, and as a solid Trade Unionist. Her passion for this post lies in making the party a more effective campaigning operation, and she would do that by bringing new ways of thinking to bear. She is ready to tackle the tough issues we face, and play a part in getting the party ready to take on the Tories and the Lib Dems in every area of the country when the Coalition faces the voters’ judgement in the local elections around the corner in 2011.

Members will come first every time with Diana, and I will be voting for her. I hope you will too.

Ms Abbott discussed the differences between the Big Society and Labour’s communitarian and cooperative traditions and her experience of the community she lives in and represents in Parliament.

She was quick to distance the future of the Party from New Labour, having criticised Tony Blair yesterday for the timing of the release of his memoirs; she said:

“Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ is probably doomed to join Tony Blair’s ‘Third Way’ in the graveyard of spurious pseudo-philosophical ideas… to mask their underlying policies.”

Society’s woes cannot be solved by throwing money at them or through the state alone, she said, explaining the mutual responsibility of individuals as well as the state, discussing her experience of growing up in a family and community of immigrants and the problems that a lack of male role models for young men can cause.

She said:

“The state has been able to improve infrastructure, preside over a stratospheric rise in property prices and has brought down unemployment in inner city areas all over the country. Fixing family structures and community relationships has proved more challenging.”

Diane’s presence in the leadership debate throughout the competition has been minimal, in part because of the ‘daily soap opera’ coverage of the Miliband brothers. Throughout, she has been quoted as calling her fellow contestants “geeks in suits” and commenting on money ruling the election. The Guardian recently claimed that Diane had said that David Miliband’s large number of staff (apparently paid for with “old Blairite money”) has outweighed her “two-and-a-half volunteers” and that:

“You do get very, very tired when you are facing those sort of odds….there is no doubt that money is making a huge difference in the election.”

The meeting is expected to see developed countries elaborate on their exact plans for raising the funding targets agreed in Denmark: producing a fund of $30 billion over the next three years, rising to $100 billion per year by 2020, to help poor countries adapt to climate change.

However, climate change activists remain despondent at the chances of the world’s nations co-operating seriously over the funding.

There is concern over the misleading use of targets, with old money being dressed up as new. Japan, for instance, has pledged $15 billion by 2012. But most of this comes from a previous commitment, agreed in 2008.

Following a week-long meeting in Bonn, Germany, this August, US deputy special climate envoy Jonathan Pershing voiced his concern that negotiations over climate change were stalling.

“I came to Bonn hopeful of a deal in Cancun, but at this point I am very concerned as I have seen some countries walking back from progress made in Copenhagen.”

In theory, it should not be hard to raise the funds. The British economist Nicholas Stern told delegates at Bonn that the working group set up to investigate how the $100bn a year could be raised was making good progress. The problems lie in diplomacy. Developing countries remain suspicious “that rich nations have big mouths, deep pockets and short arms”.

Green campaigners, however, are still critical of the Copenhagen agreements. lena Gerebizza, of Campagna per la Riforma della Banca Mondiale, recently announced that

“The $100 billion figure that many developed countries are discussing is not science-based and has no standing in the international negotiations.”

And although Gordon Shepherd, head of WWF’s Global Climate Initiative, remains hopeful that the Geneva Conference could be “highly influential if they get it right,” the WWF website is notably more circumspect:

“There is little transparency on the delivery of the promised short term funding that has been made available already, and there has been little visible progress towards a framework for delivery on longer term funding commitments.”

Raman Mehta, of ActionAid India, was firm in his insistence that climate change funding to developing countries must not be shackled with conditionality:

“A new global climate fund should be established under the authority of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change with equitable and balanced representation, effective participation of affected communities in all decision-making, direct access to funding by developing countries, and no economic or other policy conditionality.”

“The World Bank and other existing international financial institutions must not have any role in governing, managing, or directing the design of the fund.”

Unfortunately for Mehta, it appears that the World Bank, though not officially invited to Copenhagen, will be attempting to exert influence there.

In an article in this week’s New Statesman, published today, Ms Lucas writes:

Tribalists and pluralists have fundamentally different approaches to conceiving power and doing politics, and very different degrees of openness to other political beliefs and traditions.

The tragedy of Labour’s leadership contest is that not one of the candidates – judging by their positions on political reform – is a true pluralist. Not one of them supports a proportional system of voting.

This means that, in the referendum planned for May 2011, we will be offered the “choice” between two flavours of vanilla – first-past-the-post or the Alternative Vote. Real reform is not on the agenda…

As the Labour leadership battle narrows in favour of the Miliband brothers, I challenge them, even at this late stage, to support my amendment, to demonstrate their commitment to both pluralism and democracy.

She says the campaign has been lacking a “credible” [non-Diane] candidate who will prioritise “urgent and ambitious action on global climate change”; who is “committed to tackling inequality”; who “doesn’t rely on conventional political tools and compromises to reach power”; who would “contribute to the diversity of the line-up”; and “who is genuinely committed to pluralism”.

She concludes:

Until Labour moves beyond tribalism, beyond wishing the “extinction” of other political traditions, it remains destined to repeat the mistakes of the past.

At recent Compass conferences, I have discussed the need for a more progressive, pluralist politics, based not on Blair’s suffocating “big tent”, but on a campsite of different parties and movements, sharing common values but maintaining their own identities.

Labour could play an important part in that progressive alliance, but only if it can leave behind its arrogant belief in its own exclusive role. Is there no candidate willing to lead the party in that direction?

• Read Caroline’s article in full here.

Isreali prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said there was a real chance for a “secure and durable” peace, “peace that will end the conflict with the Palestinians once and for all, that will last generations”; President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas said: “We do not want any blood to be shed, one drop of blood, on the part of the Israelis or the Palestinians… We want them to live as neighbors and partners forever. Let us sign an agreement, a final agreement, for peace and put an end to a very long period of struggle forever.”

President Obama said:

“We are but five men. Our dinner this evening will be a small gathering around a single table. Yet when we come together we will not be alone. We will be joined by the generations of those who have gone before and those who will follow.

“Do we have the wisdom and the courage to walk the path of peace?”

Adding:

“The purpose of the talks is clear. These will be direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. These negotiations are intended to resolve all final status issues.

“The goal is a settlement negotiated between the parties that ends the occupation which began in 1967, and results in the emergence of an independent democratic and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with a Jewish state of Israel and its other neighbours

“We are under no illusions. Passions run deep. Each side has legitimate and enduring interests. Years of mistrust will not disappear overnight…

“After all, there’s a reason that the two state solution has eluded previous generations. This is extraordinarily complex and extraordinarily difficult. But we know that the status quo is unsustainable.”

However, fears persisit that peace may remain elusive, with the BBC’s Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen explaining:

“President Obama has started what will be an intensive diplomatic push. He will have been pleased by what seemed to be a warm handshake between the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Even so, Mr Abbas is still insisting that Israel must stop building homes for Jews in the occupied Palestinian territories. Mr Abbas has threatened to walk out of the talks on the settlement issue. It’s not clear where the compromise will come from. Warm words alone won’t do it – but perhaps Mr Netanyahu’s were a start.

“There might not be room for many more failures. The conflict is changing. A religious war is now being grafted on what used to be fundamentally a competition for territory between two national movements.

“You can make deals with nationalists. It’s much harder with people who believe they’re doing God’s work.”

And in The Independent, Rupert Cornwell writes:

“The roll-call of place names associated with such efforts since the end of the first Gulf War in 1991 is long: Madrid, Oslo, Wye, Sharm el-Sheikh, Camp David, Taba and most recently Annapolis. One thing, though, they have in common: failure. And so to Washington, September 2010.

“Just 24 hours after formally winding up the US combat mission in Iraq, Mr Obama yesterday began two days of intensive summitry with separate White House meetings: first with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, then with the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas…

“But Mr Obama’s determination is a two-edged sword. Yes, he is acting much earlier in his presidency than his two predecessors but that carries added risks of its own. Already, this president has clashed more publicly with an Israeli prime minister than any of his predecessors.

“But Mr Obama faces what could be a tricky re-election bid in 2012, in which he will not want to have added the powerful American Israel lobby to the list of his opponents…”

There was little speculation as to what would be said – perhaps because there wasn’t much to take us by surprise. There was no deal done – the most we heard was that Mr Blair would kindly be donating all profits to the Royal British Legion.

It was unlike when Peter Mandleson’s book ‘The Third Man’ was published two months, when a deal was done to give The Times the rights to his book, the paper publishing a series of videos of the ‘Dark Lord’ reading extracts in a dimly lit room (said to be worth in the region of £350,000).

Instead, the press, the 24-hour television news stations and radio were forced to wait until 23:30 last night before they could start buzzing at every new, occasionally poorly written snippet released. Political Scrapbook encompassed the mood of the morning in its series of front page headlines.

On Iraq

Mehdi Hasan over at the New Statesman published an early morning critique of Blair’s journey in Iraq. At an equally early hour he told Twitter:

“Just been reading Blair’s chapter on Iraq, online. He is still Bliar. The man tells barefaced porkies like no one else”

A conservative approach

Mark Hoban, Treasury minister, claimed that Blair backs Conservative economic policy. Blair suggests that the Labour government (page 680):

“should have taken a New Labour way out of the economic crisis: kept direct taxes competitive, had a gradual rise in VAT and other indirect taxes to close the deficit, and used the crisis to push further and faster on reform.”

Polly Toynbee asks:

“was Tony Blair always really a closet conservative, or did he convert late in life?”

Also in The Guardian, Michael White takes a more sympathetic approach – considering the idea of Tony the Tory as “a bit glib”.

On Twitter, the more personal parts of Tony’s memoirs caused a stir. Originally tweeted by Fraser Nelson, the Spectator’s Coffee House post appeared put many people off their lunch.

The outer limit

Unfortunately – and rather expectantly – Tony’s comments on Gordon outweighed anything nice he had to say.  At least they did in the reporting. Most attention today has been paid what he had to say on the ‘madenning’ Gordon Brown, who ‘drove him to drink‘ whilst prime minister.

Andy McSmith wrote on the Independent website that the memoir is:

“Less like a “description of a journey” and more like a long memo to Mr Blair’s staff, setting out their boss’s decisions and reasoning.”

• Live blogging on Tony Blair’s book and interview with Andrew Marr, which is broadcast tonight on BBC1 at 7pm, is available at the Guardian with Andrew Sparrow.

The Road Safety Analysis group found children from the poorest wards in Britain are disproportionately more prone to being the victims of road traffic accidents. They concluded that the riskiest area in the UK is Preston, where one child in every 206 is likely to be involved in a road collision annually.

Kensington and Chelsea is the safest place in the UK, with a risk of only one in 1,158. The national average is one in 427 children is injured or killed in a road accident each year.

Cuts announced by the coalition government to the Road Safety budget – amounting to £38 billion – will only exacerbate the situation and increase the danger on roads and highways in Britain’s poorest neighborhoods. Added to this, the government has also ceased central funding for speed cameras, with the result that councils up and down the country are being forced to majorly scale back or even scrap their speed enforcement measures.

There are 6,000 speed cameras in the UK. The financial sustainability of the system is now at serious risk. This year’s road safety budget is being cut by a shocking 40 per cent. This is made up of a 27 per cent cut to the revenue grant (with £20.6m being taken off a promised £76.7 million) and a 100  per cent cut to the capital grant (£17.2m). Both grants fund the maintenance and improvement of the speed cameras network.

These cuts are a reckless move by the coalition government, which undermines their claims to be following a progressive agenda. All the evidence points to the effectiveness of speed cameras in cutting road safety deaths, with Richard Allsop, professor of transport studies at University College London, stating there have been “substantial reductions” in casualties in the first five years of the roll-out of cameras:

“There is a bit of statistical debate about exactly how many, but the picture of a substantial reduction is quite undisputed and it’s consistent with measured reductions in speed at camera sites.”

Abolishing speed cameras (which in effect the government is doing) will impact upon all parts of Britain, but particularly for those in deprived and disadvantaged areas. Children in poorer areas tend to reside in urban conurbations, and will walk and cycle more often than their affluent peers. Their safety cannot be jeopardised, and society must be firm in opposition to what is one of the coalition government’s most socially regressive actions to date.

To further dismay, it is widely believed that Philip Hammond is set to reject an independent and expert review into reclassifying the permitted drink-driving limit. The review, led by Sir Peter North, proposed as one of its key recommendations that the drink-drive limit be reduced from 80mg per 100ml of blood to 50mg. This is the same limit that applies in France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Spain.

Other measures included introducing random breath-testing of drivers, taking away the right to have a second breath test conducted at a police station, reducing the limit to 20mg for new drivers, and bringing in a new offence of driving with an illegal substance in the bloodstream that impairs the ability to drive. Collectively, these measures could save as many as 300 lives per year.

The transport secretary has also dismissed the idea of a blanket reduction of the speed limit in built-up areas to 20mph. This is a key measure advocated by Brake, the road safety campaign, to reduce the risk for children who live in urbanised and built-up areas. At the very least, these measures should be debated in parliament.

Road safety has markedly improved in recent years. However, the current government’s early decisions on the issue are set to reverse that trend. The stakes are high, and lives are at risk. Their actions should be vigorously opposed by anyone who aspires to improve road safety, cut deaths, and safeguard children, especially the poorest, from the dangers of Britain’s concrete arteries.

Mr Livingstone, who is campaigning to be chosen as Labour’s candidate in the London Mayoral election, today launched the ‘Londoners can’t afford the cuts’ research document – showing the impact of the cuts on Londoners.

These include:

• Cuts to housing benefit allowance could leave up to 425,000 people at risk of losing their homes;

• One hundred thousand children are to miss out on free school meals;

• Cuts of 455 police officers and no guarantee of the future of 630 Neighbourhood Police teams;

• A loss of £1.2bn to local government budgets, among other universal and means-tested benefits.

On launching his campaign, he said:

“Wherever I go in London people tell me how much damage the cuts would do to their lives and the city we live in. That’s why I am launching this campaign today to stand up for Londoners and to defend the investment that delivers vital public services from Sure Start centres to Safer Neighbourhood Police Teams.

“It is vital that Labour’s candidate for Mayor sets out a progressive alternative to the cuts and does not accept the Tories agenda. We need a candidate who can stand up to Boris Johnson and David Cameron.”

Mr Livingstone’s rival for the Labour nomination Oona King, meanwhile, has also joined the debate on the impact of the Coalition’s cuts to London. On her website, she writes:

“We must of course fight the Government’s cuts, protect frontline services and London’s vulnerable, but we also have to focus relentlessly on the future and implementing the changes needed in London to make it a world-beating city for the people who live here, for businesses and those who travel and look to London as a beacon in the world.”

Boris Johnson, however, hit back at recent criticism last week by citing the Government’s decision to go ahead with the £16 billion Crossrail project as proof he was standing up for Londoners; as the Financial Times reports:

The Department for Transport (DfT) has made a high priority of Crossrail because of its economic benefits, the fact that some spending has already taken place – creating stations at Canary Wharf and Tottenham Court Road – and that there is a large degree of private finance in place for the project.

Of the total £15.9bn funding package agreed in 2007, the DfT is only providing £5.5bn with the rest coming from Transport for London and from a business rate. A Treasury source said that there was now ‘no suggestion’ that Crossrail would be axed, although it could still be scaled back.

News that Crossrail is now considered safe from the brutal spending round will be applauded by business groups such as the CBI and London First. It will also prompt relief in City Hall, where mayor Boris Johnson has promised a “Stalingrad defence” of the scheme.

The project is set to carry 72,000 people an hour at peak time between Heathrow and Canary Wharf and from Thames Gateway to the City and West End.