What Exactly is the Cabinet For?

Adam Boulton has just reported on Sky News that the Northern Rock crisis wasn't even discussed at this morning's Cabinet meeting. I find this incredible and leads me to ask, what is the point of Cabinet government if major crises aren't discussed by the Cabinet. It can only mean that the whole thing is being run from Number Ten and Number Eleven. We already know that there are only three Ministers who Gordon Brown takes into his confidence - Balls, Miliband and Alexander. Isn't it about time one or two Cabinet members got some backbone and insisted on things like this being discussed openly in full Cabinet?

Gordon Brown promised a return to cabinet government when he took over. It's yet another commitment he's jettisoned when the going got rough.

Am I One of the 15,000?

I have a pensions policy and an endowment with Standard Life. I've just heard that the financial details of 15,000 Standard Life customers have been lost by HM Customs & Revenue. On top of this HM Revenue & Customs have lost more personal data in a much wider breach of security. It is scant consolation that the Chairman of HM Revenue & Customs has taken responsibility and resigned. I suppose it is too much to ask for a Treasury Minister to take responsibility too.

UPDATE: Unbelievable. They have lost 7.5 million records relating to child benefit. There has to be political accountability here.

Who Deserves the Award of Policymaker of the Year?

Tomorrow night I am going to be part of a judging panel which will decide the World Policymaker of the Year Award for 2007. Your nominations please.

Meeting Matt Drudge

Tonight at 11.30pm on Sky News I will be doing the paper review with none other than Matt Drudge, author of the world famous Drudge Report. Just to emphasise how influential he is, his site has had 16 million page views in the last 24 hours. Mine has had 18,000!

Will Paragon be the Next Northern Rock?

With Northern Rock shares falling like a stone (so much for Alistair Darling's reassurances yesterday), it seems a second mortgage lender is also on the skids. Paragon, Britain's third biggest buy to let mortgage lender has seen its shares dip from 250p to 111p in the last 24 hours after it disclosed that it would not pay a dividend until it had secured a refinancing agreement.

I am not an economist and won't dream of trying to assess the wider economic implications of this, but politically it could be devastating if Northern Rock and Paragon are but the first of several. Can the Bank of England really come to the rescue of them all?

Plaid MPs Found Guilty of Allowances Misuse

Plaid Cymru has today been found guilty of using public money for electioneering purposes. The House of Commons Committee on Standards and Privileges published its report into the misuse of the Parliamentary Communications Allowances of Plaid MPs Elfyn Llwyd, Adam Price and Hywel Williams. They had used it to pay for adverts prior to the Welsh Assembly Elections in May. The Report concluded that the advertisements constituted "campaigning, therefore breaches paragraph 6.1.1. of the Green Book" (the Parliamentary rule book). The three MPs have been told to repay to Parliament the sums claimed, which amount to thousands each. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Sir Philip Mawer, concluded that Parliamentary rules had been broken and the Report indicates this was also the view of Parliament's Director of Operations. Earlier this autumn, the Electoral Commission stated that the Plaid MPs'
advertisements should be listed in Plaid's Assembly Elections campaign returns.

I suspect this is going to be an ongoing issue for all parties, not just Plaid. It's quite clear to me that the rules governing this allowance are rather opaque. The trouble is, each time MPs are found guilty - no matter from which party - the reputation of politics in general suffers even further.

Nadine Is on the Warpath

If I were Alex Hilton, I'd be afraid. Very afraid. Nadine is on the warpath after he trawled through her daughters' Facebook profiles. See Nadine's blog HERE. She ends her post rather threateningly with the words: "Take me on all you want, but mess with my kids..."

A word of advice Alex. Apologise. Before it's too late.

Why England Will Win on Wednesday

There was an extraordinary exchange at the morning press briefing from the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman today. A journalist asked if, having attended the Scotland game on Saturday, Gordon Brown would be going to see England play Croatia on Wednesday. The PMOS said 'no'. He was then asked why. I'm told that the PMOS then said that some people have been saying he's a jink (can't think WHO). "I'll leave it up to you to make up your own minds".

What an extraordinary thing for the PMOS to say! I suspect that it's more to do with the fact that Brown doesn't want to get roundly booed (again).

Who Would Jesus Vote For?

I am speechless.

Hattip to PlayPolitical

Truth and Consequences

Oh dear. The Sunday Telegraph's new political diary column Portcullis had made a bit of a bloomer. Having written the odd diary column in my time I know that a diary story does actually need to have a semblance of truth it if is not to trouble M'Learned Friend.

In its lead story, Portcullis purports to have proof as to why the "terminally aggressive" David Davis decided not to go for Jacqui Smith's jugular last week. It alleges it was because he "did not want his colleague Damian Green to be able to claim victory." The piece goes on to suggest that Davis was furious that Green had "nabbed the story for himself" the previous weekend and briefed journalists about the 5,000 illegal immigrants working as security guards. The story concludes: "Relations between the two men are now said to be so bad that Mr Green may have to go". Excuse me while I unsplit my sides laughing.

Whoever wrote this ought to know better. Not only is Damian Green one of David Davis's closest friends in politics, anyone who has worked with David Davis knows that in he is the very opposite of a control freak. All of his junior spokespeople are encouraged to pick their campaigns and run with them. Ask Dominic Grieve, Cheryl Gillan, Humfrey Malins, Patrick Mercer, Edward Garnier, Andrew Rosindell or James Brokenshire. They'll all tell you the same. That's why the Home Affairs team has always been good at getting press coverage and results. Contrast this with the real control freak in Number Ten. He tries to control everything and in the end controls nothing.



Davis always picks his moments before going for the jugular. Look back at previous Davis scalps - Beverley Hughes and Charles Clarke for example. Instead of immediately calling for them to go he acts like a cat playing with a mouse, deciding the best time and place to go in for the kill. Politically, it's much more effective than just jerking the knee.



Anyway, we have three basic errors in this story, one of which is probably actionable. In the words of the Allied Dunbar advert... there may be trouble ahead.

Can Chris Huhne Win?

I have just had the dubious pleasure of watching last week's Question Time and today's Politics Show, both featuring the two LibDem leadership candidates. Question Time was an inconclusive and very boring score draw.The Politics Show, however, was far more exciting. Jon Sopel produced a memo written by someone on Huhne's leadership campaign called 'Calamity Clegg'. It was clear that Huhne was unaware of it and he made a good fist of repudiating it. However, Clegg was clearly fuming and they have a five minute barney about it. Watch it HERE.

Anyone who was thinking of voting LibDem will have been profundly put off by the whole unedifying episode. (See viewers' comments HERE). Clegg didn't come out of it well either, reacting very huffily and appearing quite shaken by the whole episode. It blew apart any impression that the two would be able to work hand in glove when it is all over. Indeed, if Clegg wins, it wouldn't surprise me now if he excludes Huhne or Huhne decides not to be part of Clegg's team. However....

And it's a big however. I'm not so sure Clegg is the shoo-in most of us thought he would be. Huhne has consistently come up with interesting ideas throughout this contest while Clegg has played safe. Remember the last time that happened? It was in 2005 when the Davis campaign did the same thing - and look what happened. We must remember that it is LibDem activists who have the vote in this contest and they are traditionally very wary of people like Nick Clegg. It would not at all surprise me if Chris Huhne was coming up on the rails fast. Today's programme certainly won't have helped Huhne, but I doubt whether it's fatal.

The problem both of them have is that they seem unable to articulate a vision for the LibDems. There's no narrative, no exciting call to arms. Their answers on all sorts of issues are just totally uninspiring. I contrast their performances with those of Cameron and Davis during the Tory leadership contest, where people really felt that both of them were articulating visions of what the party needed to do. There were differences between them, but the two of them were the voices of sweet reason in their conduct with one another - something the party is now reaping the rewards from. Huhne and Clegg are developing something which appears to be bordering on intense dislike and irritation with one another. It spilled over in the Sopel interview in a way which may well come back to haunt them.

UPDATE: Guto Harri has a good piece HERE. I liked his opening para... "It is striking - within a party that's generally regarded as nice - how nasty the Liberal Democrats are quietly capable of being."

Hattip to Norfolk Blogger for Anything to win logo.

What Can It Mean?

I'm feeling rather faint. I've just read Peter Hitchens' column in the Mail on Sunday. There are two notable things about his column today. He has failed to use the phrase 'useless Tories' and I found myself agreeing with every word he wrote. I need to lie down.

UPDATE:I knew it was too good to be true. Apparently I can't have got to the end of the main piece in his column. See the comments for an explanation!

Is It Really About 'Abolishing Fatherhood'?

The Mail on Sunday's front page screams BATTLE FOR A CHILD'S RIGHT TO A FATHER. It accuses the government of wanting to drive the last nail in the coffin of the traditional family. The article centres on the government's proposed legislation to give Lesbians full parental rights over test-tube babies. The father's role would be redundant after donating the sperm. Apparently, as the law stands at the moment IVF clinics have to ensure that the spermdonor is given the chance to be involved in the upbringing of the child. The new law removes that right for the father. MPs from all parties are opposing the proposal, but it will undoubtedly be whipped through.

I find this a really difficult issue. Ideally every child would be brought up by a mother AND a father. Many of society's problems stem from the fact that many children nowadays have nomale influence in their life. However, we must deal with society as it is today, not how we might like it to be. The most important thing for any child is to have a stable upbringing in a loving home. Gay and Lesbian couple are very able to provide such an environment and thousands of them do today, mainly through adoption.

Iain Duncan Smith has written a powerful comment piece in the Mail on Sunday asserting that Labour is sending out the signal that father's don't matter. Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor says: "It radically undermines the place of the father in a child'slife and makethe natural rights of the child subordinate to the couple's desires.'

Those in favour of the legislation point out that it will affect no more than a few hundred couples a year and accuse those arguing against of using specious arguments which mask their own homophobia.

I make no apology for being genuinely undecided on this issue. I can see both sides of the argument. I will be following the debates closely and make up my mind when I have heard, and understood, all the arguments.

A Message from Pete Wishart MP

SNP MP Pete Wishart is fed up with reading anti-Scottish comments on blogs. He emailed me this, earlier this morning. The trouble is that if you even question the Barnett formula you can be dubbed anti-Scottish. Some people even construed the Gordon Brown Jinx post yesterday as anti-Scottish, yet I was sitting on my sofa cheering Scotland on. I'm 25% Scottish myself. My middle name is Campbell for God's sake. Perhaps the debate is becoming too 'shouty' but it's a debate which has to be had.

From the leafy Shires of Middle England to the Shadows of the Satanic Mills there is rebellion in the air. Years of deep felt grievances and a sense of growing injustice is gripping the inhabitants of Auld Albion, and up with it they are no longer prepared to put. Incited by the Conservatives, right wing tabloids and Kelvin Mackenzie, English Votes for English Laws and down with the Barnett Formula are the new banners.“Look at Scotland” they say. “No student fees, free personal care, they’re even going to freeze the Council Tax and abolish prescription charges”. “And you know, it’s us who’s paying for all of this”, they tell us. There’s even an unsavoury anti-Scottishness creeping into the whole mix. A cursory look at the Blogs or a journey in a London cab when one of the favoured talk shows is on will demonstrate just how low the debate is descending.To the majority who consider the issue south of the border it is just a simple orthodoxy that Scotland is subsidised at the expense of the rest of the UK. The metropolitan press peddles this myth on a daily basis and single mindedly perpetuates this lie with a real sense of purpose and determination.
They are simply incapable of being balanced about this debate. And it’s almost getting funny. The week the London Standard ran its front page about how Scotland was being subsidised to the detriment of Londoners was the week that Oxford Economics found that Londoners receive more spending per head than Scots, and that’s before we even get close to unidentified spending, the Olympics or oil!It perhaps therefore shouldn’t come as any surprise that support for Scottish Independence is currently higher in England than it is in Scotland. But what is curious is that those who stoke up all this constitutional tension south of the border still refer to themselves as staunch Unionists! They couldn’t be doing a better job for independence if we were paying them ourselves.But do we want independence on this basis? On the basis of a lie, untruth’s and hostility? When we secure independence I want England to be our best friend and partner. We have 300 years of shared history and we have had some fantastic times together, surely both nations deserve to live side by side in mutual self respect?So come on Mr Times, Telegraph, Daily Mail Editor, have a look at the facts not just the fiction. I’m not even asking you to agree with all you see, just acknowledge that it is not as clear cut as you seem to make out.

Tim Worstall takes Pete Wishart to task HERE over his use o the word Albion to describe England.

Coming Next: Timmy Mallett Joins the Government

Lord, give me strength. I had to check it wasn't April 1st when I read THIS.

Don't Mention Peter Tobin...

At 11.45pm I will be doing the News 24 paper review. However, just like on Sky last night, I am not allowed to mention Peter Tobin's name. Or the fact that he is a convicted sex killer. Or the fact that it's his former house where the two teenagers bodies' have been dug up. All this despite the fact that none of the newspapers have any reservations about doing all three. Oh well, I suppose I can always talk about football instead. Or the YouGov poll in which the Tories have a six point lead. Or Lord West's latest gaffe. Tune in at 11.45!

Book Review: More Time for Politics by Tony Benn

Tony Benn has gone from being seen as the most dangerous man in Britain to a national treasure. This seventh volume of diaries is much more personal than its predecessors and is full of understandably mournful references to his wife Caroline. It's also the diary of a man coming to terms with his age. Titled MORE TIME FOR POLITICS the book catalogues Benn's life since he left the House of Commons in 2001. Although he made much of the fact that not being in Parliament would leave more time for politics, the diary shows that he spent much of his time in the Commons plotting with the more left wing of his former colleagues. He clearly missed being part of the Westminster furniture and was delighted when the Speaker effectively gave him the freedom of the building. Benn's absolute loathing of all things New Labour permeates every page. Although he is still a deeply partisan politician, many of his current views, especially on constitutional, European and parliamentary matters, echo those of many of us on the right. Those who have read his previous diaries will enjoy this book, even if it is slightly melancholy in tone for most of the time. Buy it HERE (RRP £20, reduced to £11.95)

Mad, Bad and Sad

Lord Haw Haw has been reincarnated HERE. This idiot is so way out that even the Muslim Public Affairs Committee takes him seriously.

...There can be no doubt that Britain has become a police-state. Using the pretence of 'Anti-Terror' laws, themselves the product of an entirely fabricated 'War on Terror' which resulted from a false-flag incident involving the mass-murder of over 3000 innocent people, 911, and again 52 innocents in another false-flag incident involving Britain's secret services, 7/7....

...The new fascist totalitarianism that was behind 911, Madrid, Bali and 7/7 is now rapidly gaining ground, moving fast at the speed that Hitler's panzer divisions overran a bewildered western Europe in 1940... Just as Bush and Blair agreed to attack Afghanistan and Iraq a long time before 911 (of course they did, 911 was the excuse they both knew about) so the plans for the implementation of police states in the English-speaking countries can be taken a long while back before the events which were calculatedly manufactured to terrorize and bully a passive western population into submission.Utilizing a blueprint of commonality the tin-pot Atlanticist Hitlers and their quislings are working to a schedule to take our remaining freedoms and bury them in a deep grave before the next Oil and Resource wars are launched. It is no accident that only days ago, Britain's Number One Traitor and Quisling, Gordon Brown, once again swore allegiance to his bosses in Washington DC whilst condemning all those who in Britain dare to criticise the death-pact of the Anglo-Saxon Alliance to be "anti-American."That death-pact is nothing less than the totalitarian gauntlet which Brown threw down not only to declare his unending allegiance to the dark forces in the White House but as a deliberate taunt against his own people, do as you're told or I will punish you horribly! An arrogant, paunchy, feudal robber-baron making public his scorn for the peasantry over which he rules as a divine right.

It is no accident, either, that the so-called review issued by the idiot Lord West, Britain's Sicherheitsminister, used the false-flag bombings of London and Glasgow Airport as the grounds for the new draconian laws. I have no doubt whatsoever that those incidents, using the classical methods of secret services' entrapment, were deliberately caused in order to justify what has now been announced. Anyone naive enough to think I am talking nonsense should look at how all this was prepared-for and given a testbed in Ireland a long time before it started in earnest in mainland Britain... And 8 million Muslims have died as a direct result of USUK imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 16 years. The comparison is complete.

Oh dear, oh dear. Just as well we all believe in freedom of speech, isn't it? Demented is the best word to describe these ramblings. But we shouldn't underestimate how widely held these fantasist views are.

UPDATE: It seems I have upset the idiot. More rantings HERE.

Will the Brown Jinx Hit Scotland?

Oh dear. I've just sat down to watch Scotland v Italy and Gordon Brown is in the crowd. Why should this bother me? Because at every sporting occasion he attends, a British team tends to be on the losing side. I am filled with dread.

UPDATE 5.01pm: The Brown jinx strikes in the first minute, Italy go one up.

Paddick's Selection Should Spur Boris Into Action

There's a fascinating interview with Brian Paddick in the Telegraph today. I can't quite decide how credible a candidate for London Mayor he will be. On the one hand he's very adept at getting publicity, something a LibDem candidate often finds difficult. But on the other hand, like his old boss Sir Ian Blair, Paddick seems to have a character flaw which enables him to hit the self destruct button rather too easily.

There is no doubt that Paddick will be the strongest LibDem challenger yet, but it will be interesting to see whether he targets Boris or Ken Livingstone in his attacks. From a Tory viewpoint, Boris needs to mop up Paddick's second preferences in order to sweep past Livingstone in the second round, so expect Boris to make some gentle wooing noises to Paddick and his supporters as the election draws nearer.

Much has been written about Boris's alleged inactivity in recent weeks. The news section of his website has had one entry since the end of September. There hasn't been a press release posted since his campaign launch in early September. It is not suprising that eyebrows are being raised.

A candidate for a very visible position like this does need to maintain some sort of consistent profile, but the period between now and Christmas should be spent becoming an authority on the issues. The campaign won't get going until January, so there doesn't need to be a constant stream of media and policy announcements at the moment. But with Paddick now in the field, Boris will certainly need to become rather more visible than he has been up to now.