The Lesson of Dan Hannan's Speech

Dan Hannan's demolition of Gordon Brown speech is the single most watched video on YouTube today. And all without a single mention of it in the mainstream media. Think about that. And when someone tells you that the internet has little influence on politics, cite it as an example.

Second's Out: Slugger Campbell v Hit Man Maguire

There's nothing I like seeing more than when lefties fall out. Especially when it is Kevin Maguire and Alastair Campbell. Campbell has just ripped into Maguire on his blog. Here's a taster...

I've never fully understood quite why Mirror hack Kevin Maguire feels so bitter, but boy does he? I know he still goes on about some Bill Clinton article he drafted which I am supposed to have given to The Sun.

I've never had the heart to tell him his draft was so badly written I wouldn't have shown it to the President's driver, let alone the President. Then I suspect he knows that Gordon might have consulted me when some of Kevin's friends were suggesting him for a job in Number 10 or the Labour Party, and I did what I always do - said what I thought.

And most recently, I fear the non appearance of his occasional column in my guest edited New Statesman might have not got down well. But again, was I going to put his weekly dose of not terribly well informed gossip ahead of my splendid interview with Alex Ferguson, my other's half's excellent read on education or TB's interesting piece on God?

Ladies, ladies.

Former Kent Tory MP Dies

The former Tory MP for Gravesham, Tim Brinton, has died at the age of 79. The former ITN news journalist and newscaster was elected in 1979 and stood down in 1987, when he was succeeded by Jacques Arnold. Prior to that he had served on Kent County Council.

After leaving the House of Commons, he ran a broadcasting consultancy and chaired a Health Authority.

PMQs: Labour MPs Desert Harriet?

A Tory MP emails me...

I thought I would just mention a point about PMQs which may not have been apparent on television. Usually, there are plenty of Labour MPs jumping up and down trying to catch the Speaker’s eye. The Parliamentary convention is that the Speaker will select questioners by alternating from Government and Opposition sides of the chamber (sometimes, names on the Order Paper, sometimes ‘free hits’). However, today there were so few Labour MPs standing up that the Speaker called three opposition MPs in a row. He then called Tony Lloyd who had his name on the Order Paper to be called later. By this time, the Labour whips were scuttling round the chamber to get volunteers to stand up and John McFall got called (to his obvious frustration) and asked a horribly unprepared question.

It was an embarrassing display from the Parliamentary Labour Party.

I didn't see PMQs today as I was interviewing Cherie Blair (and very enjoyable it was too), so I am relying on my readers to tell me what happened. Go for it!

Ve Vould Like to Know Who Your Friendz Are, Bitteschoen

Shane Greer writes...

News that Labour intend to set up yet another government database will hardly be of surprise to anyone. But if the latest database isn’t surprising, it is nevertheless deeply worrying. According to Labour, the government needs to know who our friends are on Facebook, and they need to know which friends we converse with. Of course, while they’re at it they’d quite like to know what our browsing habits are (which one assumes means you should think twice before joining Facebook groups that might cast more suspicion upon you than you are already subject to thanks to the very existence of this latest big brother proposal).

Outrageous. Is there no aspect of our personal lives which is safe from interference from government?

The (Angela) Eagle has (Crash) Landed

First it was David Lammy, then Sion Simon, but tonight it was Treasury Minister Angela Eagle's turn to crash and burn in a live broadcast interview. Her performance on Newsnight, talking about the Governor of the Bank of England's views on a fiscal stimulus, was woeful. But somehow rather compelling. Can we see more of her please?

UPDATE: Later on Newsnight, Keith Vaz popped up. here's what my politically non-interested partner had to say...

"Why is Keith Vaz allowed to play any part in politics? Isn't he thoroughly discredited?

Yes, I said. He's the Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee.

Alastair Campbell is a Sweetheart

A reader writes...

I was at the launch of the new Fabian Society book, the Change We Need the other night and thought you would be amused by an exchange between Alastair Campbell and TIME Magazine journalist Catherine Mayer, who I think is a friend of yours. She enraged an audience member when she talked about how the greatest amount of residual anger about the Iraq war being within Labour and the left and said that was because Labour had stifled debate. He proceeded to harrumph loudly and later went on the attack in his contribution from the floor. The first part of his contribution, not aimed at Mayer, was about his fears that the “Trots” would infiltrate Labour again. The man from the floor then turned to Mayer and said “sweetheart, if you think there wasn’t debate about Iraq you’re on another planet.” It was like being in an episode of Life on Mars. Sharp intake of breath from audience. When the chair, David Lammy, went back to Mayer for a wrap-up, she joked that she was still speechless at being called sweetheart. Alastair said “surely you’ve been called sweetheart before?” Mayer replied sweetly: “Yes, by you”. Game, set and match. Anyway, pretty funny to see sclerotic Old Labour so perfectly personified in one audience member.

Cameron's Appearance on the Alan Titchmarsh Show

Click HERE to watch David Cameron's appearance on ITV's Alan Titchmarsh programme this afternoon. That's if you can get the dreadful ITV Player to work. There are two adverts to endure before it gets going too. He talks movingly about the death of his son, Ivan, and what the last few weeks have been like. When he moves on to talk about the current economic mess, it's very interesting to hear the audience reaction when he says "the country is moving in the wrong direction". And the audience erupts when he says he remains committed to upping the Inheritance Tax threshold to £1 million and to abolishing income tax on savings for basic rate payers.

Not sure Alan Titchmarch is the most searching interviewer I have ever come across...

Hannan Tells Brown Like It Is

Imagine how many finger nails were chewed during the three and a half minutes of this telling off by Daniel Hannan MEP.

UPDATE: Nigel Farage had a good old go too... And according to him, Brown delivered the speech to a virtually empty chamber. Bet that never happened to Blair.

Cameron: We Need Capitalism With a Conscience

David Cameron is making an important speech about financial regulation at the moment. He starts with an important statement about who is to blame for the failure in regulation in this country.

Let’s start by getting something straight. Gordon Brown likes to blame all our troubles on America – as though our fundamentally sound economy and banking system were hit by some nasty financial import.

But our banking system is not separate from our economy, it is a reflection of it. The unsustainable debts in our banks are a reflection of unsustainable debts in our households, our companies and our government. So while of course it’s true that some of our problems are global……we’ve got to recognise that the underlying policy failures were national.

The failure to regulate U.S. sub-prime mortgages was an American failure. And the failure to regulate public and private debt here was a British failure. It was a failure that led to our households becoming the most indebted in the world……our banks becoming the most leveraged of any major economy……and our housing boom being bigger than in the U.S.

If we’re going to restore financial confidence, we have to be honest about these home-grown failures of financial policy and regulation. If we won’t admit that anything went wrong in the past, how can we get things right for the future?

Self evident stuff, maybe, but it needs to be said. Gordon Brown needs to acknowledge his, and the government's failure here. If he really believes it is all America's fault he's even more delusional than I thought.

Some people argue that the Conservatives cannot be the ones to take on this task. They say: “Why should we listen to you, the champions of markets, when markets have collapsed?”
They ask: “How can you – the party that believes in deregulation – sort out a mess caused by not enough regulation?” Well let me answer those points directly.

Why listen to us? Because the people of this country don’t want to turn their backs on markets. They know that the free enterprise economy is the foundation of so much we want to achieve: our collective and individual quality of life; our social progress; our ability to protect the environment for future generations. People don’t want to abandon markets, they want us to reform markets so they work properly. What they want is a sense of order and responsibility brought to the operation of the financial markets. People might not follow the minutiae of over-leveraging or short-selling, but they know that the roots of our current crisis lie in recklessness and greed.

When they look at capitalism today too many people see markets without morality, and that’s what’s got to change. As I’ve said before, we need capitalism with a conscience. That is a task for the modern Conservative Party. We are the party of law and order, so we are the party to bring law and order to the financial markets. We are the party of social responsibility, so we are the party to bring social responsibility to the financial markets.

And we understand the intimate connection between these two values – that you cannot have order without responsibility.

That's an important statement of intent. It has echoes of Ted Heaths "unacceptable face of capitalism".

It is precisely because Labour do not really understand this that they ended up designing a system of financial regulation that completely failed. The right question here is not light regulation or heavy regulation. It is right regulation or wrong regulation.

Absolutely right. Overregulation of a market can stifle and then kill it.

The modern Conservative Party understands the role that regulation needs to play. We understand that regulation is a vital part of making sure markets work properly. But it’s got to be the right regulation, applied in the right way to the right situation. Our approach is to cut regulation where the problem is too much of it – like the red tape that is strangling small business. And to reform it where the problem is the wrong kind – like the failed system of financial regulation. That way, we can bring to the market what we need to bring to society: freedom with responsibility.

And just like bringing law and order to our streets, in financial markets, this culture of freedom with responsibility must be promoted by the right frameworks, policed by strong institutions and enforced with real authority. The difference with Labour is stark.

Their idea of regulation is a list of rules that look good on paper. We’re concerned with what works in practice. They think it’s about the right bureaucratic process. We think it’s about the right professional judgement. For us, it’s about the right institutions, the right authority and the right discretion. That’s why with the Conservatives, the Bank of England will be back and we will restore its role in regulating the level of debt in the economy.

This approach – promoting, policing and enforcing order and responsibility in the financial markets - is what I want to explain today. First, promoting order and responsibility. One of the reasons our banks became so leveraged is because the rest of us were willing to take on more and more debt. So we need to tackle problem debt and encourage personal responsibility. That means taking into account how people really behave - not how economics textbooks presume they behave.

Because, whether you like it or not, people are not always rational. They do not always act in their best long-term interests. And they are often heavily influenced by what people around them are doing. In the bureaucratic age, that's a problem. But in the post-bureaucratic age, it can be an opportunity.

As Richard Thaler has shown, when you design policy so that it reflects how people think and act, you really can encourage greater responsibility. But we don’t just need to promote responsibility among individuals – we need to promote it across the whole financial system.

Cameron is right. Markets are rational, but only when they operate in a free flowing and transparent way. Markets which operate on a false premise can never be rational. They provoke people into making irrational decisions.

In 1997, Gordon Brown created a new institution, the FSA, to oversee our banks. Last week, Lord Turner launched a report that can only be described as a withering critique of its failings. They are failings we have long recognised. For a decade, this Government forced the FSA to obsess about products, processes and procedures, box ticking about who’s in place to do what job……while neglecting entirely a bank’s business model and what they were buying, at what price and with what debt. This wasn’t light touch regulation. It was just completely the wrong regulation. It missed a central insight into financial markets: that they’re made up of people, not units of production. It rises on their genius and innovation but falls down on their irrationalities and over-exuberance. So just as with individuals, creating a culture of responsibility across our financial markets means introducing regulation that responds to the way markets and people actually behave. We need regulation that recognises the psychological levers of boom and bust.

Good. Lay the blame where it belongs. At Gordon Brown's feet.

That’s why we led the debate in the U.K. when we called for banks to be required to hold more capital during the good years in order to absorb losses during the bad years. I’m pleased that reforms to Basel II and the need for what is known as macro-prudential regulation to manage the credit cycle have now been adopted in the Turner Review and are on the agenda at the G20.

This is about reining in that irrational exuberance that is associated with any boom – the feeling that the music will never stop, so we can keep on dancing. The truth is that it is precisely when the music is loudest – as it was over the past decade – that we need regulatory discipline strong enough to cut through that exuberance and keep banks responsible.

The next question is: how do you police this order and responsibility? In 1997, Gordon Brown removed the Bank of England’s historic ability to ensure that banking credit was kept within responsible limits. In one broad brushstroke, the only organisation with the expertise, and authority, to call time on the overall levels of debt in our economy was taken out of the picture. In its place, the then Chancellor put a Tripartite System which monumentally failed its first test. Because he cannot admit his mistakes, Gordon Brown doesn’t understand that the model he pursued for the past ten years has fundamentally failed - so he’s unable to recognise that this system needs to change. We’re clear that it does need to change.

And we’re equally clear as to how. To police responsibility within our financial services, we need to call on the only institution with the authority, respect and influence to keep our banks in check. It’s time to bring back the Bank of England and restore its role in regulating debt. When Labour took away this role back in 1997, the Bank of England’s banking expertise was allowed to wither away. We will rebuild that expertise by giving the Bank an explicit role in macro-prudential, system-wide, regulation.

We will put the Bank of England back in charge of regulating the overall level of debt in the economy, and allow it to make judgements on what is sustainable and what is not. The Bank will set out any concerns in a letter to the FSA, which in turn will be obliged to take that view into account when setting the amount of capital individual banks must hold.

So if the level of debt in our economy is growing unsustainably, the Bank will instruct the FSA to ensure banks either slow their lending or put aside more capital. But of course, we don’t just need policing at national level.

Finance is international – indeed much of the credit growth in the UK over the last decade was channelled from abroad. So we need the right mechanisms in place internationally, as well as at home. As Lord Turner has pointed out, that means greater coordination at a European level.

But in a global economy, even that won’t be enough. We need to think truly global. Yes, that means reforms to the Basel II agreement to make it less procyclical – so that banks put more money aside in the good years, to act as a buffer in the bad. And it means a greater role for the IMF in monitoring national economies – as well as a way of ensuring that its warnings don’t go unheeded as they did over the last few years.

But the ultimate authority must remain with the Bank of England, as it is British taxpayers who will be asked to pick up the bill if anything goes wrong. So we need international co-ordination……and national regulation.

When it comes to that national regulation, we are clear about how it should be enforced. It used to be said that one twitch of the Governor’s eyebrow would be enough to get our banks to behave responsibly. Our plans will restore the power of the Governor’s eyebrow.

But as Sir James Sassoon has said in the review he recently carried out for us, the Governor’s authority works best when it is backed up by real power. So we are considering the suggestion that we should give the Bank of England further power to go into individual banks…to tell them they haven’t got enough capital, tell them there’s too much leverage, tell them to sort themselves out......or expect the full authority of the Bank.

When you’ve got a problem with debt – you call for the people who understand how to control spending and get debt down. And when you’ve got a problem with law and order and a lack of social responsibility - you send for the party of law and order and social responsibility.

We know what’s gone wrong – we’ve had the wrong type of regulation overseen by the wrong type of people. And we know how to put it right. Promoting responsibility by creating the right kind of regulation. Policing it by restoring the Bank of England to its proper role. And enforcing it by giving the Bank of England the authority it needs.That way, we will bring back proper regulation of the banks and financial markets and help restore financial confidence, a vital step on our routemap to recovery.

That was an excellent speech, full of meat, full of integrity, full of vision. It shows a clear, well thought out approach to the future of financial regulation, all designed to bring confidence back to the markets.

Your thoughts?

How Should the BBC Use Bloggers on Election Night?

Last May I was one of three bloggers used by the BBC on their local election night coverage. Feedback showed that despite the relatively short time we were on screen, it was the one part of the evening that worked and brought something new to the party. However, looking at the way the American networks used bloggers to report breaking news and give comment during the primary election nights, there's a lot of scope for the BBC and Sky to innovate and expand their use of blogs for the night of the next general election.

If you were running the BBC election night coverage, what would you do? Would you use bloggers to report rumours of particularly interesting results, even though they weren't announced yet, or would that contravene the BBC's duty to only report double-checked, accurate information? Instead of using one blogger per party, is there a more innovative way to use them? Holding Jeremy Vine's cowboy hat, perhaps?

Or perhaps you think bloggers should stay in their bedrooms and leave the professionals to do what they do, er, best...

The Daily Mirror is a Joke of a Paper

This is from the Daily Mirror's website this morning. I wonder if it is in the print edition. I know times are hard and that papers are sacking subs all over the place, but who is this Tory politician called Alan Clarke?

I look forward to Kevin Maguire blaming David Cameron for the error on his blog.

The Daley Dozen: Tuesday

1. Richard Benyon MP reports on a moving trip to Auschwitz.
2. Norfolk Blogger does a mea culpa on Peter Lilley.
3. How Did We Come to This gives his solution to MPs' expenses.
4. Tom Harris explains why he voted against a three line whip for the first time.
5. Paul Waugh thinks that Little Ben Bradshaw's future is not so bright.
6. Paul Flynn on a Daily Mail story on MPs' salaries which left 3 Tory MPs licking their wounds.
7. LibDem Voice on Labour MP Dawn 'Two Homes within 8 miles of Westminster' Butler.
8. Paul Waugh says David Lammy may be Labour's candidate to fight Boris. Oh pretty please.
9. Letters from a Tory writes to Rowan Atkinson.
10. Richard Spring MP on local heroes.
11. ConHome suggests Madsen Pirie for a Peerage. I agree.
12. Ben Brogan on Mervyn King's fiscal stimulus bombshell.

And as a special bonus, have a look at THIS post on ConservativeHome, which details a leaflet by the leader of the Labour Group on Lancashire County Council. Not that he mentions Labour on the leaflet anywhere. Or Gordon Brown. Is he embarrassed?

Listen to 5 Live from 10-11pm

I was looking forward to getting home at a reasonable hour tonight, but I can never resist Richard Bacon's blandishments so tune into Radio 5 Live from 10pm until 11pm, when we'll be discussing MPs' expenses. I think someone from the Taxpayers' Alliance will be on too. And if you want to join in the debate you can phone 0500 909693 or text 85058.

I've also done a pre-recorded piece with Michael Crick for Newsnight on tax. I think I was so boring that it probably won't be used.

Sorry, no Daley Dozen tonight.

PS What do you think of my new West Ham blog? http://westhamtillidie.com. Thanks to Mike Rouse for the design and Russell Brown for organising such a smooth transfer.

EXCLUSIVE: Myners Had to Look Up Quantitative Easing on Wikipedia

On the newspaper review on the BBC on Saturday night I described Lord Myners as "hapless". Little did I realise how accurate that description would turn out to be... Before you read on, just bear in mind what position Lord Myners holds. He is a senior Treasury Minister, responsible for financial services.

At a private function last week, Myners came out with this corker. He was asked about 'quantitative easing' and said

"I didn't know what it was and had to look it up on Wikipedia."

Just the man to get us out of the crisis, wouldn't you say?

Chris Moyles, Will Young & Gay Hatred

Let me be clear. I can't stand Chris Moyles. How anyone can bear listening to him on the radio is beyond me. But OfCom's decision to censure him today for doing a spoof Will Young song on the basis that it was offensive to gays just beggars belief. Full details are HERE. The lyrics he used were not exactly funny - well, they don't read very funny on paper - but to class them as offensive is going it a bit. Here's a sample...

Moyles changed the lyrics of two of Young's songs, Evergreen and Leave Right Now, and sang them in "an effeminate and high pitched voice", according to Ofcom.

The Radio 1 DJ sang the spoof lyrics on his breakfast show on Young's birthday, 20 January. They included the words: "It's my birthday today, gonna wear my new dress tonight. And I smell nice. I've had a show and I've shaved my legs. Going out later, might go to Nobo for dinner. Oooh Will Young here, mmmh. I'm here, it's Will's birthday and as the years go by I get more very gay."

Other spoof lyrics inserted by Moyles included: "When you saw me years ago you didn't know, but now I'm the gayest fella you probably know. Mmm, I like to wear a silly hat, I get camper by the hour, oh would you look at the muck in here. I'm Will Young and I'm gay."

I cannot imagine for one minute Will Young was offended in the slightest, and even if he was, so what? The right to offend still exists. Just. I only mention this because because the Gay Hatred laws are being debated this week, and no doubt someone somewhere will put forward the argument that because Moyles is stereotyping Will Young as a campl gayer, he is inciting hatred in some way. I am against the Gay Hatred law for the same reason I am against the Religious Hatred law. We don't need either. Existing legislation goes quite far enough and we need to be very careful about any further dimunition of our right to free speech.

Ken Clarke: Concede It's a Gaffe And Move On

This ongoing story about Ken Clarke's remarks on Inheritance Tax on the Politics Show yesterday illustrates two things.

1. The importance of every front bencher being fully up to speed on all aspects of party policy
2. That if you don't kill off a story immediately, don't be surprised if it gathers pace

When I heard Ken's interview yesterday I remember thinking, 'hmmm, that isn't exactly the line to take'. Within a very short time it was a story on the 24 hour news channels, with Labour weighing in for good measure. I suspect this was not a case of Ken having any great disagreement over the Inheritance Tax policy, I suspect it is more that he wasn't up to speed on the detail of it - i.e. the fact that it wasn't merely an aspiration, but a commitment. There are worse crimes.

By the time the clarifying statement was issued later in the day, it was too late. Even though the Telegraph carries it in its front page lead today, the headline still reads that the policy is under threat.

The leadership was right to reassert that they remain fully committed to upping the threshhold within a Parliament. It would be utter madness to renege on it and send out entirely the wrong message. They key in all of this is that it is a costed commitment. It's not a tax cut as such, as there will be compensating revenue. As I am sure that by now Ken Clarke knows too!

Some people will use this to justify their view that Ken Clarke is a loose cannon and shouldn't have been brought back. Rubbish. Whatever short term embarrassment this saga dumps on the party is more than compensated for by the fact that he's become one the Party's big stars over the past few weeks.

Let's just conceded it was a minor gaffe, and move on.

Ten New Blogs

Crust of the Grouch - Non aligned
A Libertarian's Perspective
An Ex Apprentice - Conservative
Luke Ellis - Welsh Labour blog
Burning Coals - Religion and politics
Marsh Harrier - French and libertarian
English Electic - Gay, Catholic and Socialist
Flip Chart Fairytales - Business blog
Concentric Circles - Conservative & Libertarian
Right to Common Sense - Conservative

These blogs aren't necessarily newly created, but I haven't known about them before and they had not, until now, appeared in the TP Blog Directory.

Visit the Total Politics Blog Directory which contains more than 1,900 blogs. If you know of one which isn't there, please fill in the Submit a New Blog form on the left hand side of THIS page

I Don't Remember 'Bonkathon' Says Labour MP

Bonking Labour MP Nigel Griffiths, who was exposed yesterday in the News of the World for having sex in his House of Commons, stretches our credulity with this quote in today's Sun...

I am, of course, ashamed my conduct fell below acceptable standards. I've little recollection of the evening, but that doesn't make it right.

Little recollection?! That takes some believing. How many of us wouldn't remember an evening like that, I wonder?! Or does it happen most nights to Mr Griffiths? Lucky him... :)

The Daley Dozen: Sunday

1. Nadine Dorries let's rip with her car, at Dr Evan Harris and Phil Willis.
2. Moments of Clarity speculates on a Clause IV moment for the Tories.
3. Devil's Kitchen turns his venom on Minister McNulty. And then some.
4. Douglas Carswell explains why he continues to blog.
5. Kerron Cross wonders what he has to do to be selected as a Labour candidate. Know someone important, possibly?
6. Peter Black AM explains why has succumbed to Twitter. As has Kerron Cross.
7. Sadie's Tavern probably won't be playing host to the Myerson family.
8. Archbishop Cranmer explains why Jade Goody was the Princess of people's hearts.
9. Dan Hannan explains why he's not turning his back on Obama. Yet.
10. Liberal England has a little quiz. With a prize.
11. Norfolk Blogger makes an arse of himself twice over. He doesn't realise Peter Lilley was Shadow Chancellor in 1997.
12. James Forsyth on the postponement of the Comprehensive Spending Review.