If Lisbon is Ratified What's the Point of a Referendum?

Tim Montgomerie has written an interesting piece on the probability that the Conservatives will not offer a referendum if the Lisbon Treaty has been fully ratified. He outlines the arguments as to why the Conservative Party grassroots should support the leadership on this issue and goes on to explain how the Party should seek to repatriate powers fromt the EU. I agree with Tim's position.

Labour and others will accuse David Cameron of reneging on a referendum promise, but Eurosceptics should not fall for their black propaganda. As Tim says...

DAVID CAMERON PROMISED A REFERENDUM ON AN 'UNRATIFIED' LISBON TREATY, NOTHING ELSE. In doing this, some will say that Cameron will have broken a “cast iron” pledge – made to Sun readers - to hold a referendum. That’s unfair. The sentence from that Sun piece that is always quoted is the penultimate sentence; “Today, I will give this cast-iron guarantee: If I become PM a Conservative government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations." But the final sentence (my emphasis) is just as important: “No treaty should be ratified without consulting the British people in a referendum.” It is also important to remember when the pledge was made. It was made 26 months ago - crucially weeks before Brown was considering holding a 'honeymoon election' - and clearly referred to the ratification process.

DAVID CAMERON DESERVES THE CONTINUING SUPPORT OF EUROSCEPTICS. Political opponents of the Conservative Party and Eurosceptic diehards will unite, of course, to deny David Cameron the benefit of any doubt in what he does next. I believe Cameron deserves the trust of grassroots Conservatives and voters, more generally. On Europe, in particular, he has delivered. He said that he would take Tory MEPs out of the European Peoples’ Party and he has. He has done so in the teeth of concerted and very nasty (yes, I’m talking about you Mr Miliband) opposition from the pro-EU establishment.

David Cameron must and will spell out exactly "how he won't let matters rest" in the manifesto or before. I suspect we will get some details once the Czechs have ratified the Treaty.

Let no one pretend that a referendum after the treaty has been ratified would be anything other than expensive gesture politics. What would it achieve? Nothing. I am sure the country would vote NO, but it is fanciful to pretend a Conservative government could somehow 'unratify' a treaty. What we want from the next Conservative government, and what we should expect, is a firm commitment to introduce a law which pledges any future government to hold a referendum on any change in our relationship with the EU.

I think there will be growing pressure from Europhiles for Britain to look at joining the euro in the next few years. This pressure must be resisted. If you give up your currency, you effectively give up your right to govern. Government is all about saying what you're going to do and how you're going to pay for it. If your currency is controlled by a foreign central bank, you forfeit that. Look at Ireland as a perfect example. It knows what it has to do to rescue its economy but is prevented from doing so by its membership of the euro.I've e already made clear my position on the euro - that I would never vote for Britain to join it. But that case is going to have to be made all over again in the not too distant future. Tim is right when he says...

A Prime Minister Cameron will also lead a country that is becoming more Eurosceptic with every passing year. What is needed is a much stronger Eurosceptic movement. Business for Sterling and the 'No campaign' changed the terms of European debate in this country. They were hugely successful but were retired in order to allow the Conservatives more breathing space. They need to be restored so that the party does not have to carry all the water in this debate.

Those of us who believe in a Europe of nation states are going to have to argue that case ever more strongly over the next few years. But at least we will hopefully have a government which really does intend to not only say 'this far and no further' but also to repatriate some of the powers we have given away over the last twenty years.

I can see a very strong case for a referendum with the aim of giving the British government a direct mandate to negotiate repatriationof powers, but it is equally possible to argue that this mandate would already have been given by virtue of the policy being included in a party election manifesto.

Some of my more fundamentalist eurosceptic friends and colleagues will no doubt argue that there should be a referendum on Lisbon come what may. I respect that viewpoint, but as I argue above, it would achieve nothing beyond making a gesture.

When the Hitler Salute Came to London

Wartime London with Harry Harris - Nazi funeral from Wolfstar on Vimeo.

Here’s a hitherto unseen clip of the funeral of the German Ambassador to Britain being held at the Germany Embassy on Carlton House Terrace, overlooking The Mall, in 1936. This is the first time the video has been made public and it shows Grenadier Guards and Nazi soldiers marching together and carrying a coffin with a swastika draped on it. What's astonishing are the number of people watching, overlooking the Mall, giving the Hitler salute.

The video is a clip from the Discovery Channel’s World War II season and it’ll be the subject of a programme that airs on the 8th of November entitled Wartime London with Harry Harris, a London taxi driver and historian.

Album Review: Mango Groove - Bang the Drum

You know the feeling. You've waited years for one of your favourite bands to release a new album, and then it arrives in the post. That special tingle down your spine. The sense of anticipation. The fear in the back of your mind that you are going to be disappointed? The exhiuleration of playing the first track and realising it's as good as you hoped it would be? All of that happened to me yesterday when I received in the post a copy of BANG THE DRUM, the first all new Mango Groove album in fourteen years. But this was no ordinary copy - it was a signed copy sent to me personally my Claire Johnston, the group's lead singer, who I have developed an email firendship with ever since I first wrote about my love for her band on this blog last year.

Mango Groove, for those who don't know, are one of South Africa's most successful bands. They play a crossover of African pop, big band and pennywhistle music. There are some clips of their music on Youtube HERE. There's a sample of the title track BANG THE DRUM and another great song LAY DOWN YOUR HEART HERE.

This album is vintage Mango Groove and they have lost nothing of their original style over the years. The whole album is a happy go lucky mix of boppable, danceable melodies sprinkled with the odd ballad. Claire Johnston has done a couple of promo interviews about the band's comeback and the new album, which are eminently watchable for the way in which she and other band members switch between English and Afrikaans at the flick of a switch in mid sentence. Bizarrely, you can even understand most of what they say even when they speak in Afrikaans.





There are very few bands I would pay a lot of money to go and see, but Mango Groove is one of them. I first heard their music in a coffee bar in St Martin's Lane in the mid 1990s and I have been captivated ever since. I've never been to South Africa, but if they plan a concert tour next year, I shall be off there like a shot.

Read more about BANG THE DRUM on Mango Groove's website HERE. And you can buy it HERE.

Irvine Slates Blair Over Abolition of Lord Chancellor

Those who believe that this government has played fast and loose with the British Constitution will have been further convinced by Simon Walters' story in today's Mail on Sunday in which he reveals details of a damning report from Lord Irvine on how Tony Blair came to abolish the post of Lord Chancellor and create a Ministry of Justice.

Irvine's memorandum, submitted to a Lords Select Committee can be read HERE, and it really is worth reading in full. It exposes the shallowness of Tony Blair for all to see. Irvine certainly doesn't hold back in his criticism of his former pupil.

Tories Poll Better Than Labour In 1996

We keep being told that David Cameron hasn't "sealed the deal" with the electorate because the Tory poll lead isn't as big as Labour's was in 1996 - ie at the same stage on that parliament.The above table, created by PoliticalBetting.com from ICM polling data, blows that theory out of the water. You will see that the comparable lead for Labour in 1996 was 13%. The Tory lead in today's ICM poll is 17%. Mike Smithson explains in more detail the consequences and relevance of this HERE. His main point is that Labour are now polling in the mid 20s, as opposed to the Tory poll figure of early 30s in 1996. He concludes...

You get the feeling that just like 96/97 voters have made their minds up. They might not like the Tories but they just want the election to happen so they can boot Brown out. Truly it is said that government’s lose elections rather than oppositions win them.

Having It All

A month ago, the political editor of the Observer Gaby Hinsliff announced she was quitting her job to spend more time with her family in the country. Today is her last day and she has written a lengthy feature titled I HAD IT ALL, BUT DIDN'T HAVE A LIFE. It's well worth a read, particularly by those of us who inflict our busy working lives on our families, sometimes without a second thought. Here's a short extract...

Surrender steals up on the working mother like hypothermia takes a stranded climber: the chill deepens day by day, disorientation sets in, and before you know it you are gone. In the sleepless blur of the last three years, I can barely even remember now how it started.

But perhaps it was back this spring, when I took my son to be measured for new shoes: the woman asked what size he took, and to my embarrassment I couldn't remember. I felt like an imposter. Or perhaps it was the summer morning when our nanny had to peel my howling son off me: he had a fever and wanted his mother, but I had a cabinet minister to interview. I shot out of the door, hot with shame.

Maybe it was back last December, on a trip to Afghanistan, when I saw that the young army officer briefing us had a snapshot of a small boy paper-clipped to his folder. "My son. That's what it's all about for me," he said, briskly.

Four of his colleagues had been killed hours before in a roadside bomb, and I was about to struggle back into my flak jacket and fly to Kabul. I went out into the dusty sunshine, wet-eyed, and called home. "Mummy?" said my 18-month-old son repeatedly, in a puzzled voice, when my husband put him on the line.

Every day became a battle against the clock. I never listened properly to phone conversations with friends, because I was always simultaneously doing something else. I was so on edge I raged at the tiniest delay – tourists blocking tube escalators, a computer slow to spark up in the morning. Running for the train in high heels, I sprained my ankle: the doctor prescribed some exercises, but who had time for that? I wore flat shoes, took painkillers.

My reward was that for two crazed but fantastic years, I did – in that loaded cliche – have it all: terrific job, plus small child. Thanks largely to a brilliant nanny and a hands-on partner, I don't honestly believe either suffered from the other.

But what got lost in the rush was a life, if a life means having time for the people you love, engaging with the world around you, making a home rather than just running a household....

Like many women, I still want to work: I just don't want to work like this. The dilemma is how far parents like me can really expect conventional corporate life to bend around us.

So the first priority is an identity that doesn't start lamely with "Well, I used to be…" I'm giving myself a year to find out whether there really is a better way to work, and will be charting the ups and downs on a blog, usedtobesomebody.blogspot.com. I would be lying to pretend I never have doubts. But I have very few regrets, and that means the time is right to let go.

There is a condition known as raptures of the deep, brought on by breathing under pressure, which affects divers who stray too far down. First comes a feeling of euphoria: then the diver gets overconfident, lulled into a false sense of security, and dangerously overestimates how long they have left.

I don't regret a minute of my time in professional deep water, but staying down here too long would be fatal. It's time to start swimming towards the light.

I bet there are thousands of people who will read that article today and question their own priorities and their own life. I have never wanted children (just as well, really) but I have huge admiration for those who lead busy working lives and juggle their careers around bringing up a family. How on earth politicians do it, I don't know.

But even if you don't have kids, it's very easy to find your working life taking over. I worked out that this is the first weekend I have not had to work since May, barring one weekend away in Norfolk. I've just realised I typed "had to work". Of course that's the wrong phrase, because in my case there's always a choice. I could just say 'no'. But now I want to compound it by going into politics, an area where a weekend is never your own.

I was on a radio phone-in the other day with Sean O'Grady, the business editor of The Independent. He seriously suggested that MPs should work 9 to 5 and have weekends off. O'Grady should know better, having worked with MPs for several years. It's not like that, and never will be. And never should be, either. Anyone who wants those kind of regular hours shouldn't go into politics, or the media.

But it doesn't stop me sometimes hankering after a quieter life. I sometimes wistfully imagine giving it all up and becoming a taxi driver. "'Ere, Guv, I had that Gaby Hinsliff in the back of my cab, once," I could boast, as I start a rant about how the country should be run. I often think taxi drivers would make brilliant bloggers!

So I wish Gaby Hinsliff all the luck in the world in her new life in Oxfordshire. And I look forward to reading her new blog, called Used to be Somebody.

And best wishes to Toby Helm who succeeds Gaby as The Observer's political editor. It amuses me to imagine him competing for Sunday exclusives with his partner ... who just happens to be the political editor of the Independent on Sunday, Jane Merrick.

EDP Column: Why Liz Truss Deserves the Support of SW Norfolk Tories

I don't normally print my EDP columns on the blog, but I'm going to make an exception today.

“I suppose you’re going to pour some kerosene on the South West Norfolk selection in your EDP column,” said one local MP to me yesterday, rather miserably. Much as I might like to indulge in some more hyperbole, I shall do my best to resist temptation and try to offer some mature reflection and analyse where this whole sorry saga may head next. Some cool heads are going to be needed among local Tories over the next couple of weeks.

Firstly, let me put the record straight. I did not call all South West Norfolk people ‘neanderthals”, contrary to what Thursday’s EDP front page story implied. I wrote on my blog that the social outlook of those Tories who sought to deselect Liz Truss over her past affair with an MP was ‘neanderthal’. It’s the same social outlook which caused a few – and I emphasise, a few – North Norfolk Tories to swallow hard when I, a gay man, was selected as the candidate there in 2003. And yes, I believe it is an outlook which belongs to a bygone era, not the 21st century.

Others are quite within their rights to hold a different viewpoint, but they needn’t be surprised when they are called to account for it. Why? Because they are often people whose own private lives don’t quite stand up to scrutiny. I wonder how many of the nineteen members of the South West Norfolk Conservatives Executive Committee who voted to put into doubt her candidacy could look themselves in the mirror and honestly say they were entitled to sit in judgment of Ms Truss. The only person entitled to judge her is her husband. And he stuck by her. Isn’t that what should matter?

Ah, some say, but if she betrayed her husband, how can we trust her? How can we be sure she won’t betray her constituents? Utter poppycock. It’s a lazy argument perpetrated by the small minded. Did we not trust Lloyd George to lead us through a world war, when it was common knowledge that he was one of the randiest old goats in the country? Was Paddy Ashdown disqualified as LibDem leader when we found out about his affair with his secretary? Was John Major’s ability to do his job negatively affected by his affair with Edwina Currie? Was Robin Cook a worse Foreign Secretary after he left his wife for his secretary? We might all tut tut in disapproval at what they did and how it impacted their families, but is it any of our business?

Yes, but she was dishonest in not telling the Association and Conservative Central Office should have told us, say some Association members. Wrong. In a job interview it would be regarded as discriminatory to ask someone about their private life and there is a well established precedent that you’re not allowed to ask people if they are married or have children in a political selection, let alone expect them to tell you about every unsavoury aspect of their private life. When I was selected in 2003 I voluntarily chose to tell the local party that I was gay, as I knew it would cause a furore if it emerged later. I won with 66% of the vote on the first ballot. But I would not expect Liz Truss to have to mention a four year old affair.

What I genuinely don’t understand is why local members hadn’t looked her up on the internet. The shortlist was available to any member who wanted to know following the initial meeting which the candidates addressed at the Executive the previous week. If you type Liz+Truss into Google, the detail of the affair is shown on the first page. Most employers take this rudimentary step when employing anyone nowadays. South West Norfolk Tories have only themselves to blame if they did not do the same.

I see no reason for Liz to have been open about a completely private matter. But even if she had been or people had bothered to research the matter, those present would not have been entitled to take it into account. This isn't about "trust" - it is about the boundary between what an Association is entitled to know about a private individual, and what it absolutely isn't entitled to meddle in.

But does it matter what a few local members with questionable social attitudes think? Isn’t it more important to ascertain what the electorate makes of it? If Radio Norfolk’s vox pops are anything to go by, they are remarkable relaxed about having a candidate who has had an affair. Thank goodness for some common sense.

So what now? I imagine Liz Truss is feeling hurt and wounded by the whole experience. In two weeks she will face the music of the local Association in a general meeting, where she will face calls for her deselection. I hope we get to see what mettle she is made of. I wouldn’t blame her at all if late at night she had thoughts of throwing in the towel. She would only be human. But I really hope she doesn’t and that she fights this to the end.

Can we also put to rest another myth, the one which says that David Cameron is trying to parachute in candidates against the will of local parties. It’s rubbish. The six strong shortlist was drawn up by the local party with very little direction from the centre. The local party included one local candidate. James Tumbridge, who fought Norwich North at the last election, but ignored the merits of any other local candidates among the 150 or so who put their names forward. Presumably they did that because they felt that Liz Truss and the four other candidates were of better quality. What other reason can there have been?

I am all in favour of local candidates being selected where they merit it. But if they genuinely aren’t there and don’t come forward, what are we saying? That inferior people should be selected just because they happen to have a local accent? I don’t know how many were at the selection meeting which voted for Liz Truss by a majority on the first ballot, but it will have been at least 200. They did this because they thought she would be a better MP than James Tumbridge or the other four. No one told them or influenced them to vote that way. They did it of their own free will.

And I hope they will repeat the exercise in two weeks. If they vote to deselect Liz Truss it will be a dark day indeed – not just for Liz, but for the Conservative Party.

Book of the Day: Dilly - The Man Who Broke Enigma

From the new Biteback Publishing blog, written by the author of DILLY: THE MAN WHO BROKE ENIGMA, Mavis Batey. Mavis is 88 years old and worked at Bletchley Park.

Normally an obituary in The Times would provide a framework for a biography of an important person in any given field, but that simply wasn't true of the one written for my boss at the British wartime codebreaking base at Bletchley Park. This was the wonderfully eccentric but outstandingly brilliant Alfred Dillwyn Knox, known to his many friends and admirers simply as ‘Dilly’.

George Steiner, the American writer and philosopher, has described the codebreaking achievements that took place at Bletchley Park as ‘the single greatest achievement of Britain during 1939-1945, perhaps during the 20th century as a whole’. If that is true, then Dilly’s own achievements must be ranked among the greatest in their own right.

Dilly’s work on the various Enigma ciphers was certainly among the most important and significant carried out at Bletchley. Enigma was not one single cipher machine, as is often suggested, but a family of many different ciphers and it was Dilly and his research section, of which I was a proud member, who were asked to find a way into each new cipher as it appeared.
The failure of his obituary in The Times to do him justice when he died in early 1943 was caused by the absolute secrecy surrounding the work on Enigma. The obituary mentioned that his father was a former Bishop of Manchester; that his brother was Monsignor Ronald Knox, a famous Catholic theologian; and that another brother, ‘Evoe’, was editor of Punch. It also mentioned his work as a Classicist reconstructing the mimes of the Greek poet and playwright Herodas.

What it could not mention was that he was one of the leading members of Room 40, the Admiralty’s celebrated codebreaking section during the First World War, broke Bolshevik ciphers during the 1920s and 30s, and Enigma ciphers during the Spanish Civil War and Second World War. What it would certainly not have been possible to mention, even without the understandable secrecy, was that Dilly’s greatest triumph had not even taken place when the obituary was written.

Shortly before he died, in great pain from the cancer, Dilly broke the Enigma cipher used by the German secret service, the Abwehr. It was this that allowed MI5 and MI6 to manipulate the intelligence the Germans were receiving through the Double Cross System and fool them into leaving too few troops in Normandy to counter the allied landings.

Now that many more previously secret records have been released into the archives, I have at last had the chance to give my old boss the credit he deserves. I felt a strong sense of déjà vu in seeing once more the same secret enemy messages that we handled over sixty years ago, but then the secrecy was such that even I was unaware of the effect Dilly’s work had on the allied success in the war. I was determined in writing this book to ensure that what Dilly did was never forgotten.

Buy the book HERE.

The Former Ambassador to Warsaw Exposes Labour Hypocrisy Over Kaminsky - Twice

Charles Crawford was our Ambassador to Poland. He now writes an excellent blog. He's written a couple of excellent posts on the Kaminski situation in the last couple of days which you can read HERE and HERE.

When the Law and Justice party won the 2005 general elections, there were a few progressive squeaks about the fact that European Civilisation had just ended since Poland had been kidnapped by wild anti-semitic homophobes.

Closer examination suggested that this was not in fact the case.

Which was why in successive high-level meetings between PM Tony Blair and Polish leaders there was not one word of concern expressed publicly or privately by the British side on these scores.

I know because I was in on all these meetings.

And, yes, in 2005 Michal Kaminski himself was there at the No 10 dining-table next to PM Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, scoffing prawn cocktail as Tony Blair's guest.

If David Miliband will not apologise to Michal Kaminski and sticks to his guns that Kaminski is a disgrace, maybe he should then apologise to the British people for Labour using taxpayers' money to host such a disgraceful person at this high level and then resign?

And while he is at it, he also might explain why not a single word of instructions issued to us in Warsaw from London to take up with the Polish side issues of anti-semitism, Jedwabne and all this other stuff.

What in fact happened was that the Labour leadership energetically supported by D Miliband instructed the Warsaw Embassy to get as close as we could to the Kaczynskis and their party, to help align them with us in successive big negotiations over the EU Budget (2005) and Lisbon Treaty (2007).

Which is what my team and I did, with excellent results - and much praise from the FCO and No 10.

And then this, today...

One of the points made by Labour against Kaminski is that he was in effect playing an anti-semitic card by arguing against the apology by then President Kwasniewski for the Jedwabne massacre.

It's obvious! Any Pole arguing against the form or principle of such an apology has to be at the very least a revolting person, and more probably a horrid anti-semitic extremist.

Well...

80% of Poles at the time (2001) felt that is was good that the crime at Jedwabne had been made public, but a similar 80% did not feel any moral responsibility for it - why should they? Opinion on President Kwasniewski's apology was divided, with a slight margin in favour.

Noting the complexity of these issues, the then Polish PM Jerzy Buzek was very careful in the way he chose his words:

The slaughter in Jedwabne was not perpetrated in the name of the nation, nor in the name of the Polish state. Poland was at the time an occupied country. Yet, if as a nation we have the right to be proud of those Poles who, at the risk of their lives, sheltered Jews then we must also acknowledge the guilt of those who took part in their slaughter.

We are ready to confront even the darkest facts of our history, but in the spirit of truth, without seeking presumed justifications. We will not, however, agree to have the Jedwabne event serve to popularize false theses of Poland's complicity in the Holocaust or about inborn Polish anti-Semitism.

Hmm. Is that formulation not just a bit defensive. Even ... shifty? Surely that crafty drafting masks a deep anti-semitic instinct!

And where is Mr Buzek these days?

Oh yes, here.

Some things are complicated and deeply morally challenging. Simplify them for banal political purposes at your peril.

How very strange that Labour aren't attacking Mr Buzek, the new President of the European Parliament. After all, he's committed the same "thought crime" as Mr Kaminsky. Surely something inconsistent in left of centre thinking, wouldn't you say?

I Had A Brand New Combine Harvester

At the Tory Party Conference I recorded a three minute video on the stand of the Institution of Occupational Safety & Health about my first job. I'm not quite sure they got what they bargained for, as I related tales from my childhood, helping my Dad on the farm and driving a combine harvester unsupervised at the age of eight. I reckon I had the most perfect childhood anyone could ever have had. What a shame that health and safety rules would stop me having it nowadays!

Click HERE to watch the video.

Are You, or Have You Ever Been...?

I write a fortnightly column for the EDP, and I have great respect for the EDP's political editor Chris Fisher so I shall choose my words carefully. His story today alleges that the Association Chairman was blocked by CCHQ from asking the following question at Liz Truss's selection meeting.

Is there anything in your political, professional or personal life which could conceivably mean that you could attract adverse media publicity either now, in the run-up to the election, or subsequently?

The chairman, Hugh Colver, gave a robust response.

Mr Colver, who worked at Conservative Central Office in 1995, has emphatically denied colluding with it to aid Ms Truss's selection by not asking the 'adverse publicity' question. “I was just waiting for someone to accuse me of that”, he said.

It is true that this question is often asked at the first round of a selection contest. I have no idea whether it was asked at the SW Norfolk Executive Round. I have had it asked in several selection contests, but none in the four selections I have taken part in since the 2005 election. It certainly wasn't asked in Maidstone or Bracknell. So I cannot see there is any kind of conspiracy afoot in South West Norfolk.

I wonder whether other candidates have had it put to them in recent selections.

An Interview With TV's Shane Greer

Tory Rascal has done a rather nice interview with TV's Shane Greer, which you can read HERE.

For those of you don't know him, Shane is from Northern Ireland, although people often think he is American for some reason. I first met him working at 18 Doughty Street and he now works with me as Executive Editor of Total Politics. He and I put the initial business plan together back in the latter part of 2007. In two weeks' time he is getting married to the lovely Brittany - which reminds, me, I need to get measured up for my top hat and tails!

Shane's media profile is increasing all the time, and he deserves it, because he is bloody good at it. Naturally, I taught him all he knows :).

I'm proud to say he's also one of my best friends.

Miliband Campaign Is Already Over

Likes Tony Blair's campaign for the EU Presidency, it looks like David Miliband's nascent campaign to be EU High Representative hasn't got off to a good start. Here's what the Chairman of the Polish Law and Justice Party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has said today...

We respect David Miliband as Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom. But before we could consider him for the role of EU High Representative, we must politely ask him to apologise for the remarks he has made about our party and our leading MEP Michal Kaminski. Law and Justice is a major party in Poland, and our country’s President is from our party. We understand that Mr Miliband has made a mistake, and we would ask him to correct it.

No chance. I don't think Mr Miliband quite realises how badly his vituperative remarks have gone down in Poland.

I wonder what the future holds for David Miliband. He certainly won't be leader of the Labour Party. He also won't be getting the EU job. Anyone suggest what he might do next?

An Unpleasant Encounter With Anne Atkins

I'd love to know what her husband puts in Anne Atkins' morning coffee, because whatever it is, I don't want any of it. I've just had the displeasure of appearing on the Jeremy Vine Show with her to discuss the Liz Truss situation. To say it was a shouting match doesn't do justice to the term.

Her basic premise was that people who have had affairs shouldn't stand for election. But she was so vicious and nasty with it that I am afraid I allowed my inner bitch to let rip at her. She gave as good as she got, but I managed to get the last word and expressed the hope that the South West Norfolk would be less narrow minded than her. It would be difficult not to be, to be honest.

She purports to be a Christian. A less christian person you are never likely to meet. Clearly God never gave her the ability to empathise or express forgiveness.

I shall now calm down, relax and go and have some lunch with the web summit delegates here in Dublin.

UPDATE: Apologies for the rather unfortunate typo in the original headline of this blogpost. It has now been corrected.

UPDATE: You can listen to the show HERE. Scroll in 33 minutes.

UPDATE: Oh how I wish I had known this little snippet before I debated with Ms Atkins. Apparently she thinks Norfolk people are thick... Click HERE. But the one remark from her we all treasure is this... "If we all heeded the Christian teaching, there would be no HIV or Aids.”

Chief Rabbi: "Kaminski is Not an Anti Semite"

I notice that Denis MacShane, David Miliband, James Macintyre and others on the left have been silent this morning about the Polish Chief Rabbi's interview with the Today Programme. As well they might, as he has blown apart their hateful arguments about Michal Kaminski being an anti semite.

Judge for yourselves by listening to the Chief Rabbi's interview HERE.

Jonathan Isaby writes...

When I met him at the Conservative Party conference, he rebutted these claims, yet the smears have continued. William Hague has already demanded an apology from David Miliband for the slurs and he did so again yesterday on the Today programme.

This morning, the Polish Chief Rabbi, Michael Shudrich, nailed these smears as false once and for all in an interview on the Today programme. You can listen to it for yourself here.

He made clear:

• Michal Kaminski is a strong ally of the state of Israel;
• He has condemned anti-Semitism;
• His Law and Justice Party is a "mainstream party" which no-one in Poland would consider as a "fringe right party".

The nonsense from the pro-European Left simply has to stop. As David Cameron rightly said at his press conference on Tuesday, those making the attacks are waging "a totally politically-driven campaign" because they don't like the fact that the Conservatives are now part of a group that doesn't go along with everything Europe does.

The fact that the left continues this campaign of traducement says far more about their own moral compass than it does about Kaminski.

The Pots & Kettles of Denis MacShane

And Denis MacShane has the bare faced cheek to accuse ME of being a propagandist. Does he never look in the mirror?!!! His latest effort at black propaganda is to equate Michal Kaminski with Nick Griffin. Desperate stuff from a desperate party. Believe me, it will only get worse.

Bruton to Brutalise Blair's EU Bid?

I've just landed in Dublin, where I will be for the next 24 hours, to learn that former Irish Premier John Bruton is launching a bid to be the first EU president and thereby scupper Tony Blair in the process.

The devil in me would love to see Blair get it, but not for good reasons! It would certainly cement Eurosceptic sentiment in the UK, and I doubt whether it would do much for pro EU feeling throughout the rest of the continent.

But I am convinced he won't win through and that there will be a compromise candidate from one of the smaller countries. Bruton could be the man, although the Dutch premier Jan Peter Balkenende would also be a good bet.

How Very Illiberal of a LibDem Mayor

The phrase 'political correctness gone mad' is overused. But I can't think of a better way of describing what is happening in Watford. Essentially, parents have been barred from public playgrounds in parks. Instead, they are forced to wait outside the railings whilst council-employed "play facilitators" assist the children.

The council claim it is due to Ofsted regulations, although Ofsted have stated "only people working with children needed to be checked, not all adults on the premises. It added: 'We would never seek to prevent parents and carers having access to their own children.'"

The most pernicious quote is from the Mayor of Watford, the LibDem Dorothy Thornhill:

'Sadly, in today's climate, you can't have adults walking around unchecked in a children's playground.'

Honestly. Why not ban parents from having children, then? Wouldn't that save us all a lot of heartache worrying about paedophiles. What is it about some politicians that they have simply lost the ability to differentiate between a real danger and trying to get all bases covered. Of course society should take all reasonable steps to protect children from danger, but when it gets to the stage that all adults are seen as potential child molesters we really do have to start asking questions.

And for a supposedly 'Liberal' mayor to go along with this raises all sorts of questions about what it means to be a Liberal Democrat nowadays.

And believe me, I'd be writing exactly the same thing if this concerned a Conservative mayor.

The full background to the story is HERE in Metro.

UPDATE 2.15pm: The LibDems are in full flow trying to deflect this as a non story. However, perhaps they might like to explain why Dorothy Thornhill deleted this story from her blog...

http://dorothythornhill.mycouncillor.org.uk/2009/10/28/adventure-playgrounds-no-adults-please/

I think we should be told.

UPDATE 2.20pm: And what do we know. Heresy Corner has retrieved Mayor Thornhill's blogpost HERE, in which she defends the action. So, what prompted her to delete this blogpost if, as the LibDems say, this is a storm in a teacup?

Guido Explains Labour Attack Cock-Up

Guido has a wonderful piece HERE about how a Labour attack strategy against George Osborne went off at half cock. They really can't get anything right, can they?

Polish Chief Rabbi Slams New Statesman Kaminski Story

Remember the attempt by James Macintyre of the New Statesman to assert that the Chief Rabbi in Poland had criticised Michal Kaminski and urged David Cameron to sever ties with him. Rabbi Shudrich has today given his real views. I wonder whether James Macintyre will be man enough to admit he misled his readers. This is what Rabbi Shudrich has said...

There is no doubt that Kaminski is a strong friend of the State of Israel. He himself has spoken out against anti-Semitism on several occasions during the past decade. It is a grotesque distortion that people are quoting me to prove that Kaminski is an anti-Semite. Portraying Kaminski as a neo Nazi plays into the painful and false stereotype that all Poles are anti-Semitic.

I would also like to clarify that the headline of James Macintyre article of July 29, 2009 entitled: "Jewish Leaders Turn on Cameron's Tories: Poland's chief rabbi and others call on Cameron to sever ties with Polish MEP" does not represent what I said to the author. I made no political statement and this headline is misleading and untrue.

So there we have it. If Kaminski is acceptable to the Chief Rabbi of Poland, shouldn't David Miliband now take back the disgusting allegations he has made against Michal Kaminski and the Conservative Party? Shouldn't Denis MacShane look himself in the mirror at some of the terrible things he has said? And will James Macintyre explain how he misled his readers and admit he got it wrong?

I might as well save my breath.

Nice Money If You Can Get It

MPs heard today that if they step down from Parliament or are defeated at an election, their 'resettlement' grant (which can amount to between £30,000 and £60,000) will be reduced to two months salary. So they may well choke on their rice and gruel (after today's news, it's all they can afford) when they read about the bumper payoff to Glasgow City Council's Director of Childrens' Services, Margaret Doran. She trousered £278,000 as a payoff after the council decided to break up her department.

Ms Doran is married to Labour MP Michael Connarty.

Another gift to the SNP.

Iain Martin's FT Watch

Iain Martin's new blog on the WSJ site is fast becoming unmissable. He has launched a one man campaign to hold the Financial Times to account for its apparent anti-Tory bias. Read THIS fisking of their analysis of George Osborne's speech on Monday. Very entertaining. And if you haven't bookmarked his blog so far, now's the time to do it.

The Rights and Wrongs of Kelly's Leaks

Many MPs will be very displeased by the contents of the leak of some of Sir Christopher Kelly's proposals. However, the public are in no mood to listen to what they will see as self-interested bleatings. I think, therefore, they probably have little alternative but to go along with them. That doesn't make them 100 per cent right, though.

Let's take the case of MPs employing their wives or huisbands. In most cases they do a very good job. It is all very well to ban new MPs employing relatives (and I said when I was in North Norfolk I wouldn't do it) but it is quite another to force existing MPs to sack their wives. Employment and anti-discrimination legislation ought to see that it can't happen. A five year phasing in period isn't a solution.

The mortgage interest ban was inevitable, and it is right that MPs should not be able to benefit at the taxpayer's expense. However, let no one pretend that the taxpayer will get a better deal from this proposal. If you have a £250,000 mortgage at the moment you're probably paying around £400 a month in interest. Even when rates were 5 per cent it was only around £1,250. Yet try finding a one bedroom flat in central London for less than that. Even in the suburbs you'll be forking out in excess of £1,000.

MPs who live within a "reasonable" commute of London (said to be defined as an hour) won't qualify for a second home allowance at all. I can foresee all sorts of issues about what constitutes an hour's commute. But I totally agree that with the hours the Commons sits now it is right to expect inner and outer London MPs (and possibly more) to return to their main homes at night. I presume there will be an allowance for hotel accommodation on the odd nights where the Commons sits until midnight or 1am.

MPs should think very carefully about how they react to these changes. But I suspect we will now see a number of them standing down in protest.

David Davis "Outraged" Over Truss Deselection Bid

I'm travelling back to London on a train from Guildford where David Davis and I have been treading the boards at the Yvonne Arnaud theatre.

We have just heard the news that South West Norfolk Conservatives have voted to refer Liz Truss's selection back to a full meeting of the Association, which will take place in nearly three weeks' time.

I believe the Party and its leadership must take a very strong stand on this. It is completely unacceptable for Liz to be treated like this, and I have no doubt that it wouldn't be happening if she was male. If SW Norfok Tories are so incompetent that they can't use Google that's their lookout. Their social outlook is neanderthal. Should having an affair disqualify you from standing? No. Should not overtly revealing it to a selection process disqualify you? No. If this is allowed to stand, we're heading down a very slippery slope.

David Davis just told me. "I don't know Liz Truss but I am outraged to hear of this and it's no way to treat anybody, least of all when you have been so careless as to conduct a selection without looking them up on Google."

Why Liz Truss Must Pull Through

Imagine it. A political party selects a candidate who in her past has had an affair. Shock, horror. According to the Eastern Daily Press yesterday, South West Norfolk Conservatives are in the mood to deselect Liz Truss, only three days after she was selected as their PPC. Why? Because three years she had an affair, and didn't tell the constituency party about it before her selection. Dear oh dear. Do we live in the dark ages?

Firstly, if the candidate had been a man, do we really think there would be such a fuss? And secondly, it's not as if the affair was a secret. Can South West Norfolk Conservatives not use Google? If you were selecting a candidate, wouldn't that be the first thing you would do? Type their name into Google and see what emerged? Apparently not a single one of them bothered to do that.

But even if they had, is a talented woman really to be deselected over an affair which happened several years ago? The ten people meeting this evening to decide her fate ought to look very deeply into their own pasts and ask themselves if they have lived totally unblemished lives. Very few people have.

The EDP story is littered with anonymous quotes from "outraged" local Tories. What a pity none of them has the guts to put their names to their tawdry views.

I hope Liz Truss comes out fighting.

David Cameron has said in the EDP today that he backs Liz Truss and there is an implicit threat that if the Association seeks to go to the wire on this, they will be put in special measures. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

For what it's worth, Liz has my complete support, and I hope readers of this blog will be more forgiving that some members of South West Norfolk Conservatives appear to be.

PS For the avoidance of doubt, I am not saying this because Liz Truss is a friend of mine. She isn't. I think I have only met her twice, so please can we avoid the ritual accusations that usually follow when I write a piece like this about Dale only defending his mates.

UKIP Stares into a Financial Abyss

UKIP has been denied the right to appeal to the Supreme Court over the £363,000 fine over the illegal donation by Alan Bown. It seems astonishing that the Court of Appeal would make this decision. UKIP must now make a direct appeal to the Supreme Court or face financial ruin. I say this with no relish at all, as the punishment in this case does not fit the crime. If a UKIPballs type rescue fund is set up, I suspect a lot of non UKIP voters will put their hands in their pockets.



As Michael Crick has blogged, the LibDems will also be shifting uneasily in their seats at this decision, as it could them next. They face having to pay back £2.4 million over the donation from convicted fraudster Michael Brown.

Eleanor Laing Wins Deselection Vote

Epping Forest Tories tonight backed their MP Eleanor Laing after a small group of local Tory members had tried to oust her. She survived a formal deselection vote by what was described to me as an "overwhelming majority" of the two hundred members present.

The deselection move was launched by Di Collins, mother of former MP Tim Collins and a local councillor.

UPDATE 9.59: The vote was 164 to 32.

Technologically Challenged

My laptop went purple today. And it froze. Kaputt. Totally and utterly. On top of that I can't get Twitterberry to work. So I took advice and downloaded Ubertwitter on my Blackberry. That doesn't work either. So I'm sat at home typing on an old laptop on which the space bar barely works and the keyboard doesn't have any letters on it. And you all thought I was high tec, didn't you?

So up to Tottenham Court Road tomorrow morning to blow money I don't have on yet another Sony Vaio. And before all you Mac freaks start bleating on, save your breath. Not in a zillion years. I made that mistake once before and I won't be making it again! Macs are the invention of the devil. And that's my final word on the matter!

So if blogging is a little, er, light over the next 24 hours, you'll know why.

Book of the Day: Best Seat in the House by Frank Johnson

If you're stuck on what to buy a political friend for Christmas, you could do a lot worse than buy the new book of political and parliamentary sketches by the much missed Frank Johnson. BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE pulls together his two previous sketch books with lots of added new material.

I remember when I first became interested in politics in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Frank's sketches in the Telegraph were an absolute delight. He really was one of the finest, if not the, finest sketchwriters of his generation.

it was Frank who dubbed Norman Tebbit the "Chingford Strangler" and first called Dennis Skinner the "Beast of Bolsover".

There are also some wonderful vignettes about his love of opera and ballet and his life in France with his wife Virginia Fraser, who has lovingly compiled the book.

Buy the book HERE.

An Internet Election in Iraq?

Proof that the internet is having a major impact on elections all over the world can be seen in this website of a newly announced candidate for the Iraqi presidential elections next year. It's the sort of site which you would normally see in a US election. The press release announcing the site says...

Ayad Jamal Aldin is a young, Shia cleric, best known for his consistent campaigning for a new, secular Iraq. He first rose to prominence at the Nasiriyah conference in March 2003, shortly before the fall of Saddam, where he called for a state free of religion, the turban and other theological symbols. In 2005, he was elected as one of the 25 MPs on the Iraqi National List, but withdrew in 2009 after becoming disenchanted with Iyad Allawi’s overtures to Iran. He wants complete independence from Iranian interference in Iraq. He now leads the Ahrar party for the 2010 election to the Council of Representatives, to clean up corruption and create a strong, secure and liberated Iraq for the future.

Is this proof that democracy is starting to embed itself into Iraq's political culture? I have no idea how likely Ayad Jamal Aldin is to win, but I think it is fascinating to see how Iraqi politicians are now openly using western new media campaigning methods.

Blair Prepares the Motorcade

The papers are getting very excited about Tony Blair becoming President of the EU. Try as I might I just can't get exercised about it.

My overwhelming thought is that the EU and Tony Blair deserve each other. Or am I being unfair on Tony Blair?

It seems to me that flailing around trying to carve out a role for yourself on the world stage is something both Blair and the EU have been trying to do for several years. And neither have met with huge success.

Still, I wish Mr Blair the very best of luck. If anything guarantees that this country remains overwhelmingly eurosceptic, it would be the prospect of him becoming President of the EU.

Thoughts on Candidate Selection

When I applied for Bracknell I made much of the fact that I hadn't applied for other constituencies. None of the other candidates were able to say that. A fat lot of good it did me! It also meant that when the next batch of constituencies were advertised (Esher, Gosport, Devizes & Central Suffolk among them), I felt I couldn't in all conscience apply for any of them while I was still in for Bracknell, as the deadline was a week before the Bracknell final.

Others took a different approach. Rory Stewart was in for Penrith while Bracknell was going on, and Katy Lindsay was in for Woking and Sleaford. For Rory it worked out, for Katy it didn't (but she WILL be a great MP for a very lucky constituency!).

I still don't know whether I was (or am) right to do one at a time. All I know is that I can only apply for constituencies which I feel I can connect with, and which I have some affinity with. However, some commenters on here seem to think that unless you can prove you have lived somewhere all your life you should be excluded from applying. Rubbish. Was Margaret Thatcher a bad MP for Finchley? Is Nick Clegg a bad constituency MP because he doesn't come from Sheffield? Does anyone think David Ed Miliband can't represent Doncaster properly because he isn't a local?

And anyway, what constitutes local? Phillip Lee lived 10 miles from Bracknell and so had a claim to be a local, yet living 5 miles outside Henley was enough to bar him from applying to be the candidate there in the by-election - not local enough, you see.

I live twenty minutes from Beckenham and Orpington. Does that make me a local or an outsider? Is that really the main criteria by which we should be judging a candidate? Shouldn't we be picking candidates who can do the best job in representing a constituency and who would make the best parliamentarians? That person may or may not be local to the area at the time of selection.

Meanwhile, I have just finished reading one of the more ridiculous posts on ConservativeHome I have read in many a month. Its readers have submitted twenty ideas to help get more women selected. While some have some merit, others are positively patronising and wrong-headed. I feel in the mood for a light fisk... My comments are in green.

1. End strong arm tactics: "Strong arm tactics can backfire and probably will in some areas". Another said: "CCO have interfered so much that every Association is suspicious women aren't there on merit. Stop all positive discimination and go back to a level playing field." It's got to the stage where people think some of the men aren't there on merit either. Six is too many for a final selection. Associations should be given the power to kick out one man and one woman before the final takes place, leaving a final of 2+2.
   
2. Promotional video: Make a YouTube video featuring Priti Patel and Philippa Stroud and our other impressive female candidates. They could explain how they succeeded in becoming candidates. Fair enough, but why restrict it to women. Many men have succeeded against the odds too.
   
3. Headhunt from female-dominated backgrounds: "More women attracted onto the Candidates List from careers where women dominate, including teaching and healthcare" plus "Targeting the public sector and small businesses to encourage more women to come forward who are not Westminster centric in their backgrounds." Exactly. The key to this is to get more women to come forward in the first place. If there are 30% on the candidates list, don't be surprised that 30% are being selected. So yes, headhunting and tapping on shoulders is a good idea.
   
4. A more balanced candidates list: CHQ putting more women and less men on the approved list in the firstplace. I agree with this. The key thing to do would be to ensure a 50-50 candidates list, alongside 50-50 final selections. At the moment the issue is being tackled from the wrong end.
   
5. Tackle the financial handicap facing women candidates: "Bursaries for full time mothers who otherwise might not afford the process of candidate selection", "Setting up a scheme to give financial help to PPCs on moderate incomes with child care needs" and "More support for selected candidates in fighting elections so that all candidates can balance family, childcare and the cost of the campaign." I suggested a bursary scheme for people who find affording being a candidate difficult back in 2005. But this should apply to all candidates, not just women.
   
6. Force rich candidates to declare special help: Make candidates declare whether they have had specialist coaching. Many rich men have paid for special help. Associations should know this. Utter bollocks. I've never paid for any form of coaching and never will, but to suggest that it should be declared is ridiculous. Most of the time it's perfectly obvious who has been coached and who hasn't.
   
7. Reduce the burdens on candidates: Many female candidates are put off by the endless Association events and the requirement to attend every by election. Allow them to focus on the essential. And, er, how is this different for men? A decent candidate comes to an accomodation with his or her association over what is appropriate. A candidate who lets themselves be steamrollered is perhaps in the wrong job.
   
8. A more family-friendly House of Commons: Better childminding facilities in House of Commons and more family friendly hours. Yes to the first. And a limited yes to the second. I am more interested in hours which get the job done. Being an MP is not a 9-5, 5 day a week job and never can be. Deal with it.
   
9. More protection from the media for MPs and their families: A party leadership that protects MPs when the media mob goes after them. Any mother will have noted that Cameron threw his MPs to the wolves. Rubbish and an idiotic interpretation of what has happened. The outside world will never know how much the party leadership and whips do to help people in difficulties with the media. It's not the sort of thing they shout about, strangely enough.
   
10. Shadow cabinet mentoring: Every shadow cabinet minister should adopt a female candidate and be encouraged to help her get selected. I have no problem with mentoring, but for a shadow cabinet to "help get her selected" would surely be wrong, depending on what that help entails. No one objects to a CV endorsement - we all have them. But it is difficult to see what this proposal means beyond that.
    
11. Move to open primary ballots: It was not an accident that a woman won in Totnes when it was tried. And who will pay for them, exactly? In Totnes two of the three candidates were women. I'd like to see some more of these pure open primaries and then we can draw some proper lessons from them.
    
12. Independent guidance for Associations: At the start of every selection meeting a professional headhunter should talk to the Association about the value of female candidates. If this person is a professional and not a CCHQ functionary they will get a hearing. No, a headhunter should talk about what an local association should be looking for in a good candidate, be they male or female.
    
13. 'Blind sifting': At sift stage no indication given as to age, sex background etc of candidate. An interesting proposal. Age isn't included on the CV anyway, so we can rule that out. Nor is marital status. How on earth is an Association to choose if they aren't allowed to know about the background of a candidate. Are you saying names should be taken out too?
    
14. A less macho selection process: No speeches in selection contests. They favour men. Use sofa style interviews. One respondent wrote: "A selection method that involves more than just the ability to "perform" to a large audience. This is why women don't do well. The entire process is geared up to assess only the ability to perform in a "question time" style arena. Ability to influence legislation, work in committee and connect to constituents is entirely absent from the final stages of the assessment. It is no wonder that we end up with MPs who lack integrity and ability, since they've only been assessed on a single dimension - the ability to charm an audience - which is directly correlated with the ability to manipulate, and almost entirely unconnected with the ability to add real value. We select "talking heads" not good decision makers. It depends whether you want MPs who are good at talking or good at doing. We get the former, but not the latter." Another wrote: "Less focus on just the big meeting. Women are often very good on the doorstep and in chairing, participating in meetings - not just a few gags in a big meeting. As a candidate, the doorstep and meeting side is so very important." This really gets to me. Does anyone seriously suggest that women aren't just as capable as men of making speeches? Making speeches is a pretty vital part of being an MP and a parliamentarian. Some are better at it than others. There are plenty of men who can't make a speech to save their lives. The Open Primary system, with the interview, reduces the importance of speeches, but surely we should expect a politician to be able to stand on their hind legs and string a few words together? Obviously the job entails far more than speechmaking, but much of the other things mentioned above are tested in the day long course which you have to do to get on the candidates list in the first place.
    
15. Punishment of sexism: Expulsion of any Tory member who asks sexist questions. No questions of a sexist nature or regarding a candidate's family are allowed at a selection.
16. ConHome should "bless" "sound" candidates: Too many women candidates are newly recruited and we don't know if they are true conservatives. The grassroots trust ConHome and its blessing would carry weight. You what?! Since when was ConservativeHome the arbiter of what makes a true Conservative?! Possibly the most outrageous suggestion of all. And one I hope Tim Montgomerie will give short shrift to. The Conservative Party is a coalition. The fact that Dan Hannan and Ken Clarke are both true Conservatives should be a cuase for celebration in our party, not a matter for division.
    
17. Pooled selections: Multiple selections - people may be more willing to pick a mixture if they have to pick more than one. I have no idea what this means.
18. Require constituency selection panels to be balanced: Require the selection panel to be balanced by age and gender and allow them to choose from any number of males and females on a shortlist. Most constituencies do this anyway in my experience. The A List is dead for all intents and purposes. So a constituency gets to pick from all applicants, although admittedly the number on the shortlist is now 6 - 3 men and 3 women.
    
19. Executive committee selection: Revert to selection by constituency executive committee, thus cutting out the large numbers of older women heavily prejudiced against women candidates and especially opposed to women candidates with children. No. Open Primaries reduce the risk of this, assuming that the risk still exists. I would say selection by a constituency executive would be counterproductive. I just don't buy this line that nowadays it's the women who scupper the women. It might have been true in the past, but not now. Or am I wrong?
    
20. Patience: The number of women candidates has grown a lot in last few years. It will grow again with time. Rushing the issue will lead to inferior women candidates getting selected. Much progress has been made. We should never be afraid of adopting new initiatives, but not for their own sake. I think going from 9% to 30% women candidates is not bad progress. To expect it to go to 40% or 50% in one leap was never realistic.

So, what other ideas would readers of this blog come up with for helping the Conservative Party along the way to choosing more diverse candidates. I could never support the concept of all minority shortlists for reasons I have explained before. But it is clear that there is still some way to go in persuading some constituencies of the benefits of selecting a woman - and not just in the Conservative Party. Those who think the Conservatives have some way to go in this area just need to look at the record of the LibDems in selecting woman and ethnic minorities in winnable seats. At least the Conservatives are taking action.

Congratulations to Rory Stewart & Liz Truss

I was delighted to see a tweet from @ericpickles informing us that Rory Stewart has tonight been selected as Conservative candidate in Penrith & the Border. Rory was second in Bracknell, ahead of me. He is certainly a very independent minded individual and is just what the Conservative parliamentary needs. There won't be many Tory MPs who can compete with his unique CV!

Congratulations also to Liz Truss who was selected yesterday for South West Norfolk. Liz is deputy director of the excellent think tank Reform.

UPDATE: Paul Waugh gives his take on Rory Stewart HERE.

Vote: Top 100 Political Journalists

Last year Total Politics ran its first Top 100 Political Journalists Poll. And it's now time for the 2009 edition.

I'd like to ask my blogreaders to take the same poll, although the results won't be included in the main poll, but instead will be posted on here separately.

Click HERE to vote.

You need to rate each journalist with a mark out of ten. The survey will remain live until midnight on Friday.

The survey will take about ten minutes to complete. You will be asked to rate reporters, commentators, columnists, TV journalists, radio journalists and bloggers.

NOTE: If you are a lobby journalist or parliamentarian, you will be emailed separately with a link to a bespoke survey, so please don't fill this one in. If you haven't received an email by the end of Monday please get in touch and I will send you the link.

Interviewing Vince Cable

Tomorrow morning I am interviewing Vince Cable for one of my IN CONVERSATION pieces for the next issue of Total Politics. Feel free to suggest questions you think I should ask him.

Deep or Shallow

I rather enjoyed this comment left by an anonymous reader yesterday.

I rarely disagree with you, but when I do I can't help linking your musical tastes to your assertions on, er, things I disagree with. That is, I then link your low-grade, as I perceive them, political views to your low-grade, as I perceive them, musical tastes. Does anyone else think an unwillingness to look beyond Cliff and Roxette must inevitably limit a societal outlook?

Deep, eh? Slightly undermined by the fact that I have 32,000 songs on my iPod and they can't all be by Cliff or Roxette...

I'm not quite sure what a 'low grade' political view is, but I am sure I have many of them. It's amusing that the author of this comment thinks I have 'high grade' views when he agrees with me and 'low grade' ones when he doesn't. I'm not sure the word 'tolerance' figures much in his vocabulary!

Labour Is Responsible for the Rise of the BNP

Rather hilariously, Bob Piper blames the Conservative Party for the rise of the BNP. A neat deflection tactic, as I note he fails to mention anywhere on his blog the fact that the Labour leader of the council on which he serves has been charged with theft today.

I'll tell you what is responsible for the rise of the BNP. It's a Labour government that has failed the communities which is used to regard as its client state. It's a Labour government, which we are told tonight by one of its own advisers, that deliberately encouraged as much immigration as possible in order to make Britain a truly multicultural society. Well that worked well, didn't it?

The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a
politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and
"rub the Right's nose in diversity", according to Andrew Neather, a former
adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.

He said Labour's relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to "open up the UK to mass
migration" but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move
publicly for fear it would alienate its "core working class vote". As a result,
the public argument for immigration concentrated instead on the economic
benefits and need for more migrants.

Critics said the revelations showed a "conspiracy" within Government to impose mass immigration for "cynical" political reasons. Mr Neather was a speech writer who worked in Downing Street for Tony Blair and in the Home Office for Jack Straw and David Blunkett,
in the early 2000s.

Writing in the Evening Standard, he revealed the "major shift" in immigration policy came after the publication of a policy paper from the Performance and Innovation Unit, a Downing Street think tank based in the Cabinet Office, in 2001. He wrote a major speech for Barbara Roche, the then immigration minister, in 2000, which was largely based on drafts of the report. He said the final published version of the report promoted the labour market case for immigration but unpublished versions contained additional reasons, he said.

He wrote: "Earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural. "I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn't its main purpose – to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date."

The "deliberate policy", from late 2000 until "at least February last year", when the new points based system was introduced, was to open up the UK to mass migration, he said. Some 2.3 million migrants have been added to the population since then, according to Whitehall estimates quietly slipped out last month.

On Question Time on Thursday, Mr Straw was repeatedly quizzed about whether Labour's immigration policies had left the door open for the BNP. In his column, Mr Neather said that as well as bringing in hundreds of thousands more migrants to plug labour market gaps, there was also a "driving political purpose" behind immigration policy. He defended the policy, saying mass immigration has "enriched" Britain, and made London a more attractive and cosmopolitan place.
But he acknowledged that "nervous" ministers made no mention of the policy at the time for fear of alienating Labour voters.

"Part by accident, part by design, the Government had created its longed-for immigration boom.
"But ministers wouldn't talk about it. In part they probably realised the conservatism of their core voters: while ministers might have been passionately in favour of a more diverse society, it wasn't necessarily a debate they wanted to have in working men's clubs in Sheffield or Sunderland."

The chairmen of the cross-party Group for Balanced Migration, MPs Frank Field and Nicholas Soames, said: "We welcome this statement by an ex-adviser, which the whole country knows to be true. "It is the first beam of truth that has officially been shone on the immigration issue in Britain."

The cat is well and truly out of the bag.

Someone in an earlier thread reckoned that most BNP voters are ex Conservatives. Oh how I laughed. Funny, I hadn't realised that Blackburn, Burnley, Rotherham, Dewsbury, Dagenham and Barking had ever been Conservative constituencies. I don't know if any academic work has been done in this area, but as a guess, I'd say that 80% of BNP voters are ex-Labour voters. That may not always have been the case, but I'd bet a Pound to a penny it is now.

Far left Fascist parties like the BNP invariably do well under left wing governments which fail left of centre voters. Le Pen rose to prominence in France under Mitterand. The National Front in this country gained traction under Labour in the late 1970s, and now the BNP is on the rise here again.

I would venture to submit that this is no coincidence.

What Nick Griffin Really Meant

UPDATE 11.30pm: People in the comments seem to be under the impression that I made this video. Er, no. I thought it was vaguely amusing hence why I posted it. Apparently people are "disappointed" in me. Hey ho.

What's Good for the Goose: Part 94

As you know, I am, in general, a supporter of the concept of Open Primaries. On Wednesday I took part in a radio discussion on the subject with John Lloyd who has started a campaign called Open Up. It was a curious discussion in that Mr Lloyd seemed remarkably unknowledgeable about the very subject he was there to talk about.

I see from today's Times that the Open Up campaign has a leading supporter in Alan Parker of Brunswick PR. He wants to clean up politics and open politicians up to more scrutiny. Great stuff. Would this be the same Alan Parker who refuses to publish his own company's client list and won't join the industry's two trade bodies who demand transparency on client lists? Pot. Kettle.

Note: You can listen to the discussion on open primaries from the Simon Mayo programme by clicking HERE. Scroll in two hours 29 mins. Participants are John Lloyd, Anthony Barnett, Mark Hanson and myself.

Quote of the Day: Martin Bell

"Lord Carrington told me when he was Defence Secretary –
it must have been the early ‘70s –
Ted Heath’s Cabinet, every single member had served in the Armed Forces
except for the Education Secretary, Margaret Thatcher
and it was said of her, she’d have made a very effective machine gunner."

Martin Bell on BBC Straight Talk

Let's Have All Male Shortlists... In Primary Schools

Jonathan Sheppard has a unique way of solving the disparity between the sexes in primary school teaching. All male shortlists! Just one problem. Under employment legislation, it would be illegal. Funny that.

Labour MP: It's Racist Not to Invite Me on QTime!

Remember Dawn Butler? She's a Labour MP who seems to specialise in making an arse of herself. For those with short memories click HERE, HERE and HERE. And she's at it again this week, accusing the BBC of racism because they haven't invited her to appear on Question Time. Her reason? Her opponent at the next election, the "hideously white" Sarah Teather has been invited on three times this year. This conveniently ignores that fact that Teather is a leading LibDem front bench spokesman and the LibDems don't exactly have a huge genepool to choose from. Far be it from me to cast aspersions on Ms Butler's intellectual abilities, but her colleagues seem to regard her as, well, not the sharpest knife in the Labour drawer.

The BBC responded by saying...

The suggestion that Question Time does not feature panellists from a wide range of backgrounds simply does not bear scrutiny. Diane Abbott, David Lammy, Sayeeda Warsi, Priti Patel, Chuka Umunna, Shahid Malik, Shaun Bailey, Adam Afriyie, Baroness Amos and Paul Boateng have all appeared. Other panellists include the Rt Revd Nazir Ali, Archbishop Sentamu, Rageh Omaar, Shappi Khorsandi, June Sarpong, Trisha Goddard, Beverley Knight, Tim Campbell, Hardeep Singh, Salma Yaqoob, Yvonne Thompson and Bonnie Greer. Sarah Teather is part of the Liberal Democrat cabinet team and every Labour panellist in the current series has also been at cabinet level.

To accuse the BBC of racism just because she's not been invited onto the most high profile current affairs show on TV is typical of people who see racism in every perceived snub. The rest of us should just laugh at her craven attitude.

UPDATE: I have just been told that Dawn Butler was selected from an all black shortlist. So that's not racist then...

CD Review: Back In Style & Nicky Campbell

When celebrities try their hand at things outside their normal range of activity it usually leads to embarrassment. Nicky Campbell, however, has achieved something fantastic. He has written fourteen songs which have just been released on a CD called BACK IN STYLE, on which Mark Moraghan sings. It's a swing/jazz CD, very much in the style of Harrick Connick Jr. And to be honest, it's not the sort of music I would normally go out of my way to listen to. I put it in my car CD player expecting to whizz through all 14 tracks and listen to each one for a few seconds before deciding to revert to Roxette and Cliff. But not a bit of it. I was entranced and listened to the whole thing. Indeed, on the return journey I listened to it again.

How on earth, I thought, did a news presenter learn to write songs like this? And Campbell didn't just write the lyrics, he wrote the music too. I've always fancied turning my hand to writing songs - well, maybe just lyrics! - but it would be difficult to top this. Mark Moraghan's voice is exactly suited to swing and he puts in a great performance on each and every song, starting with the excellent COME FOR THE RIDE (which he co-wrote with Campbell). WE'LL NEVER HAVE MANHATTEN has a genuine New York feel to it and it's a song you can imagine Sinatra would have liked to sing. In short, and bearing in mind this is not my sort of music normally, there isn't a weak track on this CD. If you like Connick Jr or Sinatra, you'll love it.

Buy the CD HERE.

Brown Dealt Blow by Recession Figures

The figures released this morning showing that Britain remains in recession will come as a blow, not just to a government that has tried to talk things up, but to the whole country. This is apparently the longest recession in history, now that we have been in recession for six consecutive quarters.

France and Germany came out of recession six months ago. Will Gordon Brown admit that, contrary to what he said at the time, Britain was the least well prepared economy in Europe? Will he now admit that many of the measures the government have taken to get us out of recession haven't done what they were intended to do?

Not a chance. We have a government that hasn't got a single new idea about how to get the economy back on track. They've reduced VAT, borrowed to the hilt and even printed money. None of it has worked. Why? Because few people have confidence in their strategy - if that's what one could call it. People will only invest when they think things are on the right track.

George Osborne's task is to ensure that if and when he takes over at the Treasury, the money markets and small investors have confidence that he has what it takes to implement a new economic policy.

Griffin Bombs on Question Time

Let's be clear, Nick Griffin did not come over well on Question Time. He was nervous, trembling, acting with exaggerated gestures, grinning at inappropriate moments and at times incoherent. But. And there is a but. The fact that with one exception every single question was about the BNP or related subjects played into his hands. He was got at. He was ganged up on, and many people watching will have felt a little sorry for him at times. Five against one is never very edifying.

I stick to my view, expressed earlier this evening, that the programme should have concentrated on the news of the week, rather than concentrate on the BNP. Immigration could easily have been brought into the programme with a question on the topical issue of population growth. We should have heard about the postal strike. We should have heard about the bullying manner of Ed Balls. And much more besides. The viewers were short changed by a production decision which I believe was misguided. It elevated Nick Griffin to a status he did not deserve.

I thought Bonnie Greer and Sayeeda Warsi performed well. Jack Straw got better as the programme went on, but came across as evasive and slippery at times. I am afraid Chris Huhne was the wrong choice for the LibDems. He was too party political and tied himself up in knots over the issue of EU enlargement and the resultant number of immigrants from eastern Europe. Jo Swinson or even Lembit Opik would have been better choices.

I am glad the BBC invited Nick Griffin onto Question Time. But it was just as well he showed himself to be way out of his depth. My fear is what might have happened if the BNP had a truly intelligent and charismatic leader.

Perhaps only then would the political elites wake up to the danger which the BNP has the potential to present.

UPDATE: As someone has written in the comments, frankly it doesn't matter what I or any other middle class person thought of Griffin's performance. It matters what the people of Dagenham, Blackburn and Burnley thought. Were they attracted by Griffin or repulsed by him?

Unite Against Fascism Use, er, Fascist Tactics

The Guardian is reporting that the Unite Against Fascism protesters outside the BBC are chanting this charming ditty...

Build a bonfire, build a bonfire, put Nick Griffin on the top, put the Nazis in the middle, and burn the fucking lot."

Is that incitement? asks a commenter in the previous thread. The Police would have every justification for arresting them and charging them with incitement to violence. As Gavin Whenman tweeted just now...

Unite Against Facism by employing facist techniques. Good on you guys!

Rubber-necking Question Time

I have to admit that I am looking forward to watching Question Time tonight, but only in the sense of someone rubbernecking a road accident. There's a big part of me that wonders if it will degenerate into something hugely unedifying, which then runs the risk of allowing Nick Griffin to emerge from the programme either as a martyr or smelling of roses.

In my view the other panellists should view the programme as just a normal programme. And Griffin should be treated like any other guest. He should be allowed his say but questioned in exactly the same way as anyone else. Indeed, there shouldn't even be a question about the BNP.

Liam Murray was so right when he tweeted...

Thanks to UAF, Hain & others Griffin can pose tonight as a persecuted, abused minority; quite remarkable how ill-considered this furore is..

Isn't it also remarkable that whenever freedom of speech is at issue, some people on the left tend to show their true colours. No platforming never achieved anything, apart from giving the authoritarians who promote it a warm feeling in their hearts.

The four other panellists tonight will have been given lots of advice from many people over the last few days. They should ignore it all and treat it like any other edition of the programme. There should be no manufactured fights, no grandstanding and no vicious attacks. That's what Griffin wants. His whole agenda in the programme will be to play the hurt, innocent bystander who is merely trying to put his argument forward but is being shouted down.

The trouble is, whatever the panellists might do, the audience may decide to behave very differently.

What a shame it isn't going out live!