Clegg: The Right Government for Right Now

Listening to Nick Clegg's speech I am struck by the fact that I could imagine David Cameron giving more or less exactly the same speech, almost word for word. I suppose that's inevitable when you are in a coalition, but it's noteworthy nonetheless. I don't recall him pandering to his party at all. One of the opening passages stated that the government was not implementing a LibDem manifesto or a Tory manifesto, but a coalition one. "I stand by it," he said to realtively tepid applause. But this was the key question he challenged his party with...

"If we had turned away, how could we have then asked the voters to take us seriously?"

Quite.

It was a good speech, delivered well. The Number 10 team will be pleased.

Inside the Minds of Labour Politicians

More from Chris Mullin's unputdownable diaries...

"This evening, as I was departing, I ran into Chief whip Nick Brown. 'Between you and me,' I said, given that we are going to lose the election, we ought to be planting a few booby traps.' I had in mind a few modest measures such as the election of select committee chairmen.

'I think we've done that with the PSBR,' replied Nick, smiling wickedly."

Shameless. Utterly shameless.

Podcast: 7 Days Show: Episode 41

The latest edition of the Seven Days Show is now online.

In the show this week we spoke about the possibility of an electoral pact as suggested by Nick Boles; Lord Ashcroft’s new book and whether he will remain involved in politics; whether collective responsibility applies to Lib Dem Ministers; if not having a Queen’s Speech next year is undemocratic; whether fixed term Parliaments are a good thing; whether Andy Burnham spoke the truth about cuts on Question Time this week; who will win the Labour leadership election; whether tax avoidance is bad; thoughts on the visit of the Pope; my new LBC job; and when my Conference party is.

Also don’t miss the exclusive story of the attacking squirrels and speculation about a certain politician and their knickers.

To listen to the podcast click HERE, or you can also subscribe to the show in the Tory Radio section in the podcast area of Itunes.

For Us to Live All Their Tomorrows

I don't know how many of you have ever been to a World War II cemetery, but it is a profoundly moving experience. I'm typing this looking out at rows of gravestones at a graveyard in Overloon. It's a comparatively small one with around 250 graves.

Earlier this afternoon we visited the Reichswald cemtery over the border in Germany. Buried there are more than 7,600 British, Commonwealth and Polish war dead. The grounds are simply beautiful. If anyone ever suggests cutting the funding of the Commonwealth War Graves commission, I suspect it might not be good for their political health.

As you wander past grave after grave, your eyes are imevitably drawn towards the citations at the bottom of each one. As someone whose eyes tend to go moist during the first few seconds of a Lassie film, you can imagine what state I was in by the end of the visit. But it was this one which particularly moved me, as to me it summed up why we have come on this visit and why each year we remember those who died in conflict.

"He died to give us another dawn, for us to live all his tomorrows."

Simply beautiful.

UPDATE: The grave marked the final resting place of Flying Officer D Hopkinson, died age 22, 17 May 1943.

Remembering Arnhem 66 Years On

I'm typing this before the commencement of the service at Oosterbeek military cemetery, near Arnhem. Sixty six years ago this week hundreds of British, American and Polish airmen and soldiers gave their lives in the cause of the liberation of Holland. And it is they whom we remember and honour today.

Sixty six years seems a long time, yet in historical terms it is but the flicker of an eyelid.

My generation have been lucky never to have had to fight. For my Dad's generation, World War 2 defined them and their world outlook. My Dad was 9 when the war broke out and fifteen when it ended, but it defines who he is today. He may not have fought himself, but he is determined that those who fought so he could live in freedom should never be forgotten. It's why we are here today, and it's part of the reason I love him. Not, of course that- would ever tell him that to his face. We're British after all!

Minority Verdict: Ashcroft Publishes Analysis of 2010 Election

Tomorrow, my company Biteback publishes Lord Ashcroft's follow up to Smell the Coffee, his book about the 2005 election campaign. The new book is called MINORITY VERDICT: THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY, THE VOTERS & THE 2010 GENERAL ELECTION and can be pre-ordered HERE. Andrew Alderson has the story in today's Sunday Telegraph HERE together with an interview with Lord A HERE.

Lord Ashcroft, the controversial billionaire Tory donor, has written a tough
public critique of what he sees as the costly flaws in the Conservative Party's
election campaign. He informed David Cameron, the Prime Minister, on Friday
night that he will resign as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party at its
board meeting in eight days' time.

On Monday Lord Ashcroft will publish his verdict on the party's failure to win an overall majority in the May general election. In his analysis, the Tory life peer criticises the party for:

* Failing to get its "message" and "brand" across to the voters.

* Relentless counterproductive attacks on the Labour Party and Gordon
Brown.

* Agreeing to a televised debate of political leaders which enabled the Liberal Democrats to seize the "real change" initiative.

The departure of the Tory peer, who was a tax exile in Belize for many years before
returning earlier this year to live and pay income tax on his worldwide earnings
in Britain, will leave a hole in the party's structure because he has
masterminded the party's marginal seats campaign and its internal polling.

Lord Ashcroft indicated before the election that he would stand down as
Deputy Chairman, the role he has held since 2005, but his resignation will now
end growing speculation over the past month that he would retain a prominent
official role with the party.

In Lord Ashcroft's assessment of the election campaign, seen exclusively by The Sunday Telegraph, he highlights what he believes were the Conservative Party's tactical errors and why it failed to win the majority that many were predicting.

This meant the party had to form a Coalition Government with the Liberal Democrats. He writes that in 2008 and 2009 nearly all published polls showed a "double-digit" – 10 per cent or more – Conservative lead.

"Why did these figures not translate into a thumping majority? The key lies in the gap between the change people wanted and the change people thought we were offering.

"Going into the election, many voters had little clear idea of what we stood for or what we intended to do in government.

"At a national level, too much of our message was focused on unnecessary and counterproductive attacks on Gordon Brown and Labour, which meant that voters were not clear about our own plans.

"We did not make as much progress as we should have done in transforming the party's brand, and in reassuring former Labour voters that we had changed and were on their side.

"This in turn gave Labour's scare campaigns about Conservative plans
more resonance than they would otherwise have had, and meant that, for many,
voting Conservative was a much harder decision than it might have been."

The Tory peer believes the analysis is constructive criticism and many
in the party will be relieved that his verdict on the election campaign is not
as damning as some political insiders have been predicting.

Lord Ashcroft, 64, goes out of his way to praise Mr Cameron's personal contribution
to the election campaign and says the party should feel "proud" of the result.

He makes his comments in the executive summary for his 133-page book:
Minority Verdict: The Conservative Party, the voters and the 2010 election,
which will be published tomorrow.

The Tory peer, who has donated around £15 million to the party over the past two decades, told The Sunday Telegraph: "There has been speculation as to my view of the party's performance in the election, and of David Cameron's subsequent decision to forge a coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

"By putting an end to speculation, Minority Verdict sets the record straight.

"This is a record of what I really thought at the time, and what I think now. And if there is to be a public debate about this subject, Minority Verdict represents my first and only contribution to it.

"I do not intend to comment beyond what is contained in these pages."

However, Lord Ashcroft clearly feels frustrated that the party's leadership did not offer him greater public support in March of this year when he was forced to admit – in the run-up to the May election – that he had enjoyed the status of a "non-dom" – and had not been paying income tax on his worldwide earnings.

Critics tried to portray him as dishonourable and claimed he had reneged on an earlier pledge.

In his interview, Lord Ashcroft said: "I think they could have mounted a more spirited defence of the situation. It did prove to me that the Labour Party attack team was much more effective than the Conservative Party defence team.

"The negotiations [in 2000] with the [Labour] Government for me to join the House of Lords did not include any commitment on my part to be taxed on my worldwide income."

He made it clear that he will not be donating as much money to the party as he has done in the past.

"The party is actually in pretty good shape financially, which is a great credit to Michael Spencer [the outgoing treasurer] and his team.

"They raised even more money than we were allowed to spend in the election campaign, so I'm not sure they need me for now," he said.

The peer also believes that – in the long run – his close friend William Hague, the
Shadow Foreign Secretary and former party leader, will pursue an alternative
career.

"I think he will make a future career out of politics – and it will be a poorer place without him," he said.

Read the full article HERE. Download a PDF of the Executive Summary HERE.

For those interested in the Ashcroft VC Collection, it goes on public view at the Imperial War Museum from 12 November. A new website has been launched HERE.

Interviewing Shirley Williams

This is the latest of my IN CONVERSATION interviews for Total Politics. It's in the conference edition of the magazine.

ID: You have just turned 80. Is that a real milestone?
SW: I've had four birthday parties. Everyone loves celebrating someone else's 80th birthday. The actual person who has the birthday isn't so sure. I've noticed several of my friends are very keen indeed on my 80th birthday. Whether it means I won't be there that much longer or they genuinely love parties, I'm not sure.
I'm reading Peter Mandelson's book at the moment. Together with Alastair Campbell's diaries, you wonder how that government survived so long.
First of all, they are extraordinarily gifted people. In most cases, you have to bang people's heads together and say: "What the bloody hell do you think you are doing?" When Peter Mandelson became a peer and answered a question in the Lords, I was terribly impressed. I sent him a note saying: "I know when I can see a class act." Not that Peter Mandelson is someone I feel terribly close to. But I was just impressed by the sheer professionalism of the man. You could say the same about Tony Blair, an extraordinarily professional performance. Possibly less so about Gordon [Brown]. Gordon had more solidity than the others. He was a man of huge intellectual power. You wouldn't send a note to Gordon saying: "This is a class act." It would be an odd thing to do. In a funny way, Gordon was slightly haunted by a feeling of having been cheated - which everyone talks about. He was also haunted by a very powerful nonconformist conscience which nobody talks about because nobody remembers what it is. It was something very real, very strong. And that non-conformist conscience partly affected him when he felt that he had not conducted his policies according to what a powerful non-conformist preacher would expect. The second bit was when he thought he behaved badly towards people. He could behave very badly towards people but I didn't think he did it without cost.


So you think he recognised that he had behaved badly?
He did to some extent. He felt, retrospectively, rather bad about it. There was always this running sore for Blair of Gordon in the background. It was the same the other way around with Gordon. First of all, Gordon felt he had been cheated. It doesn't really matter if they did or didn't have that famous dinner. Gordon had laid down this solid step-by-step ascent up the stairs of the Labour structure. Not only going through all the motions you go through - student politics, youth politics, Scottish politics, parliamentary politics, ministerial politics etc - starting very young and being very predictable. We've got Blair still running around being a pop star at the point at which Gordon has already become rector of Glasgow University.

There was a sense of entitlement from Gordon. He was prepared to not push that entitlement while John Smith was alive. Gordon deferred to him, although John Smith wasn't that much older than him. When it came to Tony, parachuting in from nowhere much, I think Gordon must have felt both revulsion and anger. It was feeling cheated more than being overtaken that really rankled with him. Gordon is a difficult man by any standards, but also in some ways a very impressive man. I always felt Tony was brilliant. He was a brilliant communicator, a brilliant actor. I always thought he was more actor than politician. He could play Coriolanus at the drop of a hat, or Henry V Part II. A lot of him was like that. He was chameleon-like in a way. He could slightly change his colour as he went around, according to what the scene was. He also, I think, became very seduced by America to an extraordinary extent. Having spent a lot of my life in America, I like a lot of things about America and I find lots of things very attractive, but I'm not seduced. I can see what's wrong too. I'm always interested by the way in which one British politician or another is just swept off their stupid feet. Geoff Hoon is another one.

Do you think Gordon Brown was undone by his own ambition?
No, not by his ambition. By his bitterness. It was like getting the fag end of an administration. Already the Labour administration had become relatively unpopular. He had inherited what was beginning to be quite a split party. Not split over him, but split between old Labour and new Labour, with quite a lot of restlessness about new Labour. Gordon's great opportunity came in the economic crisis because he was suddenly able to project himself as being a world statesman and onto the stage of the G20. He was one of the people who had a solution - a solution that with a lot of hard work, he won the G20 over to. All of that buoyed him up. The real disappointment came shortly after that when we first of all learned that we had a new crisis over the deficit and so forth, and even the global response couldn't get us completely out of that. Then you have a fairly sharp decline. A lot of the Labour Party didn't really understand what he had done as it was quite technical stuff. Perhaps more significantly, by that time a lot of the media had just got it in for him. They never liked him. They didn't like the fact that he didn't have press conferences and he didn't schmooze them as Tony did. They really had it in for him. They decided he was going to be an ogre. I don't think he had a clue how to handle that.

We underestimate his status in other countries. They really did respect him, didn't they?
With the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, I spent the last year and a half travelling extensively around the world. I was very impressed by the number of people who said: "I cannot say how grateful I am to your prime minister. He has been immensely helpful to me and he has given me support all the way along the line" - particularly from developing countries. An example was the President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, who said he had been wonderfully supportive and had assisted her with economic ideas and so forth.

By this time, Tony had - if not left the stage - had done himself so much damage in Iraq that most of these third world leaders were not going to be particularly nice about him. Some may say he was a charming man but there was no substantial serious appreciation of him. He had thrown that away by the Iraq thing. Gordon was untouched by Iraq, really. Remember he said almost nothing during the period. He was thought to be supportive because he couldn't say he wasn't. He did have this astonishing following which came from his economic capacity, but mostly from his evidently very honourable commitment to economic development. It was a funny mixture of socialism and imperialism. I would say that Gordon was badly underestimated in the country, seriously underestimated. I think that is quite souring if you know people love you somewhere else, but in your own country you're treated as a joke, an ogre, a bad tempered-bear or whatever the cartoon was.

Was there any time in the new Labour years when you thought: "Actually I could go back now?"
Never. I was asked more than once, by people like Peter Mandelson. The reason was quite straightforward. It was actually to do with the liberal core about civil liberties. They were bad about civil liberties, there was no doubt about that. I was outraged by how they dealt with terrorism for example. I was outraged by how they pressed on and on for further detention without trial. I was pretty outraged by the unquestioning willingness to see the prison population go up and up and up, without asking whether it was a sensible way to deal with a falling crime rate. When it came to almost all the Home Office stuff, it was terribly disappointing. No, I couldn't have gone back.

How did Mandelson try to tempt you?
He just took me for lunch -a nice lunch. I think he thought the time had come to try. I think I was just a trophy wife.

This was in the early days?
Yes, quite early on. Must have been 2002, when Tony had been re-elected. About then.

Let's talk about the coalition. I can imagine you weren't enthusiastic...
I began by thinking we should try for a Labour coalition. I realised after a while that a) they didn't even want it and b) they were clearly quite contemptuous of the whole idea. Also the attention had shifted over to who was going to be the new leader. Once Gordon was going to go, a lot of the energy of the Milibands and others went over to who will be following, not 'let's have a coalition'. A lot of them were scared that if they were seen to be cosying up to the Liberal Democrats then they would burn their boats with the unions and the left wing. So it wasn't a very attractive suggestion from their point of view. I'm satisfied they didn't want it. Then I thought, how about a minority Conservative government with what they call a support and supply, which is probably what I'd have gone for myself. But reflecting back, I'm not sure I was right. What is true is, I didn't like the idea of a coalition with the Conservatives and I still find elements of it very hard to live with.

Isn't that endemic in any coalition?
Particularly with the junior partner in any coalition. There are some things, from my point of view, that are peculiarly difficult. Education is one of them. Luckily the Conservatives, as you know, have avoided a great conflict over the EU. Those two are the most neuralgic for me. I wouldn't have left the Labour Party in order to join a party that was going to do the same thing all over again. In the end, two things persuaded me. For the whole month of April, I travelled from the top to bottom of England, Newcastle to Penzance and Land's End. I didn't just do meetings. I spoke to thousands of people on the streets and pavements. What I got from them was a very strong sense of outrage about MPs' expenses, disproportionate outrage really because the level of anger was even greater than the level of misbehaviour. Some of these were a shock to the core. Some things were almost ludicrously exaggerated like the issue of the rocking chair, or the dolphin or whatever. It was very silly of the MP but not wicked. There were wicked things like the switching around of one's house to get capital gains. I was quite surprised by the fury of the public which was very, very powerful. I was exempted by being a "national treasure". I say that in quotation marks. The second thing was this very intense sense of a plague on all your houses, a 'we don't want any of you in government'. The Liberal Democrats were not so morally accused as the two [bigger] parties, but there was a sense that you're all up to it, you're evil. Therefore, when the electorate voted in fairly substantial numbers, it was an improvement on earlier elections, not a drop. What you got was this very strong feeling that we're going to give you another chance. We're going to stick to the mainstream parties. There wasn't a huge upsurge for UKIP or the Greens. What they wanted was, I think, the parties to work together. I don't think they worried explicitly about which parties they wanted to work together but they wanted to see politicians working together.

Do you think one of the reasons the coalition has worked so far is because of the relationships between the different personalities and that they're all learning together at the same pace?
That's a perfectly fair point. Most of the Conservative ministers have not been there before. What I don't really know is quite where Iain Duncan Smith and Frank Field fit in. Clearly there is quite a lot of innovative thinking going on about welfare. What I can't really see is what the positive incentives are to people who for example live on disability benefit and so forth. I think in ministerial terms, the Department for Work and Pensions has the strongest team of the whole government. It is a strong department. The problems are more likely to arise either in the Home Office, which at the moment doesn't seem to be doing too badly, or defence. Liam Fox has got his wheels off the rails once or twice already. There is a big issue with Trident. That one is hard to walk away from, having to make a decision one way or another. You can delay the decision. Personally I'm strongly in favour of delaying it, having been involved in all the nuclear proliferation stuff for a year and a half. This seems a very bad time to make a decision of like-for-like because you are going to have 40 years of sitting on top of a deterrent which may prove to be totally pointless. It is a lot of money to be totally pointless.

The Lib Dem former leader of Liverpool City Council thinks that the coalition will result in the obliteration of the Liberal Democrats at the next election.


A lot depends on how the thing plays out. If the coalition is directly associated with the economic crisis and how that is dealt with - and if it's dealt with in a way that although painful, most people accept as fair - then it'll go the other way. The Liberal Democrats will be seen as serious people who have the experience of government. Our problem is always being seen as ineffective or unlikely to win or so improbable that you wouldn't vote for us - that is largely got over by having come into a coalition because we'll be able to say 'here are half a dozen people with considerable experience of government as Liberal Democrats'.

How do you judge David Cameron?
I only know him as a member of the public. I've never even met him. I don't know him at all. He hasn't asked to see me either. I would say he is a good deal more impressive than I thought he was. I thought that he was a lightweight charmer, a kind of Cecil Parkinson type - able to charm the birds off the trees but with not that much to offer. I don't think that now. He has been quite brave. On a number of things he has taken a strong line. I have to agree with my dear friend Nick Clegg that he is actually an impressive fellow. They seem to get along like a house on fire.

Do you enjoy doing Question Time?
Mostly I do. I've had a couple of experiences that I didn't enjoy at all. I can tell you from personal experience that if you have both Hitchens brothers on, it is devastating. They don't like each other at all. I went into the green room and there was a Hitchens at each end of the room and they had no conversation, and no reason to have to pretend to have one. Once the programme began, they began ripping each other to bits then they turned on me. It was like living with several fox hunts simultaneously. Very unpleasant.

Do you think women who go into politics have it easy compared to when you started out?
No, not really. In some ways they have it harder. They don't have it harder in the sense of running into a tremendous amount of patronage from men, which I certainly did. I had a permanent secretary who wouldn't speak to me about things at all. He was the permanent secretary during the seamen's strike when my minister was in hospital. It was rather difficult. I ran into a huge amount of patronising. I also ran into people who thought a woman minister was waiting for their charms to become obvious to her, particularly when I was prices minister. They all fancied themselves as people who could get me to agree that an increase in profits was badly needed for investment purposes. The way they thought they could do that was by taking me out to expensive lunches. They got that completely wrong. But it was in some ways easier because we were seen as exceptional. Just being a woman was being remarkable. You didn't need to be much of a woman to get started. We had quite a lot of solidarity amongst ourselves, feeling that we were a minority so had to work together. I would say that the absolutely devastating business was Blair's babes. I always remember when I saw that photograph, being reminded of those Italian paintings when you had God's face surrounded by cherubs with lovely pink wings and pretty rosy bodies. The Blair picture with all the women around him, with identical haircuts and suits ineluctably reminded me of Renaissance gods. They were background, they weren't foreground. If I go back to when I was very young, you had women like Lady Astor who had staff, so the domestic burden wasn't there. They had nannies and all the rest of it. Most current women politicians are terribly distracted by having two jobs to do. They don't find it easy to balance them. Normally they're married and have children whereas they used to be single or widows. So in that sense, I see more women I know struggling with the two lives as they try to keep them both up in the air. There are some remarkable women coming up. There are some very good ones in the new crop. I think the Blair crop was foreshortened by being seen as background upholstery or decoration.

Would you like to have been prime minister?
No, not really. I never thought I was good enough. First of all, my father brought me up to be excessively admiring of the great men of politics. Rather like you might feel about Mr Gladstone. You are a fairly tall tree but he was a pine that was twice your size. I was brought up, particularly by my father, to see people like Cripps and Bevan and so on as remarkably great men, not in terms of them being rich or aristocratic but in terms of them holding political office. I was slightly overawed by political men, both men and women actually, but obviously many more were men. Secondly, I always thought of myself as not quite good enough. That is very characteristic of women. Almost all the women I know underestimate themselves and all the men overestimate themselves. Is it a case of not being good or ruthless enough? Not actually wanting to be involved in what Harold Wilson engaged in. [Laughs] Poor Harold! He wasn't really ruthless. He was manipulative.

Everyone always says about you "she's so nice".
It's rather damning.

I think it's a good thing.
It's also damning. I might say I've survived in politics for a long time, and held some fairly important offices, and don't like to be too horrible about it. I think men swallow the Alan Sugar picture of leadership. I won't bore you by going into too much philosophy but for the first time we may be seeing a different kind of leadership emerge, mostly from women but not entirely from women. This leadership is much more consensual, much more reasonable and much less tribal. It's not emerging very much in Britain, though. Cameron may turn out to be
an example.

I read your book and I remember thinking at the time that you haven't used it to settle scores, which is what many use their memoirs for.
I don't think I have many scores to settle. Well, not many... Not now. I'm not inhuman. I'm certainly not God. I've had some scores to settle where people have leaked to the press. I got one or two really difficult bits in my life, Grunwick, which lead me to have endless libel cases and so on. I had a very difficult time with The Sun when they announced I had never taken up - what was the phrase? - a single challenge to beat the left. I did think that was a bit hard. I've had my fair share of libel cases and all the rest of it. Maybe I am mellowing in old age.





Shirley Williams will be signing copies of MAKING THE DIFFERENCE: ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF SHIRLEY WILLIAMS at the LibDem Image stand at the LibDem Conference on Monday at noon.

Coming soon: Interviews with Iain Duncan Smith, Peter Mandelson & John Major.

Are You a 'Life Enhancer'?

There's a delightful little paragraph in Chris Mullin's diary, which has set me thinking...

"David Puttnam's final outing as chancellor of the university. A delightful man. One of that small band of life enhancers of my acquaintance (others include Liz Forgan and Charles Baker Cresswell). Merely to spend company is to come away refreshed."

So, who, to follow Chris Mullin's example, are people I know who I would describe as 'life enhancers'?

My other half, his Simmoness
My mother, father and two sisters
Sky News presenter, Anna Botting
Historian, Professor Peter Hennessey
Welsh Tory Party Director, Matthew Lane
All rounder, Gyles Brandreth
Broadcaster, Lorraine Kelly
Peer, Lord Pearson of Rannoch
Podcaster and Broadcaster, Olly Mann

These are all people who have few if any enemies, have hearts of gold, are generous to others and who I'd be happily stuck on a desert island with.

Now think who you would describe in the same way...

Top 300 Blogs 51-300

Total Politics has now published the penultimate lists of Top UK Blogs. The final list, 1-50, is published on Monday.

51-100
101-200
201-300

If your blog is one of these, please feel free to use the appropriate button on your blog.







The Top 50 will be published on Monday afternoon. Full details are in the latest issue of Total Politics.

From Monday, The Iain Dale Show on LBC, Every Weeknight!

As most of you will know, over the last few months I have been a stand-in presenter for LBC in various time slots. Well, I'm delighted to tell you that I have been offered a permanent gig and I will be getting my own daily three hour programme.

From Monday I'll be taking over the 7-10pm slot on LBC from Petrie Hosken, who is moving to the afternoon 1-4pm slot.

I've only ever really had two real ambitions in my life - to be a Member of Parliament and to have my own radio show. Well, at least now I can say I've had a 50 per cent success rate!

I have to admit I had thought this day was never likely to arrive. Having spent a decade doing punditry I reckoned that if it was going to happen, it would have done before now. But then Tommy Boyd came along.

Tommy was a name from my childhood. He made his name as the presenter of Magpie, a kids programme on ITV, but then moved into Talk Radio, where he became a huge success. It was he who recruited me to do some programmes last year on the late lamented Play Radio. It was just me, a microphone and the listeners. I think I only did 5 or 6 programmes and a 9 hour local election night marathon, but it was enough for me to confirm in my own mind that I absolutely loved radio phone-ins and could hold my own as a presenter. Tommy was hugely encouraging and assured me when Play Radio went tits up that I had a big future in radio.

Last September I went into LBC to do a short audition session, but to be honest I felt it was little short of a disaster and I never expected to hear from them again. But three weeks later I got a call around lunchtime to ask if I could present the show that evening. Gulp. Talk about being thrown in at the deep end... But it seemed to go really well. Nothing happened then for some time as they were clearly waiting to see if I would get a seat. In February I did a couple more shows, then I asked the LBC programme director Jonathan Richards if I could put some ideas to him for an election night programme. I did, he liked it and I hosted a six hour programme which most regarded as a minor triumph.

Since then I have covered virtually every show in the schedule apart from the overnight slot. And in August I had four weeks sitting on for Petrie on the show I will now be taking over. I loved more or less every minute of it - except the one moment I got completely tongue tied!

I guess you can tell what this means to me. I am hugely grateful for the confidence shown in me by Jonathan Richards and his production team. He and I both know that I am not yet the finished article as a radio presenter but his constant encouragement has instilled a belief in me that I can actually be really good at this. That's not meant to sound arrogant. Most things in my life I have had to learn. I've always had to work hard to keep up with others. That will be the same here, but for the first time in my life I am doing something I feel completely at home with. I sit in front of that microphone and think to myself 'I know I can be good at this'.

The evening slot is a great one for me, as no one else is doing current affairs on the radio at that time. 5 Live and TalkSport do sport and Radio 4 is doing something artsy. Petrie has built up a very good audience over the last 18 months and I hope to build on that. LBC calls itself London's Biggest Conversation, but we now get a lot of listeners all over the country thanks to DAB, digital TV and the thousands of people who now listen via the website, or their iPads or mobile phones. In London LBC whoops 5 Live's BBC ass in most timeslots (are you listening Stephen Nolan?!). Excited? You bet I am.

But have no fear. I maintain my commitment to Total Politics, Biteback Publishing and, indeed, this blog. But perhaps you now realise why I have recruited an assistant. Because if I don't get some help organising my schedule and my life I'll probably end up in a funny farm. The one thing I am having to slowly come to terms with is that I won't be able to go out to dinner in the evenings, go to receptions or even slob out in front of the TV on a weekday evening for what will hopefully be some considerable time. Oh well, you can't have everything.

Anyway, if you'd like to join the I LISTEN TO IAIN DALE ON LBC 97.3 Facebook Group, click HERE.

For those of you unfamiliar with LBC, do give it a try. It's primarily phone-in based throughout the day, with a range of presenters who are encouraged to be opinionated. Here's the weekday lineup.

1-5am Anthony Davis

5-7am Steve Allen

7-10am Nick Ferrari
10am-1pm James O'Brien
1-4pm Petrie Hosken

4-7pm James Whale

7-10pm Iain Dale
10pm-1am Clive Bull

And at weekends you get Ken Livingstone on Saturdays and Andrew Pierce on Sundays, both from 10am-1pm.

Anyhow, I hope you'll tune in on Monday for my first programme. That's if the Eurostar gets me back from my trip to Holland in time...

Quote of the Day

Extract from Chris Mullin's diaries...

"Our vast benefit culture is long overdue for a challenge - a view shared by many of my working class constituents, who deeply resent the scams they see going on around them. Later, during a division, John (Hutton) whispered that he knew of an amateur football team, currently topping a local league, in which eight of the eleven players recently fielded were on Incapacity Benefit."

Discuss.

Travelling to Arnhem

My Dad turns 81 next month. He was nine when the Second World War broke out. For him, the war defined his who life. He was 15 when it ended. To this day he devours every programme he can watch about it. My parents' TV is permanently tuned to the History Channel or the Discovery Channel, much to my mother's chagrin.

Back in 1994 I took my father to visit the Normandy Beaches, a couple of weeks before the 50th anniversary of D Day. My friend Daniel from Washington joined us with his father, together with a couple of family friends. We rented a cottage about twenty miles inland. It was one of the best holidays of my life - full of emotion, some great banter with the French who seemed to want to thank us personally for what our countrymen had done to liberate them in 1944 and it was great to spend 5 days with my Dad, a man who normally hates holidays and hasn't got a lot of time for 'abroad'. If you'd like to see what we did, there's a set of pictures HERE on my Flickr pages.

A few months ago my mother rang to say that my Dad had got it into his head that he wanted to go on a battlefields tour to Arnhem, and would I go with him. He's got quite deaf and she didn't trust him on his own! So to cut a long story short, in half an hour's time we leave for Dover to meet up with a coach full of people from all over the country. Tonight we're staying in Eindhoven and then we have three nights in Arnhem, where we'll be visiting various sites associated with Operation Market Garden, which took place 66 years ago this week, including the famous Bridge at Arnhem. We're also travelling over the German border to visit a cemetary of German war dead - something I never thought I'd ever see my father do. He still refers to them as 'Jerries'!

Meanwhile, wish me luck on the channel ferry. I get terribly seasick. The first time I went across the channel was in 1977 when I was on a schol trip to Germany and we travelled from Harwich to the Hook of Holland in a force 9 gale. Everyone, literally everyone on the ferry was puking their guts up. I remember deciding to lie on the floor underneath two seats. My next memory was someone puking up right next to my head. Luckily I only suffered a bit of splashback. And since then, I just have to look at a ferry and I get that queasy feeling in my stomach. The only way to avoid it is to blindfold myself. I kid you not. If I can't see, somehow it seems to keep my stomach settled. So if you're on the 13.55 ferry to Calais and see someone with a blindfold, it's me.

All this is a roundabout way of saying that blogging will inevitably light over the next few days. I'll try to post when I can, and may tell you a bit about any memorable parts of the trip if you'll indulge me. I'm back on Monday.

The Cardinal Was Right on Heathrow

I can't quite understand the fuss about the remarks of one of the Pope's advisers, Cardinal Kasper, who reckoned that arriving at Heathrow was like landing in a third world country. Readers of this blog will know that I have been saying that for years (Terminal 5 excepted).

In general Heathrow airport is a disgrace, and as a country we should be ashamed of the impression it gives to people coming to England for the first time.

The shame of it is that these remarks have been used as a means of joining the chorus of intolerant fools who believe that the Pope's visit should have been banned. I am not a religious person at all, but Catholicism is the faith of more than 10% of our population, I believe. It is a Christian religion and we are still - nominally at least - a Christian country. I don't agree with many aspects of the Catholic faith and approach to social issues, but those who call for this visit to be banned demonstrate exactly the kind of intolerance they accuse the Catholic church of.

I'm rather glad I am out of the country, though, for the whole of the Pope's visit. I suspect we are about to see a side of some people which will be very ugly indeed.

Is the MSM Eating Up the Blogosphere?

The shortlists for the EI Commentariat Awards were announced this evening. I am shaking my head at the blogging shortlists...

Best Blogger

Shortlist: Melanie Phillips, Spectator.co.uk
Nick Robinson, BBC
Paul Waugh, London Evening Standard

Best Blog Site

Shortlist: Coffee House, The Spectator
Comment is Free, The Guardian
Telegraph Blogs, Telegraph Media Group

Having won the award last year I have to say I am extremely disappointed that not a single independent blogger is shortlisted this year. More evidence that the mainstream media is eating up the blogosphere?

PS And someone please, please tell me how Marina Hyde is nominated as political commentator of the year alongside Danny Finkelstein and Matthew D'Ancona. What a joke.

Job Advert: Senior Editor, Books

Editorial genius Jonathan Wadman is leaving Biteback Publishing.

Jonathan has been with the company since the very beginning and has played a major part in getting us to where we are today. Jonathan, whose last day is 28th September is going back to University to do an MA in Linguistics at UCL. We thank him and wish him the very best of luck.

Consequently, we need to find a replacement to fill his shoes. If you are now or have ever been an editor, please read on.

Job Role: Senior Editor

Biteback publishing, the country’s leading politics and current affairs publisher, is looking for an energetic and highly motivated individual to fill the post of Senior Editor.

Key roles will include:

• Overseeing the book production process, from receipt of manuscript to delivery of files to printers
• Appointing and supervising freelance copy-editors, proofreaders, indexers, designers and typesetters
• Editing manuscripts
• Liaising with authors and with commissioning editors
• Liaising with printers and others involved in the production process
• Constant close collaboration with sales and marketing staff

The successful candidate will be highly organised, with excellent attention to detail and an ability to work under pressure when required. A personal interest in politics is essential.

Please send your application to james DOT stephens AT bitebackpublishing DOT com

Closing date: 1 October

Every Vote Counts for Diane. Not.

Readers may be interested to know that Diane Abbott is working hard on her campaign... having decided to spend the afternoon judging the EI Comment Awards.

Every vote counts...

Quote of the Day

"I didn't vote Liberal Democrat
so they would end up in government."

LibDem voter quoted by Jon Sopel in this month's Total Politics

What Do Ministers Actually Do?

At a select committe hearing today Bernard Jenkin asked: "What do ministers actually do?" The answer is that while some are hyperactively busy, others do sweet F A.

It is a disgrace that we now have 108 ministers, three more than under Labour. I'm sure I remember David Cameron making a promise to reduce their number. He could start by reducing the number of ministers in each department by one at the next reshuffle. At least it would be a start. I doubt whether anyone would notice any difference.

One other thing to note is that if the number of MPs is reduced by 8 per cent, then surely it follows that their should be a commensurate cut in ministerial numbers anyway. Otherwise the Executive will wield even more power over the legislature.

Top 100 Right Wing Blogs

Today, Total Politics announces the Top 100 right-wing blogs.

Here's the Top 20, but you can view the full list HERE.

1 (1) Guido Fawkes
2 (2) Iain Dale
3 (4) Conservative Home
4 (3) Spectator Coffee House
5 (7) Daniel Hannan MEP
6 (5) Dizzy Thinks
7 (10) John Redwood MP
8 Iain Martin
9 Norman Tebbit
10 James Delingpole
11 (11) Old Holborn
12 Devil's Knife
13 (13) Obnoxio the Clown
14 Charlotte Gore
15 (47) Anna Raccoon
16 (8) Tory Bear
17 (17) EU Referendum
18 (12) Douglas Carswell MP
19 (18) Underdogs Bite Upwards
20 (28) Working Class Tory

If your blog is one of the ones featured above, please feel free to put the following button in your sidebar and link it through to this post:

This list is the result of more than 2,200 people who voted in the Total Politics Annual Blog Poll during the second half of July.

Click on the name of any blog to visit their site.

All these lists, together with articles from leading blog commentators, will be published in the TOTAL POLITICS GUIDE TO POLITICAL BLOGGING, in association with APCO Worldwide. It will be published in October at £14.99. You can pre-order your copy HERE.

COMING NEXT: Top 201-300 political blogs

Changing Drivers' Behaviour

Christian Wolmar has writtena very good article for The Guardian on changing drivers' behaviour. And it's not just good because he quotes me!

Iain Dale, the Conservative blogger and broadcaster, was very sceptical when he was forced to go on a course for speed awareness in order to save his driving licence, having been stopped doing 37mph in a 30mph zone.

He says: "I thought it would be a waste of time but it was better than losing my licence." The course, he recalls, was run by a middle-aged woman who said she never exceeded the speed limit. The attendees, who were not the boy racers Dale had expected but "virtually all over 40", were disbelieving until she explained that five years previously, her 13-year-old daughter had been hit by a car travelling at 37mph and was still receiving treatment for the injuries she sustained.

The key message Dale took away was that while half of people hit by a car going at 30mph can expect to survive, only 10% will at 40mph. "So yes, the course did have an impact on my behaviour and I became much more aware of what other people do, too," he explains. He was also struck by the fact that everyone on the course thought that motorways were the source of many accidents when, in fact, they are responsible for just 6% of fatalities even though they account for nearly a quarter of vehicle mileage.

Dale had been opposed to speed cameras and while he remains sceptical his view about them has changed: "I think they should all be relocated to urban areas where they can have a real impact in ensuring people stick to 30 mph, and that will save lives".