Let’s have a heated debate!

Peter Mandelson says he is open to the idea of televised debates between Gordon Brown and David Cameron in the run up to the general election. Unsurprisingly, Cameron is also keen. Equally unsurprisingly, Gordon Brown is said to oppose the idea:

It has been reported that Mr Brown thinks a televised discussion is unnecessary as he confronts Conservative leader Mr Cameron regularly in Parliament.

Indeed. And nothing at all to do with the fact that he has all the personality and charisma of a mattress. Right now, Gordon Brown is about as likely to win the next election as Harry H. Corbett. Labour’s only hope is that they can somehow stop their leader repelling more voters while hoping the economy makes the most remarkable recovery since Lazarus. Not likely.

So I’m puzzled as to why Mandelson would think this a good idea. Whatever one might think of the man, there’s no denying that he’s a canny political operator and he’s probably more aware of Brown’s personality faults than anyone. Put Brown on a live televised debate against Cameron and it’d make Richard Nixon’s disastrous, sweaty, showing against JFK in 1960 look like a slick and polished performance by comparison.

Gord blimey

I wasn’t really sure what to expect of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister. His ten years as Chancellor of the Exchequer were characterised by his dour persona – arguably necessary in such a position – and much discussed “prudence”. Where Tony Blair was instinctive, Gordon was cerebral. While Blair loved to talk about the big ideas (but had no stomach for detail), Brown was depicted as analytical and considered, obsessed by the minutiae of any issue, a thinker, not a talker. Practical, reliable, but no visionary.

It was always going to be a shaky handover. After ten years of being in Blair’s shadow and, on countless occasions, simply disappearing completely whenever there was a crisis, there was a huge question mark over Brown’s suitability as a leader of country and party. In actual fact, he got off to a rather good start. But it proved to be a really short honeymoon. He was caught out being somewhat disingenuous when he visited Iraq during the week of the Conservative Party’s conference and announced that 1,000 British troops would be returning home from Iraq earlier than planned. There was the Northern Rock calamity: bailed out with a loan from the government of £25 billion in September, but still no nearer to a permanent solution. There was the embarrassing dithering over whether or not to call a general election: plans that were immediately scrapped following a sudden dip of Labour Party support in the opinion polls. The biggest story this week has been the infamous “lost discs“, where HM Revenue and Customs managed to lose child benefit records containing the names, addresses, birth dates, National Insurance numbers and bank details of approximately 25 million people. Bad enough was the apparent lack of control and procedure around maintaining the private data of British citizens, but the fact that Chancellor Alastair Darling knew about the breach several days before it became public news shows a level of governmental incompetence and arrogance not seen since the John Major years.

Gordon just about survived PM’s questions on Wednesday, but it wasn’t pretty. Far from being the “big clunking fist” described by Tony Blair a year ago, he looks more like the sensitive fat boy in the playground, reduced to the point of tears by some mild teasing from rich kid David Cameron. Cameron’s job couldn’t be easier at the moment. As every day seems to throw up another disaster for the government to deal with, he only has to point the finger at his adversary and sing “ner ner ne ner ner” to get a clumsy reaction. That said, he still didn’t manage to land a killer blow, even in the middle of what some commentators are calling Labour’s “Black Wednesday” moment, so maybe Brown will have the last laugh after all. Either way, it’s going to be entertaining.

Xenophobes and jailbirds

Just when you think the Conservative Party’s metamorphosis is truly gathering momentum under David Cameron, up pops a little maggot from its core to give everyone a flavour of what still lurks under the surface.

Nigel Hastilow, Conservative candidate for Halesowen and Rowley Regis, was forced to resign last week after writing a column in a local newspaper expressing his support for Enoch Powell’s infamous immigration speech of 1968. I suppose the fact that he was dismissed from the party ranks is a sign of progress*, but the support he received from other factions within the Conservative Party at large shows how much work is still to be done if they are ever going to find mass appeal. It’s one thing to propose a debate on immigration, it’s quite another to dredge up the discredited Powell and his hysterical “rivers of blood” imagery.

Meanwhile, exhuming Jonathan Aitken can hardly be considered a great leap forward either. Aitken is to head a task force on prison reform: a subject close to his own heart, for sure, given that he was jailed for perjury, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and perverting the course of justice. I wonder if he will dig out his “simple sword of justice” and “trusty shield of fair play” for his new role?

*Update: Actually, thinking about it, this isn’t progress at all. Powell himself was dismissed from the shadow cabinet at the time so this is just more of the same, nearly 40 years later.

Hey Gordon, what’s for dinner tonight? Let me guess… chicken?

A cliché it may be, but a week really is a long time in politics. For a while back there it seemed a foregone conclusion that Gordon Brown would call a snap election to capitalise on Labour’s lead and that David Cameron – surely the Conservative Party’s only credible hope? – would be finished before he even began. November 1st would be Brown Day, cementing him into power for five years purely on his own mandate. He would then sit back on his big throne, rub his hands together, and bellow a long, sinister laugh, before setting off to think up some ingenious new stealth taxes to punish us all with.

But it was not to be. One good speech from Cameron and some talk about scrapping inheritance tax was enough for the Conservatives to claw back some support in the polls. All of a sudden the PM – who, until now, had been deliberately coy on the subject – categorically states that there will be no election after all. From Gordon Brown to Gordon Brown Trousers. But we mustn’t be mean. They were just toying with the idea it seems. Don’t read too much into the fact that half of the Cabinet were openly talking about it or that they’d already recruited staff to focus on electoral strategy. And, of course, those polls taken in marginal seats predicting a Tory victory had nothing at all to do with this decision.

Total farce.

I’ve always been a great believer in the concept of fixed term elections rather than this constitutional anomaly that allows the incumbent government to call an election whenever it suits them. If Gordon really wanted to repair some of the damage then that might be a good way to go about it: rid us of this vestige of Parliamentary privilege and set the electoral process in stone. Is there anything less appropriate than a democratic government having the power to call an election when it’s convenient?

Some might say that’s rich coming from you

Heavyweight cultural and political commentator Noel Gallagher has lashed out at the Prime Minister in an interview with Newsnight. Pulling no punches, the pugnacious Oasis leader was critical of Tony Blair’s ‘presidential’ leadership and the Iraq war, both of which, the guitarist claims, have tarnished the Labour Party forever. There were no kind words for the leader of the opposition, either. David Cameron is “no different” and is “like a songwriter who’s eternally ripping off someone else’s song,” said the songwriter who gave us tunes such as Cigarettes & Alchohol (basically a rewrite of T-Rex’s Get It On [Bang A Gong]), Don’t Look Back In Anger (which steals the piano riff from John Lennon’s Imagine, before turning into Watching The Wheels – again by John Lennon), Hello (the ending of which is so similar to Gary Glitter’s Hello, Hello, I’m Back Again he got a co-writing credit), Step Out (the chorus of which is so similar to Stevie Wonder’s Uptight [Everything's Alright] he also got a co-writing credit), Shakermaker (essentially the same tune as I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing by the New Seekers), Fade Away (the first verse of which bears an uncanny resemblance to Freedom by Wham!), Wonderwall (the title of which was originally a George Harrison album) not to mention innumerable lazy references to Beatles lyrics, songs and albums scattered throughout the band’s output. So it’s easy to see where he got the analogy from.

Still, one has to admire his….chutzpah.

I haven’t really paid any attention to Oasis since (eerily enough, in a spooky New Labour parallel) 1997, so seeing their performance at The Brits last night was something of a shock. They were horrendous, a grotesque parody of themselves. Liam stood with the posture of on orangutan. An orangutan with rickets. And his vocal ‘delivery’ was excruciating. It sounded like the rock and roll lifestyle has not so much caught up with him, but sped up behind him in a truck, run him down, reversed back over him again to make sure, then climbed out and twatted him with hammers.

You can see a clip of it for yourself here. Although I wouldn’t recommend it.

Media try to drag up ’shady’ drugs past. Entire nation yawns.

Quick poll. Does anyone, anywhere, give a honking bum trumpet whether David Cameron smoked cannabis in his schooldays or not? Certain sections of the media seem unhealthily obsessed with this ’story’, for reasons that I cannot fathom. If he didn’t smoke jazz cigarettes a quarter of a century ago, then there is no story. Whereas if he did smoke jazz cigarettes a quarter of a century ago… then there is still no story. None. Whatsoever. In the meantime I have yet to hear a single person respond with anything other than yawns – not even the Home Secretary is bothering to make political capital out of this. Even Norman Tebbit recommends that Dave simply make an official announcement to clarify the matter once and for all. That’s right: Norman Tebbit.

I wrote about this subject when it first came up during the Conservative Party’s leadership contest in October 2005. If only Dave had followed my advice, he probably wouldn’t have had to interrupt his Sunday schedule yesterday. As I said at the time:

It’s a shame that he can’t just release a statement along the lines of “In my youth, like many people in this country, I used some drugs on a recreational basis. Whilst it was fun at the time, it was a long time ago and bears no relevance to my life anymore. Now that we’ve got that cleared up, please can we move onto the real issues at stake here?” Just release that and kill the issue cold. Perhaps then we could finally engage in an intelligent conversation and free debate about drugs that doesn’t immediately degenerate into a cacophony of hypocritical bluster at the very mention of the word. 

And it is hypocritical, of course. Journalists whipping up a story about someone’s predilection for illegal substances is like a troupe of clowns starting a campaign to punish the wearing of big shoes and white face make up. Media folk everywhere: give it up, nobody cares. This must be the first recorded instance of lots of fire, but no smoke. In the meantime, Cameron should clarify one way or the other. “Yes, I did smoke cannabis. What of it?” or “No, I didn’t smoke cannabis. What of it?” Either way, outside of tabloid press editorial meetings, nobody is remotely interested.

Polly Ethylene

 

The point is, ideology is dead and political labels are increasingly meaningless.

I wrote these words in the first ever post on this blog, in March 2005. I was reminded of them last week with the news that Greg Clark, a Conservative Party policy adviser, recommended that, when it comes to tackling poverty, the party should divorce itself form the absolutist ideas of Winston Churchill, and instead embrace the relativist philosophy of Polly Tonybee, Guardianista extraordinaire and fully paid up member of the real liberal elite (© Peter Hitchens). This really would be a u-turn for the “Nasty Party” under Cameron, as it suggests many of them are prepared to ditch their Thatcherite legacy and work instead towards a European social democratic model. My, don’t we live in a topsy turvy universe? I expected such a stance to split the party wide open on the subject – which it did, to an extent – but when I read that even John Redwood supported Mr Clark’s findings, I wondered if I’d been transported to some parallel universe where up is down, black is white and Compassionate Conservatism isn’t a contradiction in terms.

Personally, I find Polly Toynbee’s champagne socialism rather wearisome. It is hypocritical in the extreme to extol the virtues of welfarism and state education while earning a really rather healthy salary as a Guardian columnist and sending your child to an exclusive private school. Especially when The Guardian could be paying ME that money instead. I guarantee I’d be more entertaining than Toynbee and her patronising platitudes.

He doesn’t exactly inspire conference

I suppose I should make some sort of comment about last week’s Labour conference in Manchester. There was really only one story for me: the Machiavellian undermining (intentional or not) of Gordon Brown’s keynote speech.

Poor old Gordon Brown. So desperate to become prime minister, to stake his place in history, to step into the position that he sees as rightfully his. This was meant to be his week. He would make a rousing speech appealing to his own base, while reaching out to others, and at the same time demonstrate to the British public that he is not remote, aloof and socially awkward; that he can connect with them, see off that young upstart Cameron and march forward with the great Labour project, minus the spin-machine of the Blair administration.

So he pulled out all the stops in his speech, declaring outright that he would relish the chance to take on Cameron and his rejuvenated Conservatives. With regards to his fractious relationship with Tony, he paid tribute and admitted that they have not always agreed on everything (no shit). Conscious that people know little about him, he spoke of his Scottish upbringing and how his young experiences forged his political values – values that he holds to this day. Describing his vision of the Labour Party, he maintained that it should have more than just a programme, it should have a “soul”. He seeks political office not for fame or celebrity, but to make a difference, to make this country a better place. And so on.

His speech was generally warmly received, he got the obligatory standing ovation (even from Blair) and was probably feeling pretty pleased with himself. No doubt he retired from the stage to handshakes, warm smiles and back slapping from his most trusted colleagues and supporters. A job well done, they all no doubt felt.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg News broke a story that was clearly going to alter the expected headlines in tomorrow’s papers. One of their reporters claimed to have heard Cherie Blair say “well, that’s a lie” while watching Brown (on a TV monitor) talking about what a privilege it had been to serve under her husband. Downing Street immediately issued a denial, of course. But immediately this stole the top story from the beleaguered chancellor. Suddenly nobody was interested in the content of the would-be next prime minister’s speech, what mattered now was what the prime minister’s wife did or did not say.

Predictably enough, Cherie’s comment was on the front page of pretty much every newspaper on Tuesday morning. Was it intentional? We’ll never know. After all, it’s not the first time she’s said something controversial. But either way, it was a brilliant outcome for the Blairites and the “anyone-but-Brown” camps.

Then, as if Gordon’s week couldn’t get any worse, that bumbling cretin John Prescott gives the kiss of death by declaring that he will support Gordon Brown’s future leadership bid.

Coming up this week is the Conservative conference in Bournemouth. David Cameron consistently tops opinion polls when it is a straight choice between him or Gordon Brown, despite the fact that nobody really knows what Cameron’s policies are on anything. The less he says or does, the more popular he gets. If I were Cameron, I would just get up on stage on Wednesday and play my favourite songs on a kazoo. The way things are going, it wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference to his political ambitions. It should be an interesting week.

Blairites and Brownites hit the mattresses

So today’s the day. Sometime between 2pm and 3pm Tony Blair will announce to the world the day he intends to stand down as prime minister. Or so we all thought. Breaking news suggests that, in fact, he won’t specify a day at all, but will confirm that he will stand down sometime before next year’s party conference.

Brownites are desperately pushing for clarification, and would love for Blair to just stand down today, avoiding what could otherwise be the longest leadership contest in history. According to reports, Gordon Brown has demanded that he goes by Christmas. If Blair were to say, for example, that he’ll go on May 31^st, we’d be looking at eight months of machinations and political manoeuvres in a party that is clearly not united on anything. With no real leader in the interim (who’s going to care about the consequences when they already know that he’s leaving?) this could make the Conservative Party squabbles under John Major in the mid 1990s look like a children’s tea party. Gordon Brown will most likely be the victor in any contest, but may first face a battle from John Reid, Alan Milburn, perhaps even Jack Straw or Charles Clarke. None of whom would be particularly attractive to me – but at least we know something about them. Gordon Brown is an unknown quantity. Who knows what he thinks about any of the major issues facing Britain today? What does he think about British involvement in Iraq or Afghanistan? About our role in Europe? Our relationship with the United States? About Muslim fundamentalism?

In any case, any euphoria about Blair leaving is going to be relatively short lived. The left of the party still aren’t going to see Labour return to anything like its socialist roots. And Brown’s backers will soon have to face up to a certain reality: their new leader will have to battle David Cameron, who is younger, more charismatic and more voter friendly than Brown, the Silent Chancellor. It’s almost laughably ironic: after giving way to Tony Blair in 1994, then spending twelve years as a frustrated leader-in-waiting, Gordon Brown could well find himself as prime minister for just a couple of years, before being unseated in a general election to a Conservative Party led by a replica of the man who held him back for so long.

The Guardian today quotes Labour MP John McDonnell as describing the events of the last few weeks as being like an episode of The Sopranos. I think that does our favourite Mafia family a disservice. There is at least a concept of honour amongst thieves in their world: what’s going on in the Labour Party right now makes the mob look quite civilised. Perhaps Gordon should have had Blair clipped – that usually speeds up leadership contests in La Cosa Nostra.

Is the unthinkable becoming more likely?

Last October I wrote a piece postulating on the possibility of ever voting for the Conservative Party one day. The conclusion was that, in all probability, this would not happen, because of the unlikelihood of that particular animal being attractive to me. Since then, of course, the party has elected David Cameron as its leader (one of the conditions for me ever being able to stomach them in the first place), who has embarked on a major charm offensive. Recognising that his party has, for many years, made stomachs turn, he has gone to great lengths to re-engineer the entire Tory (even that is now a dirty word) ethos, and drag them to the centre. So much so that he is now going toe-to-toe with Tony Blair in virtually every way.

It’s the summer, so most politicians are meant to be on holiday somewhere, enjoying the enormous break they all receive at this time of year courtesy of us, the generous taxpayers. But not Big Dave. He’s doing the rounds, trying to keep himself in the papers and the public eye. Yesterday he was criticising the government’s efforts at combating Islamic terrorism in the UK. Today, he’s gone to the trouble of revealing a mini-manifesto. Which was nice of him. Let’s go through the key points and see how they measure up to the wish list I put together last year:

“Flatter and simpler” taxes and deregulation for industry
Yes, I have long liked the idea of a flat tax. Simplification of our sprawling and complex tax system, reducing the need for an army of overpaid bureaucrats at the Inland Revenue and closing tax loops exploited by the rich and their clever accountants? Definitely worth investigation.

Reducing means testing for pensioners, paid for by raising the retirement age
A great vote winner for the Tories. After all, most of their base is over sixty. Raising the retirement age is, unfortunately, a requirement for whoever gets in power. The pension deficit isn’t getting any smaller.

A “huge increase” in drug rehabilitation places for young offenders
Part of Cameron’s infamous “hug a hoodie” initiative I suppose. But I agree. Sending drug abusers to prison is like sending gamblers to Las Vegas.

“Binding annual targets” for carbon emissions
Easily said, not easily done. But again, I can’t fault the logic.

Ending the “culture of top down centralisation and targets” in the NHS
Ironic, seeing as his party introduced the idea in the first place, but still…

More “streaming and setting” in schools
Nothing wrong with pushing smarter kids up the ladder. As long as the others aren’t completely given up on of course. Nothing wrong with testing kids either and (gosh) occasionally failing them if they’re not up to standard.

Creating a “unified border police” and a homeland security minister
Like, whatever.

A New Bill of Rights to replace the Human Rights Act
I like the idea in principle – I’ve always supported constitutional reform and an enshrined Bill of Rights would be a part of that. Getting out of the European Human Rights Act wouldn’t be an easy task though.

Scrapping the government’s proposed ID card scheme and unelected regional assemblies
Definitely scrap the ID card. It will cost billions, go over budget, then cost billions more. It would be cheaper to simply let the benefit fraud that it would supposedly eliminate continue. It wouldn’t make any difference in fighting terrorism. As we’ve seen in the last year, our biggest threat comes from naturalised British citizens.

It has to be said, the blueprint set out here comes closer to matching the sort of liberal policies I would like to see our government represent than anything else I have seen recently. There is nothing here that would offend me. Of course, he’s got to sell the idea to the rest of his party – and there are still some hoary old monsters in there – not to mention their elderly membership, for the transformation to continue. But so far, so good. Big Dave, you’ve got me listening. It will be interesting to see where you go from here. My vote is very much up for grabs, I have little regard for any of the parties these days. If you could just take another look at your party’s name. The Conservatives. I just don’t like it. Would you consider changing it to something more agreeable? The Liberal Party, perhaps? Then you’d really have my attention.