Nick Clegg does PMQs - the tweets

Nick Clegg did Prime Minister's Questions today while David Cameron is schmoozing his way round the Middle East. He was so assured, confident and natural and spoke completely without notes. He even answered the question he was given and not the one he wanted to answer, too. He made David Cameron look like a complete amateur, to be honest, and Gordon Brown, too.

My Liberal Democrat Voice colleague Nick Thornsby reminded us on Twitter this morning that four years ago, two days after Barack Obama was elected the first time round, Clegg, then a humble third party leader, questioned PM Gordon Brown, who put him down quite snidily. And the subject of Clegg's questions? Taxing the wealthy and cutting taxes for the poorest. Nothing if not consistent. Have a look here.



It was quite a contrast to see Clegg in Brown's position today.

There was one irritation, though. In fact, two. Alan Reid and Simon Hughes both got up and asked the pathetically toadying soft ball question that always seems to come from the Government side in both Holyrood and Westminster. I can't stand it whoever is doing it. I don't know what Alistair Carmichael had on those two, whether they'd stolen his orange Clubs or something, but seeing grown liberals toadying is so not a good look. And it's completely unnecessary. Nick didn't need it as he'd already peppered references to the same points throughout the proceedings.

I think my favourite bit was when Peter Bone asked a really friendly question. Nobody could ever have expected that and Nick looked quite surprised about it. Mrs Bone didn't get a mention, though. He will probably be in big trouble later. During the exchange, Nick got his obligatory Nadine Dorries joke in, saying that when he'd heard she'd gone off to the jungle to eat insects, he assumed it was a punishment from the Chief Whip. As if the gentlemanly Sir George Young would ever do anything so, well, naff.

As is my wont, I have saved various tweets from the proceedngs in a storify thingy for you to read.

Mixed emotions as Cameron enters Downing Street

In 1997 when Tony Blair entered Downing Street when the country was erupting in a chorus of "Ding Dong the Wicked Tories are gone" I lay in bed watching him and I felt nothing. Not one thing. I was numb. I just didn't trust him one little bit and something inside kind of knew he'd let the country down. Even I didn't predict the awfulness that followed, the illegal invasion of Iraq, complicity in torture, the vernacular of the war on terror and the accompanying assaults on civil liberties - control orders and 42 days' detention.

The last few days have been quite emotional for me, what with the ending of Team Rennie in Dunfermline an'all. I'm ok most of the time, but then I'll look at Willie's Facebook wall and be set off again by the kindness people have shown him.

So, I'm feeling quite fragile anyway, and then Gordon Brown comes out of Downing Street and shows the whole country a very human and graceful side to him that many of us knew was there but which we rarely saw when he was in office. Poor Sarah looked drawn and tired. Then for the first and last time, they left Downing Street with their boys, the whole family together. Yeah, that got me going again. For all the shambolic nature of his Government, he is a very good man and I'll be raising a glass of red to him tonight.

Then we saw Cameron emerge from Buckingham Palace. When he came out a snapper asked him if he could wave, addressing him as "Prime Minister". That made me shudder, I have to be honest.

A while later, David and Samantha arrived in Downing Street. In contrast to my numbness of 13 years ago, I had the weirdest mixture of horror and excitement. Horror because the Tories were back, tempered by the knowledge that it looked like there were going to be Liberal Democrats with him.

In fact, the range of emotion I feel at that is immense - fear, pride, apprehension, hope, not quite knowing whether I should be saying Yikes or Yippee.

When Nick Clegg first appeared in that interview room as an applicant to be a Euro candidate in Leicester 12 years ago, we all knew that one day he would be party leader. He blew us all away. What we didn't expect was that he might be in the position to take the Liberal Democrats into Government.

As I write, a very tight lipped David Laws has just gone into the Federal Executive meeting. He looked like he was really petrified. He's probably just tired, but it does at least appear that he has at the very least a healthy respect for the powerhouse committee of the party. He talked about policy issues but no details, not commenting on any of the rumours that had abounded in the previous few hours.

When Cameron entered Number 10, he spoke of how he and Nick Clegg had decided to put aside their political differences and make a Government based on freedom, fairness and responsibility for the good of the country.

The proof of the pudding will be in the eating but for the moment I want to let my daughter Anna have the last word. She's been gripped by this hung parliament meeting, to the point where she was asking me about the differences between AV and STV over breakfast this morning. Her comment when she watched Cameron go into Downing Street was "I know Tories are evil, but let's give David Cameron a chance."

He had better not let my baby down.

Brown's bombshell puts Labour back in the game

Wow! With a heavy heart this morning, I was becoming increasingly convinced that the Lib Dem team was going to do some sort of deal with the Tories. Now it all seems to have changed and, literally, anything could happen. It's been funny how all the Labour people on Twitter who've been breathing fire on us for the last couple of days are now being very nice and the acid is now being snorted on us from the blue side.

I was very impressed with the dignified way Gordon Brown stepped aside. It was inevitable but he did it well. I've blogged several times about him - his government has generally been shambolic, but he is very difficult, despite all the glumness and dourness, to dislike. I hated Tony Blair (a word I use advisedly) with a passion unrivalled in its intensity, much more than I ever hated Thatcher but although Gordon exasperates me frequently, personally I think he's a good man at heart.

Now, if I were in a position to choose who I was going to get into bed with, I would want to make sure that they aren't going to snore, or fart, or hog the duvet or eat cheese and onion crisps in bed, or, preferably at all. There might be some circumstances in which I'd choose to sleep alone.

This metaphor transfers rather easily to the situation in which the Liberal Democrats now find themselves. It goes without saying that neither of the prospective partners will have perfect bedroom manners.

Option 1: The Tories

Pros

Likely to be more stable
Not dependent on petty nationalist demands to get every other vote through the Commons
More common ground on things like ID cards and privacy issues
The chemistry between the teams seems better
Our influence could take the sting out of them and save people pain

Cons

They are the Tories and in the past when they have governed alone they have been vile
They are xenophobic, homophobic in part, socially reactionary and too quick to want indiscriminate cuts
They don't give a flying puck about the poor
They do give a flying puck about protecting their rich friends
They hastily offer a referendum on AV which, frankly, isn't enough
The political consequences in Scotland particularly could be pretty dire if we can't show that we have made a difference to people for the better

Option 2: Labour

Pros

More suited economically
Many Lib Dems and voters would feel better about an arrangement with Labour than the Tories
At last, we have a woman on the negotiating teams.


Cons

Where to start?

A fairly significant chunk of the Labour Party really loathe the idea - as I speak John Reid is calling the idea of a coalition between us for everything on the BBC

Even without that, the arrangement is unstable

Every vote could be a real fight - much more stressful on whips and MPs, especially if the nationalist parties decide to pick petty fights on every issue.

We would start out with one retiring Labour leader and in 4 months' time the dynamics could change when the next one is in office. It's a hell of a gamble and Stephen Fry painted a very bleak picture of what could happen if it all falls apart.

Can you see the likes of Tom Harris trooping through the voting lobby to implement electoral reform?

They are instinctively of the sort of authoritarian mindset that thinks it's ok for the police to stop you for taking photographs and allow people who make jokes on Twitter to be prosecuted for it. What would happen to our Freedom Bill?

Option 3 Going it alone, or confidence and supply agremment with the Tories

Pros

It means that our influence in the Parliament will be more easily measured on the issues which arise

Cons

May not last long. The Tories (because it would be David Cameron as PM if we did this) would soon tire of us trying to amend their bills and there could soon be another election in which we are cast as the evil ones.

I sense that we are moving into the endgame and I guess we will know the outcome within the next 48 hours. The Tories are clearly getting frazzled by today's developments. The markets have been quiet today as their Tory friends have been happy in negotiations. What do you bet that they go crazy tomorrow now that their involvement in government seems less likely?

Just as an aside, Adam Boulton took complete leave of his senses on Sky News earlier - I wondered if he was going to land a punch on Alistair Campbell at one point. Are we to understand that the Murdoch media empire is a little displeased with today's developments?

A few words about Gordon Brown's faux pas

Sure, Gordon Brown mucked up big time. Like Neil Kinnock's tumble on the sands at Brighton, his remarks as he left after a conversation with Rochdale voter Gillian Duffy may well go down as the defining moment of his leadership. It may even go down as the moment this election irrevocably turned.

Before you criticise too much, though, can you hand on heart say that there has never been a moment in your life when you have said something you really shouldn't to let off steam privately?

I'll bet you there's not a politician on this earth who hasn't said something similar at some stage. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that there's not a person on this earth who hasn't irrationally cursed their boss, or a customer or someone who doesn't really deserve it when they thought they couldn't be heard.

There is so much pressure on political leaders. They're all absolutely exhausted. Hell, I was actually in tears earlier because I'm so tired at the moment and I don't have to go out in public and smilingly greet loads of people every hour of the day when I'm not staring at the likes of Jeremy Paxman or travelling. They must all be pretty wrecked and in some ways mistakes like this are inevitable.

That said, one of the reasons I can't abide the Labour Party is that they seem to have a very narrow vision of what is acceptable and what isn't. If you don't agree with them 100%, they think there's something wrong with you. I could never deliver that sort of conformity to anyone or anything and I'm deeply suspicious of an organisation that demands it. Maybe if they just relaxed a bit, they could cope with dissent a bit better.

There is however, a small part of me in that very soft mother hen type psyche of mine that just wants to give Gordon Brown a cup of tea and a cuddle (purely platonic for the avoidance of doubt). It could have happened to anyone, but only he was unlucky enough to have a mike from a media empire that hates his guts strapped to him.

Nick Clegg puts fairness first at PMQs as Speaker jokes about calling helpline

You wouldn't have needed a top of the range crystal ball to have an inkling that PMQs would descend into mudslinging, given Bullygate and Alistair Darling's comments. Would Cameron unleash the forces of hell on the Prime Minister?

The Prime Minister was eased into the session with a question on banking that was so obviously planted that I don't know how the MP asking it could have any self respect at all. Maybe he thought Nick Cleggwould go on banking, given The Almighty Vince's statement yesterday and wanted to get a less robust, friendlier question in to stop him.

Brown didn't seem to grasp the connection between this sort of question what Jo Swinson described as a waste of a question later from a Tory, who asked if Tony Blair meant it literally when he described Brown as a clunking fist. Truth is, obvious plants from either side just add to the ignimony this weekly slanging match has earned for itself.

David Cameron lulled us into a brief sense of civility by asking a reasoned question on a public enquiry for Stafford Hospital. Brown replied with an equally and appropriately civil account of the Government's actions, although he ignored the request for a public enquiry.

Then it all changed. Call me Dave started on Alistair Darling's comments yesterday. Ironic, really, for a Tory to go on about rifts between PM and Chancellor at a time of econommic turmoil when Mrs Thatcher got on so well with Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson in similarly turbulent economic times, but we'll let that pass.

I'm not a good enough lip reader to work out what the conversation between Brown and Darling on the Government front bench, but I'd love to know what was said. The body language between them was a lot more positive than it has been in the past. There was a beautiful riposte from Brown to Cameron, that it was the first time the Tories had talked about the economy in a while. I wonder who came up with that line in the Brown Prep session.

You don't often get the Speaker joining in the banter, and certainly not joking about the political raw nerves of the week, but it was actually quite refreshing to have John Bercow suggest that he might call a helpline if the childish behaviour he was witnessing didn't stop. More seriously, he threatened to suspend the sitting and mentioned the bad name the session had. I think he should actually make good on his threat next time.

Typically, Nick Clegg came up with a sensible, relevant question, pulling apart Labour's new slogan, A Future Fair for all. He didn't mention candy floss, as some did, but he did mention that Labour had used this slogan before, in 2003. Not only that, but since then, the gap between rich and poor has doubled as Labour punish the poor with debacles like the 10p tax issue and the rise in NI contributions. Brown stumbled through an answer mentioning tax credits and unemployment, and got a dig in at the Tories, but had no real response to his Government's appalling record. People just above the limit for help are the poorest - and it's the children in these homes, where parents are working but are low paid, who suffer most.

All in all, the session didn't quite live down to expectations, but something needs to be done to ensure that it becomes less of a circus and more of a serious process of holding the Government to account.

Gordon Brown, Bullying and the suicide of a National Charity

I was shocked like everyone else when the National Bullying Helpline revealed that Downing Street staff had called them. I was initially reluctant to believe that a charity would divulge any information that would compromise anybody that it had helped.

Let's face it, if you had called them and you worked in Downing Street, you might be scared rigid today. Maybe even if you work in Downing Street and you hadn't called them you might be similarly apprehensive about what might greet you behind closed doors.

I found it hard that an organisation would put its credibility and its charitable status at risk for political motivation.

I am more worried than reassured by the interview that NBH chief executive Christine Pratt gave to BBC Breakfast a few minutes ago. THe most damning thing was her refusing to answer a question as to whether she had ever discusssed the calls from Downing Street with the Tory MP who phoned her to congratulate her yesterday or any others.

Ms Pratt said she'd gone public because she was concerned that Downing Street had issued a denial rather than express concern at the bullying allegations and vow to investigate. She may have a point there, but she could have made it without revealing that calls had come from Downing Street.

The charity has a duty of confidentiality to everyone who phones. If they had the permission of their clients to reveal in principle what had been going on that might go in some way to mitigate what they'd done - but if that's the case, why didn't they say? I had wondered if it had been one person who had rung them several times who no longer worked there in which case nobody would be compromised but from Christine Pratt's interview on ITN last night, she said that it was 3 or 4 and identified one by gender which just is not cricket.

I had wondered if what had pushed the charity over the edge was Mandelson's interview on Andrew Marr yesterday, reported by Mark yesterday. I have yet to watch this, but I find what Mark's report, which I trust implicitly, very sinister. When someone says that they "took their medicine like a man" to me that signifies the sort of insidious, nasty, macho bullying culture so often found particularly in traditionally male environments from public school to the Army to the Police. It was absolutely rife in the coal industry.

I tend to take the view that the better you treat your employees, the more you'll get out of them when you need to. I certainly don't cope well in an environment where there's lots of shouting and confrontation. Peter Mandelson, this does not make me any less of a worker than you.

In any high pressure situation, there are going to be times when the atmosphere gets febrile and tempers get lost and things are said that shouldn't be. That's not bullying. It's when that sort of behaviour from someone who wields power becomes the norm.

As far as Downing Street is concerned, I don't think it's any secret that Gordon Brown can be dour and demanding and I certainly wasn't surprised to read of several explosions in yesterday's Observer. Childish this may be, but I was so bemused by the fuss and outrage expressed by Labour tweeters using the Twitter hashtag Rawnsleyrot, that I bought the Observer out of devilment. To be fair, when I read the Rawnlsey revelations, I didn't really read a lot that surprised me. It all amounts to a bit of shouting and one incident of grabbing someone by the lapels. If that's true, then it's one incident too many and needs dealing with.

I think, though, there is enough evidence to deduce that it's a pretty unhealthy working environment for everyone in Downing Street. Long hours and late nights are made bearable if you feel bound by a common purpose to the people you are with, if you feel comfortable to express yourself and are given space to get on with your work. It doesn't sound like Gordon Brown's Downing Street is a place like that.

Also there is more hints of the marginalisation of women within the Brown administration with Brown allegedly wearily telling Peter Mandelson that he couldn't say no to Harriet again over an idea she'd come to. I still hold to my belief that for all its women's sections, the Labour Party is one of the most misogynist, sexist organisations in the country, paying lip service to women's concerns rather than having a sincere belief in equality.

The Tories are using all of this as a great opportunity to have a go at Gordon Brown as well, of course, as an excuse not to talk about policy. They have not much in the way of workable ideas so the more they can undermine the PM's character the better. It's not big and it sure ain't clever.

Of course, we can all remember how much help they were to people who suffered bullying and harassment, sexual or otherwise, during the 18 years they were in power. If you can't recall what they did, then you've got it! We can also all remember how respectful and gracious a boss Margaret Thatcher was, always willing to listen to opposing views.

One person who came to my mind when thinking about hissy fits and temper tantrums was James Carville, the political genius who masterminded Bill Clinton's rise, fall and rise again. He wasn't called the Ragin' Cajun for nothing but US politics would have been much the poorer without his influence over the last 20 years. Yes, you can have "creative temperament" coupled with brilliance, but there also needs to be people around to support the people who happen to be in the wrong place at the time of a meltdown. There are plenty indications out there that Downing Street has failed on that.

James Purnell's Departure - a sign Labour think they're going to win?

So, arch Blairite James Purnell is the latest of the 87 or so Labour MPs to decide to quit politics.

Why? Surely in a few short months he'd have had a shot at standing for Labour leader as a defeated Gordon Brown headed back to Fife in disgrace. He could have been the one to have given the kiss of life to the Labour Party as it licked its wounds in opposition.

Or, maybe Labour's tails are starting to come up again. They can see the polls tightening and the Cameron majority evaporating. Maybe they think, and some are starting to fear, Cameron might not get a majority and Labour would somehow be able to continue in Government. Remember that Spitting Image sketch after the 92 election showing Major's cabinet wearily walking back into Downing Street to clear up the mess they left when they trashed the place in anticipation of a Labour victory?

Of course a victorious Gordon Brown would be safe in his Prime Ministerial office for the moment at least. In that case, would Purnell really want to be stuck on the back benches twiddling his thumbs? I can't see Brown surviving a whole Parliament without a bit of inter-necine strife, but even if he was deposed, that leader would face an uphill challenge. Maybe Purnell has decided he just doesn't want to be that man.

It is pretty shameful that Labour MPs are leaving it until this late to decide they want to quit. If Gordon Brown decided he wanted to call an election on 25th March, he'd have a tough job to get candidates in place in time in places like Edinburgh South, West Dunbartonshire, Ashfield and now Stalybridge.

Brown Interview showcases a good man, not a good PM

This is basically my first, unfiltered reaction to Gordon Brown's interview with Piers Morgan. What did we learn?

That Piers and Gordon are great buddies. You can tell that - I've never seen the PM so comfortable during an interview. He was nervous, cos he really doesn't like doing that sort of thing, but he managed to laugh and giggle a bit while Piers did the sex and drugs innuendo.

That Gordon Brown is a human being who's gone through some really tough things, including the loss of a child and he's emotionally articulate enough to talk about it despite the obvious pain.

That he loves his wife, incredibly much, and their bond is very strong. Many couples split up after losing a child because they can't cope with the terrible grief. What struck me was his empathy for what Sarah had gone through. You can't learn that from a script - you get the impression he felt it with her. I expect many women particularly will have seen that and liked it.

That his children mean the absolute world to him.

Absolutely not one bit of this was a surprise to me - it's always been totally obvious. I remember when little Jennifer was born commenting to my husband how happy he looked. We were a couple of years into our parenthood at this stage and we totally got how he was totally bowled over by his wee girl.

If the objective of this interview was to get over to the public that Gordon Brown is a human being, a real person with feelings who's just like us, then it worked. Whether that sort of thing was necessary is another thing.

Piers set up a series of straw men, like Gordon's failure to kiss visiting ladies properly, the You Tube debacle and his seeming social discomfiture which he then blew aside himself with each fawning guffaw as the hagiography continued.

Of course, there was no intense probing on policy, on the disparity between Brown and Darling on future spending plans, on the fact that a Government of which he was a senior member was complicit in torture, of Iraq, which he bankrolled (obviously not personally but you know what I mean) and which, of couse, Piers Morgan was opposed to as editor of the Daily Mirror. Not a word about Brown's forthcoming appearance at the Iraq Inquiry.

There was nothing in tonight's interview that showed Gordon Brown as a man of vision, a man of who could lead, a man with people skills, a man with sound judgement. All of these things are vital in a Prime Minister but we didn't see them tonight and nor have we seen them in any sufficient quantity in his time in office. He's presided over a Government whose best hope of clinging to power is to pursue a brutal, cynical "I'm not them" campaign.

It would be remiss of me not to mention that Nick Clegg has all of these qualities in boatloads - we've seen it in the way he's set out his fairness agenda, how he's worked with people on the Gurkhas, how he seems to have tamed the passionate and ubercritical Lib Dem membership and activists as he's made changes in the party for the better.

David Cameron, of course, is just slick, opportunistic and smarmy - and people know it. A mum at my daughter's school said to me that (and this is good Scots vernacular which I trust needs no explanation) Cameron gives her "the boke".

So, we know from tonight that Gordon Brown is a good man, a genuine man. We might even like him. This does not, however, make him a good PM, or his Government anything other than the cynical, tired, overly authoritarian monolith it has become. Nothing excuses their failure to do something radical to help the poor and most vulnerable and Brown has to take the blame for that as its head.

David Heath: the man who made Gordon Brown laugh

When you're feeling the pressure, maybe if your work colleagues are winding you up, for example, it can be really great if someone unexpected comes along and just makes you laugh, even if they're having a go. After all, whoever said laughter was the best medicine had a point.

That's what it was like for notoroiusly dour Prime Minister Gordon Brown today. For a man who was again having to dodge the slings and arrows of outraged Blairites, he managed to land a few punches on David Cameron at PMQs but it was an uninspiring display from both men.

Nick Clegg upped the quality a bit with a clever question on taxes - asking how the PM could go on about aspiration when the 20% poorest people paid proportionally more in tax than the 20% richest.

The star of the show, though, was David Heath, Lib Dem MP for Somerton and Frome and a long time hero of mine. Asking about Labour's lack of progress on Commons reform, with characteristic wit and with enough passion to melt all the snow in the land, he said that the Labour Government had all the speed of an "arthritic slug on the way to its own funeral." Now, let's not be pedantic and start lecturing on slug anatomy, it was a very funny line and Brown was still laughing as he replied to David that the cross party consensus was useful. It was the sort of exchange we don't see enough of - witty, spontaneous and effective.

I think it was definitely the best line at PMQs since the Almighty Vince's "Stalin to Mr Bean."

It certainly brought a bit of levity to the PM's day before he had to go and deal with the Hoon and Hewitt letter. Geoff Hoon, of course, is facing a very strong Liberal Democrat challenge in his seat, so it's hardly surprising he's turning to desperate measures.

I may be proved wrong this time next week, but I doubt anybody will want to try to take on the job of leading Labour into a very risky election so I think this will go down as yet another attempt by Blairites to undermine Gordon Brown and just fizzle out.

When you really have to get the details and the spelling right

I'm well known in the blogosphere and beyond for being freakishly obsessive about spelling and punctuation. I have, to my eternal shame, even upset people by going on about it. I didn't mean to be evil,but the discovery that my comments were not just taken as playful banter was a bit of a wake up call to me.

There are some times, though, when it is absolutely essential to get every detail right. Another of my obsessions is that if you are writing a letter of condolence, it absolutely must be done by hand. There's something about that gesture of taking the time to produce something personally that shows respect.

Today we discover that Gordon Brown made some errors when writing such a letter to the family of Guardsman Jamie Janes, who was recently killed in Afghanistan. I have nothing but sympathy for everyone involved in this. I expect that the person who gave the information to the PM will be feeling horrendously bad about it. The PM will, I think, see this as a personal failure rather than a PR blunder. He knows what it's like to lose a child and he also knows how he and Sarah were sustained in their loss by the good wishes and sympathy and letters from people all over the country. I expect that he wanted to give the same sort of comfort to Guardsman Janes' mother and will feel awful that such an avoidable mistake was made.

I can't imagine anything worse than losing a child and Mrs Janes will be going through the most tumultuous set of emotions, from shock to anger to despair and everything in between, which will manifest themselves in all sorts of ways. To have seen her son's name written incorrectly will have been like the emotional equivalent of pouring pure lemon juice on a cut.

This, I think, is one of those occasions when you need to just empathise with everybody rather than try to use a mistake for political point scoring. I expect in future these details will be triple and quadruple checked. There can be no excuses, but at the same time, we're all human and we've all put our foot in it and hurt someone unintentionally at some point in our lives.

It's good that Gordon Brown tried to make amends by phoning Mrs Janes to apologise. I hope that that conversation helped her.

I do think it's important that the PM gets personally involved in contacting the bereaved families of soldiers who have died serving the country. As head of the Government, it's the absolute least he can do. I can imagine that phoning wouldn't really be appropriate because when you're dealing with loss, the intensity of the emotions tend to come in unpredictable and intense waves and it may well be too intrusive for the PM just to cold call grieving relatives. A hand-written letter is a good way for him to show his empathy and his respect for the fallen serviceman. He shouldn't be put off writing them because for many, in years to come, the fact that their child or spouse or sibling or parent was honoured in such a way by the PM will be a source of comfort and pride.

UPDATE: I was going to do a quick update to this to talk about my growing unease about the Sun's role in all of this given that they have now posted a recording of the conversation between Gordon Brown and Mrs Janes. I don't feel comfortable about listening to it because it is ultimately a private conversation during which some private and deeply personal sentiments were expressed. However, I doubt I could do better than this excellent piece from Sara which expresses my feelings pretty much exactly.

UPDATE 2: The extent of the Sun's muck up is shown nowhere more graphically than in in this post by Mr Eugenides. It is not like the Cute Greek Baby to stand up for Gordon Brown. I don't think there's a swear word that's ever been invented that he has not used to describe our PM as you'll see if you peruse the rest of his blog.

UPDATE 3: I was explaining all of this to my 10 year old tonight and her immediate reaction was that Gordon Brown was trying to help. "He's not evil. He never meant to upset the lady."

Brown's barbaric plans to stigmatise teenage mothers.

I'm going to leave others to rip to shreds Gordon Brown's claims on the economy and his new found belief in local Post Offices he made in his speech today. There's plenty of scope for an awful lot of shreds. Others can also comment on the number of Lib Dem policies he stole. Update: for a really good overall analysis of the speech, look at what our favourite Elephant has to say.)

I want to concentrate on one truly horrific aspect of what he said.

Over an hour on, I'm still actually shaking with shock at this sentence:

"From now on all 16 and 17 year old parents who get support from the taxpayer will be placed in a network of supervised homes"

Parents? In reality, that will be mothers, then, because they're the ones who generally claim the benefit. I don't know how much Gordon Brown knows about Biology but they don't tend to have sex on their own, or at least not the sort that results in babies being born. Here we have another crazy Labour idea which could result in the fathers of these babies carryng on life as usual while the girls they've impregnated are taken to be taught about responsibility. You couldn't make it up!

And while we're at it, does that mean that any 16/17 year old who claims either Child Benefit or Child Tax Credit, both of which are support from taxpayer, even if they have a stable home, will be dragged off to one of these "supervised homes" against their will?

I don't know whether Brown was trying to lovebomb Tom Harris MP who was the sole backbencher to call for him to go at the febrile Labour Parliamentary Party meeting after the disastrous Euro and local elections this year. Earlier this year, I had a bit of a go at Tom after he advocated what I felt was a return to the Dark Ages on this issue. At that time I felt that he was a bit of a lone voice in Labour but now it seems that Gordon Brown has morphed into Iain Duncan Smith lite too.

There are plenty reasonable, fair and effective ways to reduce teenage pregnancies - raising the self esteem and reducing the sexualisation of young women; accessible information about contraception; education for all teenagers, girls and boys. Ultimately, though, they are always going to happen - teenagers always have had sex and always will and no form of contraception is infallible. I don't think that effectively locking up young girls is a constructive way forward - in fact, it's a return to the days when unmarried mums were hidden away and whispered about, their lives ruined.

Brown's idea s a shameful, desperate play for the Daily Mail vote. I hope that enough Labour MPs have the backbone to make sure that it never becomes a reality.

The last word will go to the wise Will Howells who summed up the policy on Twitter like this: "Mothers, lock up your daughters, because if you don't we will."

UPDATE: (already) Paul Waugh has some more information on the plan. The last sentence of his piece is very scary indeed:

"I suspect the Tories will be delighted that the political space has now been carved out for them to perhaps go even further."

UPDATE: (a bit later on) I basically reported the facts and my general horror. Stephen, Jennie and Charlotte have all tackled this with great originality and persuasiveness and their posts are well worth reading.

A tasty dish of red herring - what do the letters on Lockerbie mean?

The Scottish Government and the UK Justice Ministry have been releasing documents relating to the release of Abdelbasset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the Lockerbie Bomber.

The Sunday Times this week suggested that the UK Government went back on a commitment to the Scottish Government that it would attempt to obtain an exclusion from the proposed Prisoner Transfer Agreement for Al Megrahi, so that there would be no obligation for him to be returned to serve his sentence in Libya. This they did in what they said was the national interest, ie lots of money for BP for oil exploration in Libya.

That, as far as we can see from the correspondence is pretty much the case. It looks to me like Alex Salmond and Kenny MacAskill had a fit when they saw what the proposed PTA involved, which MacAskill confirmed in his statement on 20th August. The Scottish Government asked the UK Government to negotiate an exclusion. Jack Straw went to the Libyans and asked very nicely if Al Megrahi could be excluded. They said "No." Then Jack Straw decided for whatever reason that it wasn't worth pursuing and gave up, albeit reassuring the Scottish Government that they would have the final say on any application.

What I think this means is that it is entirely hypocritical of the Scottish Labour Party to take such a hard line against the decision made by MacAskill. If Jack Straw didn't think that an exclusion for Megrahi was worth making a fuss about, then they can't claim to have consistently opposed any actions that would make his departure from Scotland more difficult.

Now, what of the Sunday Times headline that Megrahi was "set free for oil"? The correspondence between Straw, Salmond and MacAskill proves that Straw decided against making an issue of exemption for Megrahi, but how can that be relevant when MacAskill rejected the inevitable application for transfer which came from the Libyan Government?

But then, of course, it's possible to argue his release on "compassionate grounds" might actually be a conspiracy between the UK Labour Government and the SNP Scottish Government. For that you would have to believe that Kenny MacAskill, having made strong representations on the Prisoner Transfer Agreement, would do what Jack Straw told him on the compassionate release application. No, me neither.

What the Sunday Times is conveniently forgetting as it tries to paint a sensationalist picture of events is that, actually, there was a darned good reason for Megrahi to be released - that he was terminally ill with a short prognosis of around 3 months. Another darned good reason is that his family were not in a leafy Glasgow suburb, but back in Libya, and had been for the last 7 months because of, get this, "their visa restrictions." See page 8 of this bundle of documents. Now, who controls entry into this country? That would be the UK Labour Government. I think I'd like some more information on why the Megrahi family had to go home at a time when their relation had been handed a terminal diagnosis. Why were they not allowed to stay here? Would they have been allowed back in to see him before he died? I've certainly seen applications to visit sick relatives in this country turned down for all sorts of reasons, despite the overwhelming compassionate grounds and evidence submitted so it's by no means a sure thing that they would have been.

So the Justice Secretary was presented with a medical report saying that the man had a short terminal prognosis and his family, including his 5 children, and his 95 year old mother, were thousands of miles away. All the advice he was given from doctors and social workers was that he should grant the compassionate release application.

As I write this, Nick Robinson is on the BBC trying to make a big fuss about a Libyan claim that Gordon Brown did not want to see Megrahi die in jail. For a start, I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to say. I don't think we should incarcerate terminally ill people who are about to die, no matter who they are. Brown had nothing to do with the decision, though, and he is certainly not in a position to give Kenny MacAskill orders.

In the end of the day we have a decision made to release a prisoner on compassionate grounds and the evidence justifies the decision Kenny MacAskill took.

I do think, however, that the Labour Party in general and Iain Gray in particular should just shut up. It's hypocritical to say the least to criticise MacAskill's decision when they were not prepared to make a bigger deal about an exemption from the Prisoner Transfer Agreement for Megrahi and when it was UK Visa restrictions which meant his family had to go back to Libya.

Is MacAskill in the clear, then? On the actual decision, I'd say yes, he did the right thing. No surprise there.

I'm still critical of the process and in particular of the visit he made to Megrahi, which I still say was unnecessary. As far as I know, Ministers and Secretaries of State do not visit prisoners in jail. I still do not think that MacAskill was obliged to meet him personally - and it looks from the correspondence that it was the Scottish Government that gave Megrahi the option of a visit. I want to know more about exactly what was said at that meeting and nothing that has been published today leaves us any the wiser on those points.

If I were an MSP voting in the Holyrood debate tomorrow, I would still be asking these questions and I would expect proper answers to them. However, on the principle of whether it was right to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds, I would, regardless of anything any whip said to me, completely support what Kenny MacAskill did.

Classy Clegg shows Cameron how it's done

For weeks PMQs has been stuck in a quagmire. On one hand, you get an onslaught of planted questions about Tory spending cuts from the Labour benches. Then you get Cameron slagging of the Government's spending predictions. And so on. It's all been rather meaningless and there is very little concrete discussion on future policy.

Nick Clegg made a more relevant contribution to this debate in a few short seconds than Tom Brown and Jerry Cameron had made in weeks. He got the obligatory soundbite about the Government going nowhere (this Government only has reverse gear left) in first. Then, in his supplementary question, he pointed out that both Cameron and Brown are ignoring the fact that tough decisions have to be made in the future - the Lib Dems have already come up with ideas like not replacing Trident, taking tax credits away from high earning families and abolishing baby bonds to reduce the deficit and he asked what were the Government going to do about it? Brown tried to swat him down with a partisan retort - which completely missed the point of what Nick was saying. Nick, and the wonderful Vince, have been totally supportive of spending our way out of recession. Sure, they've had a bit to say about the Government's cack handed way of doing it, but, yes, they've said all along we need investment now.

It's a complete no brainer that we'll have to take a long hard look at public spending in the future - and Nick injected some light into a debate that's been so far fuelled with bile and hot air from the others.

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Loyalty, Miliband style as Blairites Plot and Blears Blubs

It can't really be much fun being in the Labour party at the moment - it's almost as bad as Formula 1 for high political drama!

I really don't know how David "the Ditherer" Miliband does it. He's let a few more drops of poison drop from his tongue in an interview with the Guardian today.

He may well have had to wrestle with his conscience about whether to stay in Gordon Brown's government, but did he really need to share his inner turmoil with us, a week after the event? It's a sign of Gordon Brown's weakness that he can't sack him for continuing to undermine his leadership and effectively saying that he's only in the Government because of Peter Mandelson.

His insights into current ministerial thinking do little to allay assertions that the Government is finished.

"Labour first needs a period of competent, effective, stable government; secondly, we need to reset our political compass so ministers are no longer locked in their departments, but link their policies to their values; and thirdly, the government has to be at the cutting edge of policy."

So, what he's effectively saying is that the Government in which he occupies one of the main offices of state has been ineffective, incompetent and unstable - and that Government policy has no basis in their values. That's pretty damning! I suppose it was so obvious, but even still, for a minister to actually admit that the Government has lost the plot is quite something.

At the same time, we have Peter Mandelson warning of further leadership challenges. I guess this is a message to plotting Blairites, that, like Sting in the song, he's watching every breath they take."

I was amused by one point in his interview where he outlined his 3 pieces of advice to Gordon Brown:

"I believe in leadership and in being decisive.

"Secondly, in listening to people and respecting official advice you receive.

"And thirdly, introducing a bit of humour and jollity to your work."

The mental image that that has conjured up, of Brown leading Downing Street staff in a conga on Friday afternoons, is not entirely pleasing.

And finally, in a move that's I'm sure is completely unrelated to a planned motion of no confidence in her as MP by her local constituency party, Hazel Blears has said sorry cos she didn't realise that resigning as local government secretary on the day before local government elections might be harmful to the Government, that she'd somehow get lost in the crowd of departing ministers. I suspect the real reason for her tears is that she's not being hailed as the woman who brought down Gordon Brown. His survival was clearly as unexpected to her as Glenn Close jumping out of the bath at the end of Fatal Attraction.

No doubt we will continue to be served up such delights in the press. How nice would it be if they all stopped bitching and got on with governing? Way too much to hope for!






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Some Fun to brighten a cloudy Wednesday

Thank you so much, Subrosa for making me laugh before breakfast with this Rory Bremner parody of Gordon Brown singing Mika's Grace Kelly.

Should he try this at PMQs today?



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Is Labour Leadership Contest Underway Already?

When I wrote my last post about Labour's uneasy truce, I hadn't watched last night's Newsnight Scotland which an interview with Glasgow South Labour MP Tom Harris who as I said earlier was one of the few to tell Gordon to his face what many of the desk thumpers were no doubt thinking - that he should go and go now. He had decided to speak out earlier that afternoon, presumably as a result of the wake up call of the SNP being ahead on his patch.

In his interview, which you can watch yourself on iPlayer, Tom Harris said some very interesting things. When asked who should replace Gordon as PM, he played it nice and cool "That's for me to know and you to wait and find out." When pressed, he said: "It would be very unfair on any of the potential candidates to start naming them before they have declared their own hands." That sounds to me that leadership campaigns, plural, are already being formed in the shadows of Westminster. While it's a logical assumption to make, Tom came right out and pretty much confirmed it. It looks like even if Brown went, Alan Johnson would have a fight on his hands for the top job, so they couldn't have a coronation.

I wonder if Tom's praise of James Purnell's "outstanding example" is a clue to where his loyalties lie.

Tom doesn't think that Brown will last the course to a General Election, but if there is to be a contested election, the rebels will have to get rid of him quickly in order to allow a contest which will take probably till the conference with an election shortly thereafter. Do we know if any extra phone lines are being installed anywhere?

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How long will Labour's Uneasy Truce Last?

It's nearly tea time and for the first time in ages, nobody seems to have resigned from the Government, so I guess for Gordon Brown this will have been a good day. After the "endorsement" of the Parliamentary Labour Party last night, he met with the other middle aged (mainly) men in suits with whom he's running the country, and, also with his Orwellian Democratic Renewal Council. No doubt we will soon hear what "reforms" we are allowed to have.

The Parliamentary Labour Party last night was, bar a few honourable exceptions, falling over itself to show how loyal it was to Gordon Brown. He, having presumably been forced into a uncharacteristic humility by his new found Eminence Grise Peter Mandelson, he promised he'd change, he'd listen more, he'd tell his friends to play nice, a bit like an errant husband who is determined to have his cake and eat it.

Only a few were brave enough to challenge the Prime Minister. Charles Clarke, for one - I mean, Charles Clarke - who knew he was anti Brown? Then came the Scottish Blogosphere's favourite Labour son, Tom Harris, who at least had the honesty to tell Brown to his face that he had to go. He told Newsnight as well, and the world on his blog, but now he's said he's taking a Trappist vow of silence on the matter. Tom had been tweeting all day that his trains were being delayed and he might not make the meeting - could this have been new Transport Secretary Lord Adonis trying to ensure the absence of one potential source of rebellion?

So Tom's going to keep schtum in the future, but he doesn't really need to say anything. Barely before Brown was back in Downing Street, Stephen Byers was telling the Progress meeting that Labour needed another leader to win the next election.

It's clear that whatever period Brown has left in office, and my money is on him leading Labour into the election, will be punctuated with invective and vitriol. The leopard will not be able or willing to change his spots and the underlying tension will erupt into further doomed coup attempts. Brown is good at this stuff - he fought a war of attrition with Tony Blair for a decade. He probably feels scared if there isn't a good power struggle going on somewhere. He'll fight them all off.

We'll be treated to MPs and chief stirrers like Clarke and Byers periodically doing the rounds of the 24 hour media circus to stoke the fires.

It's going to be a re-run of the Major Years 92-97 all over again - which is why David Cameron, frankly, has a cheek seeing as his party wrote the book in how to destabilise their leaders.

Neither side will win and the Government will continue to be effectively paralysed as it spends more time dodging the slings and arrows of outraged Blairites. The only people who will really love it all will be journalists. People who actually care about helping those who are losing their jobs and homes will look on in despair.


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More Random Reshuffle Thoughts

Oh what a day it's been! And not just because it's my daughter's tenth birthday. As an aside, how come she, who is normally so difficult to rouse, was wide awake at 6.15this morning!

So, the morning brought the news that Hutton and Hoon had decided to walk the plank, although both left with some dignity. It looked then, after Johnson took over the Home Office that Brown would be able to carry out his reshuffle, even if he couldn't get rid of Darling.

Sadly, just as he thought he'd plugged all his leaks and planned a 4 pm press conference, another pipe burst with Caroline Flint's bitter and barbed resignation. She then went on to say that Brown treated women as window dressing and complained that few women were allowed into Brown's inner circle. Well, that may well be the case, but she had forgotten it when she professed loyalty to him on Sky News last night in what now looks to have been a pitch for a better job. When no cabinet position waa forthcoming, she walked. To be honest, if that's how fickle she is, then not offering her anything better is a rare act of good judgement from Brown. I find it quite strange that he paid such fulsome praise to her when asked in the press conference when she had just basically plunged a dagger, Lady Macbeth style, into his chest.

There are now only 4 women in the Cabinet. What we don't know is whether he approached any others to serve. Many women in the Parliamentary Labour Party are most closely identified as Blairites, hence he's had to turn to the previous generation for several of his appointments today. Siobhan McDonagh has just been on Channel 4 News still suggesting he should go.

Her replacement has raised a few eyebrows - Glenys Kinnock of all people, who is elevated to the House of Lords. She clearly is suited to the job as a former MEP but it brings the number of unelected peers in Cabinet attending positions to 7, out of 33. In the Cabinet proper, there are only 3 lords out of 23 members - and one of them is the Leader of the House of Lords who kind of has to be.

And as for David Miliband - what on earth is he up to? His profession of loyalty was barely convincing. He has alienated his Blairite pals who will not be able to understand why he didn't jump with Purnell and basically looks like a bit of a prat to the rest of us. And to think I have a friend who has a real crush on him, to the extent that she at one point had a photo of him eating ice cream as her wallpaper on her laptop.

We shall have to wait and see whether Brown has managed to buy himself more than a few days. I have to say it was quite bizarre to see his press conference, where he spoke about the day's events as if they were almost routine. It was almost farcical as he was asked about Flint's resignation and announced Kinnock's appointment. Why on earth was it not announced before he faced the press?

He also flatly denied ever having planned to sack or move Darling. I would love to know the truth of that. You would think that Brown's plan to do so was Holy Writ given that it's been reported on virtually every media outlet. However, we know that things reported universally as true may not always be - look at the treatment of Jo Swinson that we got upset about last week. If it is true, though, Brown was lying through his teeth at the press conference. How would that sit with the presbyterian conscience he seems to have rediscovered in the last few days?

The most amusing thing about the press conference was Gordon's insistence that his Goverment was going to refocus - and the proof - he's set up 3 committees. You couldn't make it up! The name of one of them, the Democratic Renewal Council, could have come straight from the pages of 1984.

I guess the next crisis point will be Monday and we'll see whether Brown has used enough chewing gum and string to hold his Government together and stave off total revolt.

I still think the behaviour of the Blairites in all of this has been an absolute disgrace and I don't think any of them are fit to run as much as a bath. Gordon may be inept and lack judgment and be at the head of a Government that's going nowhere, that's "run out of road" as Nick Clegg said earlier, but the vengeful Blairites are just nasty.

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Government implodes as treacherous Blairites get their revenge

I guess what I'm going to say isn't going to be that popular, but, hey, when did I ever let that stop me? My sympathy is actually with Gordon Brown this morning.

Sure, the Government is on its last legs, as I've written before. That's not all Gordon Brown's fault - the Labour Party lost its way a long time ago, when it came into office and cut benefits to lone parents, when it launched an illegal war in Iraq and when allowed people to be detained for 6 weeks without charge.

I remember the last time Ministers and MPs turned on a sitting PM - Mrs Thatcher in 1990. At that time, I actually has a fair amount of sympathy with the likes of Ken Clarke, Michael Heseltine and Douglas Hurd who were watching an arrogant, out of touch and intransigent Thatcher press on with her isolationist stance in Europe and the unfair Poll Tax.

This time, I have absolutely no sympathy with the assassins. Let's face it, Gordon's card was marked the second he walked into Downing Street. The Blairites were always going to be out to get their revenge for the wars that raged between number 10 and number 11 when their guy was PM.

I think the way in which Blears and Purnell have left has been absolutely disgraceful. Blears, already tarnished by the expenses scandal which meant her jacket was on a shoogly peg anyway (why the hell didn't Gordon sack her weeks ago?)decides to quit the day before a major election. Then, Purnell gives his resignation letter to the papers in the middle of the afternoon on polling day, leading to all sorts of rumours and leaks before the polls closed. Bloody hell! It's bad enough that cabinet ministers can't put the needs of the country, gripped by Labour's recession, above their plotting, but it's unbelievable that they are willing to drive a stake through the heart of any electoral prospects they might have.

While I can see how the public might have thought that the idea of Heseltine as PM 19years ago might have been a bit of an oasis after a long period of drought, I can't imagine that anybody actually thinks that Purnell, or even the matey Alan Johnson, could do any better.

My prediction on 1st January was that there wouldn't be a General Election in 2009 but it's looking as if it's now almost inevitable as we the Government dissolves in a lethal cocktail of incompetence and treachery.

The people deserve better - look back to Nick Clegg's words at PMQs the other day: "The Governemnt doesn't get it. Labour is finished. We don't have a Government, we have a void." It's highly insulting to the people who are losing their jobs right, left and centre to have Ministers concentrating on fighting each other rather than dealing with the recession and looking long term as to how it's going to deal with the resulting debt we're in.

If the Labour administration was a sick animal, the only humane thing to do would be to take it on a one way trip to the vet. Watching its howls of pain as it goes through its death throes makes me uncomfortable as well as angry.

Yes, Gordon Brown is complex, notoriously difficult to work for and has lurched from one disaster to another, but he looks good compared to the treacherous ministers who can scarcely hide their glee as they wield their daggers.

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Clegg shines, Cameron fails and Brown fights at PMQs

Well, I did tweet just before PMQs began that I was worried it might be cruel and unusual punishment to put Gordon Brown through it, what with Ministers resigning right, left and centre. Mitch Benn had tweeted that the events of the morning reminded him of the last five minutes of Blake's Seven.

You do have to hand it to Gordon, though. He came out under that immense pressure and didn't crumble. In fact, if anybody looked weak, it was Cameron. He had an open goal but the ball wasn't particularly well aimed and landed rather limply on the wrong side of the post.

Cameron started very quietly, in contrast to Brown's increasing aggressiveness. He sounded quite subdued most of the time. He asked about Blears' resignation and then asked if Darling would be there next week. You have to assume that he won't be from the way Brown didn't say that he definitely would be. As an aside, on that issue, I can't see how Darling can stay when Smith and Blears have gone. But Ed Balls? Not a good idea.

Nick, however, delivered again. He was much better than Cameron. "We don't have a Government, we have a void. Labour is finished." To be sure, a statement of the bleedin' obvious, but beautifully phrased and confidently delivered. Then he said that the clear choice was between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Clearly the baying Labour backbenchers weren't going to agree with that one, but he wasn't saying it for them - he was saying it to the millions of people going to the polls tomorrow. And, to be honest, he was right. I can't really see Labour getting a huge amount of its existing vote out, let alone attracting anybody new.

The Labour whips had done their bit and planted a few easy questions on everything from solar power (ain't no sunshine 'till he's gone?) to Vauxhall to climate change and the forthcoming G8 summit (casting Gordon as international statesman) to the Tories' European policies from Stuart Bell, who also came out to defend the Speaker the day before he resigned. I wonder if he will be Labour's Lembit.

Honourable mentions go to John Mason, SNP MP for Glasgow East for reminding us all that Labour had widened the gap between rich and poor and to the Liberal Democrats' Sandra Gidley who asked about planning policy on greenfield sites.

All in all, I thought Gordon did much better than a couple of weeks ago when he basically admitted that the Tories would win an election. However, Cameron and Clegg are not his real enemies at the moment - he has to deal with the complete meltdown of his own party. The next few days will see whether he can survive.

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