³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

Happy Christmas to all my readers. Back in the New Year.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

He didn't quite say we have nothing to fear but fear itself but Gordon Brown is increasingly adopting the tone and language of a war time leader.

. Tellingly, he declared that Britain had been the "victim" of the economic downturn which, as no doubt you recall by now, he says came from abroad.

As forecasters line up to compete to tell us just how gloomy and miserable 2009 will be, the PM is trying to stay resolutely upbeat and looks more relaxed than ever.

In comparison, at his news conference exactly a year ago, he looked rattled and defensive when facing questions about his alleged dithering over the future of Northern Rock, the loss of the names and addresses of millions of child benefit claimants and another party funding scandal.

The opinion polls tell the story of the Brown rollercoaster - up and up went the Tory lead. In the past three months it's gone down and down until now the two parties stand roughly where they did 12 months ago.

The big difference is that now the momentum is with him, not his opponents - so much so that today he had to insist that he was not even thinking about an early election.

If this goes on, we political commentators may start to suggest that what a failing leader really needs to rescue them is a massive economic crisis.

But then, the next 12 months look like being as unpredictable as the last 12.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

Combine Bob the Builder and Barack Obama and what do you get? Nick Clegg or, at least, his .

"Can we fix it? Yes, we can" is the Lib Dems message today. They are arguing that £12.5bn cost of cutting VAT would be better spent on fixing and building things.

Their "Green Road out of the Recession" proposals include:

• A five-year programme to insulate every school and hospital, with 20% completed in the first year
• Funding insulation and energy efficiency for a million homes, with a £1,000 subsidy for a million more
• Building 40,000 extra zero-carbon social houses
• Buying 700 new train carriages
• Reopening old railway lines and stations, opening new ones, electrifying the Great Western and Midland mainlines and beginning the Liverpool light rail network
• Installing energy and money saving smart meters in every home within five years

These are designed to be the sort of schemes which Obama describes as "shovel ready" - ie projects that can begin now without lengthy planning, design or logistical delays.

Interestingly, I sense that the Tories are beginning work on how to re-target public spending to prove that they can get more bang for the buck than the Treasury.

Both main opposition parties are bringing forward their plans just in case the PM does hold that an election in early 2009.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

How long before the widespread relief that Britiain's involvement in Iraq is coming to an end is replaced by anxiety about Britain's role in Afghanistan?

My hunch is not very long.

Sure, the war against the Taliban has never been as controversial as the war in Iraq. There was no row about its legality. There were no missing weapons of mass destruction. There is much less of a feeling that it was "Bush's war". There is also more of a sense that what happens in the region - in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan - has a direct impact on British national security.

However, I detect a growing concern amongst the political classes about the cost and chances of success of the war in Afghanistan.

It is unpleasant to reduce the death of men and women who are serving their country to a statistical comparison but the statistics do tell an important story :

There are now twice as many British servicemen and women in Afghanistan as in Iraq.

The death toll in Afghanistan this year was more than 11 times that in Iraq.

If casualties continue at the current rate more British troops will have lost their lives in Afghanistan than in Iraq a year from now.

IRAQ

British troops 4100
Deaths since the invasion 178
Deaths this year 4

AFGHANISTAN
British troops 8000 rising to 8,300 from April 09
Deaths since the invasion 133
Deaths this year 47

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

The has declared that it "beggars belief" that Dutch company TNT could be brought in to advise Royal Mail on its operations.

What really does beggar belief is the idea that Jim McGovern could sit in the department for business as bag carrier for the minister responsible for the Royal Mail, Pat McFadden, and not have known for many weeks that this was precisely what was being planned.

Could his resignation have more to do with the fact that the SNP are targeting his Dundee West constituency? The nationalists already control the council, both Holyrood seats and the neighbouring Westminster seat?

PS. Some readers have pointed out that although the SNP have the most councillors in Dundee, they do not in fact control it.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

I've just interviewed Lord Mandelson and reminded him of his previous words on privatising Royal Mail.

His answer should still the doubts of those who fear that part-privatisation is merely a first step to fully privatising it.

He told me: "We have no desire to privatise, no intention to privatise it and no plan to change our intention either."

So, he's saying yes to part-privatisation but no to full privatisation.

He suggests that if Royal Mail were a private company it would not deliver a universal, single price, six-day-a-week service throughout the UK.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

At last!

It's back to business as usual. The natural order has been restored. The era of political disorientation is at an end.

Peter Mandelson is, once again, being condemned by many in his own party. This after many, including even the man himself, had begun to wonder whether the Labour Party would - as Tony Blair once hoped - "learn to love Peter".

The reason? and selling part of it off to a foreign provider.

This is an idea first pursued unsuccessfully by the Tories. It was taken up by Peter Mandelson 10 years ago when he was secretary of state for trade and industry and abandoned after his resignation.

It's worth studying . He expressed his surprise and, by implication, his regret that his original plan a decade ago had never been implemented - a plan which he described as allowing Royal Mail "to be progressively private, even if initially part [of the company] stayed in the government's hands".

Today he repeated the commitment made in Labour's manifesto to keep the Royal Mail in public hands. That manifesto doesn't have long to run. Will the next manifesto include a commitment to make Royal Mail "progressively private" even if "initially" part "stays in government hands"?

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

"Psst, have you heard? They're planning an election... The word is that Labour's getting loads of money from its donors... Their ad agency is buying up poster spaces and Peter Mandelson's been seen plotting with Charlie Whelan..."

Yes, Westminster has got election fever again, and at last night's Tory Christmas drinks party the fever was particularly hot.

The first of the claims made above is certainly true but the second two are hotly denied. So why the excitement? Well, this is how the argument goes.

First, things can only get worse. After all, the chancellor and Tessa Jowell let the cat out of the bag yesterday when they said the recession would be deeper here than elsewhere.

Secondly, Labour have got the Tories where they want them, portraying them as the "do-nothing nasty" party.

Thirdly, Obama comes to power in January. He is, of course, the world's biggest celebrity, a latter day saint and a supporter of Gordon's economic policies.

The theory goes that what Gordon needs to do is surf the wave of Obamamania, announce some more plans to save the world, hold an emergency recession-beating budget and then invite the country to choose between his approach and that of David Cameron.

The only problem with this theory that I can find is a small matter that Labour are still behind in the latest polls. Yes, they've made progress, although that has stalled in the past couple of weeks but they are still behind.

So the prime minister would have to consider, in January let's say, whether he wishes to call an election which his opponents would present as unnecessary, opportunistic and a distraction from helping people in these difficult times, or whether, as I still suspect, he'll have no choice but to play it long.

Let's be clear though. It makes sense for his advisors to give him the choice in January if they can. I have no doubt at all that they're doing all they can to make it possible to run a winning election campaign then. I simply doubt that it is.

What's more, it makes sense for David Cameron to talk up the possibility, partly as a way of making an election less likely, and partly as a way to look like a strong and decisive leader. This is precisely what he did last time there was election fever.

Update, 12:00: David Cameron's news conference this morning could have come with the slogan "We really aren't the party of the rich". The day after calling for a day of reckoning for bankers who drove us into debt, he condemned the government's "shameful... macho posturing exercise" in if they don't take part in compulsorary back to work schemes.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

The politics of are intriguing. He calls for an enquiry into those whose failure has led to the current economic crisis and he's talking as much of City folk as he is of politicians.

He says that an enquiry is necessary "in order to send the right message about our country's values". He insists that it is a "failure of moral leadership" on behalf of Gordon Brown not to have already done so.

Ever since becoming Tory leader, David Cameron has been nervous about being associated with the politics of the rich and of comfortable success. Remarkably, he has so far managed to avoid that.

David & Shelley Ross; David & Samantha Cameron

However, the recent alleged scandal about George Osborne on a billionaire's yacht and the photograph of Mr Cameron himself alongside the shamed co-founder of Carphone Warehouse have raised a real danger for the Conservative Party. It is of course one that the Labour Party wish to exploit ruthlessly.

By today, talking about the importance of responsibility and of treating the richest people of our society the same as everyone else, the Conservative leader is not merely arguing for something he clearly believes in but trying to head off a real political danger.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

The crisis in Zimbabwe is causing real tension in Whitehall. This week the home secretary warned the cabinet of a possible mass influx of refugees, many travelling on false papers. And she warned of a growing risk of the spread of cholera from the region.

Some in the Foreign Office regard such talk as an attempt to justify tougher border controls to make it even harder for refugees to make it to the UK from Zimbabwe.

Currently any Zimbabwean needs a visa to travel to the UK. Those however who come from South Africa do not. The result is that many refugees flee over the border and buy false papers before making their way to Britain.

The Home Office wants to see the introduction of visa restrictions for all countries in the region, the Foreign Office does not.

There's also a debate going on about what to do about thousands of Zimbabweans who are in limbo here. They have not been granted asylum and therefore cannot legally work or claim benefits but the government is unwilling to send them home.

The debate in each case is about the moral imperative to help those fleeing the Mugabe regime, poverty and disease and the danger of encouraging more from Zimbabwe to stay here and make their way here at an unacceptably high cost to the tax payer.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

One minute, Gordon Brown says he's saved the world. The next, the German finance minister that Mr Brown is, in fact, saddling "a whole generation" with debt by "tossing around billions" in a "yearning for the Great Rescue Plan" even though "[i]t doesn't exist. It doesn't exist!"

, Peer Steinbruck goes on to say: "I say we should be honest to our citizens. Policies can take some of the sharpness out of it, but no matter how much any government does, the recession we are in now is unavoidable", before adding that: "[w]hen I ask about the origins of the crisis, economists I respect tell me it is the credit-financed growth of recent years and decades. Isn't this the same mistake everyone is suddenly making again, under all the public pressure?"

Only a few weeks ago, Team Brown was that Germany had proved the case for a fiscal stimulus by unveiling one of its own.

Now, however, we're told that the Germans are resisting calls for an EU-wide stimulus thanks to tensions in the Grand Coalition of parties of the left (the finance ministers from the SPD) and the right (the chancellor leads the CDU) that governs the country. It would be surprising if there were not tensions, not least with elections in Germany next year. However, there is one problem with this theory. Chancellor Merkl told her party congress this month that: "[w]e will not take part in a competition to outdo one another with an endless list of new proposals, in a senseless contest over billions".

Now, there are other theories being offered, too:
• having just suffered politically by raising VAT, the German government doesn't welcome comparisons with Britain where it's just been cut;
• the Germans fear that they will, as ever, be expected to foot the bill for any EU-wide stimulus;
• they have bad memories of the G5's Bonn summit in 1978 when they felt bullied by America to adopt an expansionary growth package which later fuelled German inflation;
• they have even worse memories of the rampant inflation which helped to create the conditions which led to the rise of Hitler.

There is, dare I suggest, another perfectly plausible theory. Mr Steinbruck believes what he says and does agree rather more with Mr Cameron than with Mr Brown, even though they come from the opposite ends of the political spectrum.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

Is it a bird, is it a plane...

No, it's Supergord. Or so, he implied in this memorable moment in today's .

PS. My analysis of the government's welfare reform proposals appears below.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

Tough. Radical. The end of the something for nothing era.

Those are the words that ministers want to be associated with .

Hold on a second though, let's focus on what exactly is the "something" ministers now expect of almost everyone claiming benefits. It is not - contrary to some expectations - going out to work or doing compulsory community work.

The central proposition in today's White Paper is that all those who once were simply on benefit will be expected to agree to the goal of entering the world of work. All those, that is, except those classified as severely disabled or parents of babies under one. The system will accept that "the goal" may take many years to reach or may never be reached at all. During that time the benefit claimant will stay on full benefits and will not be forced into community work providing they stick to a plan they agree with an adviser.

The plan may involve receiving counselling for a problem such as drug abuse or being heavily indebted. It may involve training. It will include help with job search such as advice on how to draw up a CV, money for a new suit or the cost of the ticket needed to get to an interview.

Only if someone who was on incapacity benefit doesn't follow the plan they helped to draw up will they face sanctions. At first, they'll be given a warning (a kind of benefits yellow card). If that doesn't work those on ESA (the new name for those on IB deemed fit to prepare for work) will be fined £12 for a first offence, £24 for a second and then forced into compulsory work such as digging an old person's garden. There will, in other words, be no red card which throws people out of the benefits system altogether nor any American-style time limits for claiming benefits.

Now, I am not saying that today's measures don't represent a major change. They do. Millions of people who were told there was no expectation they should even look for a job will be told that they can and should get one if at all possible. Millions of lone parents who did not expect to have to look for work until their children left home will now be expected to do that. (One of the architects of the reforms, David Freud, .)

What I am saying is that recent headlines have all been about stick when most of what's in today's proposals is about carrot. How tough they turn out to be will depend on the actions of those administering the system on the ground. What's more, in the short term at least, we will all spend more trying to get people back into work not less.

What makes the proposals really significant is that they represent a consensus between the Labour and Tory leaderships and are, therefore, certain to be implemented in some form. They are not scheduled to come into operation until autumn 2010 - that's after an election and after, we all hope, the recession is over.

PS. Sorry to go on at such length but a man-sized fly may just have distracted you if you were watching last night's Ten O'Clock News. Thanks to those who've said I was incredibly calm. In truth, I had no idea he was there at all. If I had I would have swatted him.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

David Cameron repeats his message today that Britain cannot spend its way out of a recession.

In so doing, Labour wants to paint him as being isolated from the international consensus.

Most voters may not care that the French or the Japanese are in favour of a fiscal stimulus. What's more, they may accept the Tories' argument that they - unlike Britain - can afford to do it.

The biggest risk Cameron is taking is opposing what I call Obamanomics.

Economically, Obamanomics represents a belief in the need for governments to stimulate their economies with spending increases and tax cuts paid for by increases in borrowing.

Politically, it means a belief in big government and an emphasis on what politicians of the centre-left call fairness - as illustrated by promises to make the rich pay more tax.

The world's biggest celebrity - the soon-to-be President Obama - also stands for optimism and change.

Up until now, these have been the key elements of David Cameron's appeal. What is stake in this argument is that positioning.

Now, you may say: I can see how Gordon Brown is trying to position himself as politically and economically in step with Obama.

However, you may cry, surely Mr Brown will never ever be identified with optimism and change?

To which I merely reply that I can't help noticing that that's exactly what he is trying to do.

With Obama scheduled to dominate the news agenda in the New Year and due in London in the spring, Gordon Brown's goal is to prove that although David Cameron may be the young new candidate, he represents old, failed "do nothing" responses to recession.

Mr Cameron needs to find a way of avoiding that trap.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

The fanfares, the ermine robes, the tiaras. She's seen it all before. Her Majesty has delivered the Queen's Speech no fewer than 56 times but never has there been a day quite like this - a day when the monarch didn't just open Parliament - she was visiting the scene of an alleged crime.

This year - as every year - MPs slammed the door in the face of Black Rod - the man sent to summon them. It's a historic symbol that no-one tells our elected representatives what to do.

"Hats off strangers" is the cry when the Speaker's procession goes through the Commons. It's appropriate given that the Serjeant at Arms - a senior Commons official - and the Speaker himself appear to have simply doffed their hats when the police came to raid an MP's office, to seize his computer, his phones and private correspondence.

It is now clear that the police have some very serious questions to answer about the way they behaved. So too the Speaker and his officials. So too ministers who were involved in launching the inquiry.

Let us not forget, also, the question that was put again and again to David Cameron about whether he as prime minister would feel comfortable with the systematic leaking over a period of two years.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

There will be more than a whiff of nostalgia in the Commons today and not just because of the ermine robes, the tiaras and the bizarre ancient names (the keeper of the third stick and so on).

No, today's outline of the government's legislative priorities will be a reminder, a nostalgic reminder, of what ministers thought their priorities would be before the recession kicked in. Most of the bills that will be unveiled we will have heard of before in the and even earlier than that when Gordon Brown first talked of his priorities as prime minister. There's a new for example, and a .

The PM is aware that this Queen's Speech risks being overshadowed not just by but by virtually anything else. He will, I'm sure, have a rabbit in the hat to unveil, an immediate policy to tackle the recession and designed to be a cherry on top of the Queen's Speech cake.

What then of Speaker Martin? Well, let me risk sharing my hunch. Love him or loathe him, he cannot be deaf to the pleas for him to grant a debate. I suspect he'll do that and take an emollient tone today. There is only really the nuclear option for MPs who want to criticise him. In other words, attempt to have him removed from office, and I regard that as very unlikely indeed.

The only question is whether, rather like the little boy in the story of the emperor's new clothes, there is a lone figure in the Commons who isn't aware of what they're supposed to do and decides to defy the mood of the day. Will someone speak out challenging the Speaker despite the rules and conventions of the Commons? There will be a nervous wait, not just for Speaker Martin, but for all those who work with him.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

The Met appears to be in headlong retreat this morning. The acting commissioner has just appointed a chief constable to carry out an urgent review of the handling of the arrest of Damian Green and the Home Office mole. The question it needs to answer is how an everyday Whitehall drama has been turned into a major constitutional crisis.

As I reported the other day, the police took the view that they had to arrest the Tory frontbencher for the same reasons that they had arrested Ruth Turner in the cash for honours investigation.

In other words, in order to gain access to computer hardware, mobile phones and documents an arrest was necessary because the individual was unlikely to volunteer the material. Not so, say some police insiders. The production of a warrant would have done the trick, or better still, an invitation to the individual to cooperate or face the embarrassment of a warrant or an arrest. The Met have made the first move. We now wait to see how the Speaker will react.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

In the words of his lawyer, Home Office civil servant Christopher Galley "gave information which was important for the public to know" in a series of meetings held with the Conservative immigration spokesman, Damian Green, over the past two years.

Mr Galley sat silently as Neil O'May - who you may recognise as the man who represented Lord Levy in the cash-for-honours investigation - stated that "if ever there's a case of don't shoot the messenger, this is it".

Mr Galley's side of this story is now clear:
ÌýÌý• He did give "regular" leaks to Mr Green;
ÌýÌý• All of it was what his lawyer O'May describes as "embarrassment material" and not documents that would be covered by the Official Secrets Act such as those relating to state secrets, terrorism, national security or which would lead to "financial jeopardy";
ÌýÌý• There were no "inducements" offered by Mr Green to persuade Mr Galley to leak (his lawyer said that "the statement was clear re inducements" and it makes no mention of them);
ÌýÌý• He would have been happy to confess all to the police if they'd simply asked him rather than sending seven officers to his house to arrest him and then question him for 17 hours.

Update 19:48: What complicates this tale hugely is that it involves not just the politics of Westminster, but also the politics of the police.

Today was the deadline for applications for the top job in policing, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police - who, you might just have noticed, will be appointed by none other than the Home Secretary.

Among those who are believed to have applied today are:
ÌýÌý• the man who authorised the arrest of Galley & Green - Sir Paul Stephenson, Acting Commissioner;
ÌýÌý• the head of specialist operations at the Met which carried out the operation - Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick;
ÌýÌý• the man who today offered ACPO's backing for the way in which the Home Office has handled this inquiry - Chief Constable Ken Jones, the President of ACPO, who today issued a statement which will have been music to the Home Secretary's ears.

He writes that:

ACPO has shared the concerns of the Permanent Secretary (of the Home Office) regarding leaks from his department. The Metropolitan Police Service was properly asked to assist... The independence of UK law enforcement from undue influence and pressure is the jewel in the crown in our system of criminal justice. We should protect that principle, even when inconvenient, as it occasionally is. If an investigation reveals that any person may be involved in wrongdoing then they have the right to expect that we will investigate the matter in ways which seek to get at the truth and either sustain the allegation or exonerate them. No one can be above the law.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

Long before , senior Conservatives were given legal advice about the difference between receiving leaked documents and inducing civil servants to leak them. This suggests that they were well aware of the danger - political as well as legal - of either placing (or "grooming", in the phrase used by the police) political spies within the Whitehall machine.

This goes some way to explaining the answer to that oft-asked question: why was a senior Tory politician arrested and held by police for nine hours when other opposition politicians, like were not - even when they boasted of the leaks they received?

The police who cross-examined Mr Green, the Conservatives' immigration spokesman, suggested that he had not simply received leaked documents but had, in their controversial phrase, the civil servant who allegedly leaked them - a man who had been a Tory activist and who applied for jobs in Mr Green's office. The Home Office called in the police after the leaking of 20 politically sensitive documents.

The Home Secretary has refused to apologise for the police's actions. Indeed, Jacqui Smith has told colleagues that she doesn't believe that the police did anything wrong.

However, the leader of the Commons, Harriet Harman, has made clear her determination to investigate both the law under which Mr Green was arrested and the processes which led the Commons authorities to allow the police to search his Commons office.

What explains the difference? Well, 25 years ago, Ms Harman - then a civil liberties lawyer and young opposition MP - was taken to court by the Home Office for - you guessed it - leaking court documents.

This is adapted from the script of my piece on .

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?