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For a long time, the Liberal Democrats prided themselves on being the one party prepared to say that taxes should go up - do you remember %3Ca%20href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/vote2001/hi/english/talking_point/newsid_1329000/1329833.stm">the penny for education? (By the way, it was always called "a penny on tax" because a shockingly high number of voters appeared to think it meant they'd pay 1p more tax, not 1% more.)

Then %3Ca%20href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7619958.stm">Nick Clegg announced he'd lead a party of tax cutters who were tough enough not only to cut public spending, but also to hand back some of the dividend to hard-pressed tax payers.

Today, %3Ca%20href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8385575.stm">he unveils another approach - or more precisely, a refining of the approach which was shot down in flames at his conference - to promise tax cuts for the many (in the form of a higher personal tax allowance) paid for by tax rises for the few (a %3Ca%20href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8268491.stm">"mansion tax" now re-worked so as not to hit voters in Lib Dem marginals; cuts in pension tax relief; increases in capital gains tax and our old friend "closing loopholes".)

The proposals raise two questions:

• How "rich" do you have to be before you lose out? Someone on around £50,000 who put 10% of their income into a pension would, I'm told, lose as much in tax relief as they would gain from the higher tax allowance. Of course, the less you put into your pension (and many put less than 10%), the higher income you could earn before you become a loser.

• Clegg has warned of the need for %3Ca%20href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8266260.stm">"savage cuts" in public spending. Won't the next government - whoever forms it - have to hike taxes in some of the ways he describes to reduce the deficit or mitigate those savage cuts and not to pay for tax cuts? Already the government is restricting top-rate tax relief on pensions to those earning over £150,000, and it's likely to go further in the future

Below is a table showing how the Lib Dems cost their tax-cutting & tax-increasing proposals:

Update 1220: Thanks to those of you who have pointed out that the singular of "pence" is "penny". First paragraph amended.

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Edinburgh: The Scottish public doesn't want it; the Scottish Parliament won't vote for it - so why on Earth is Scotland's first minister about to publish the first-ever official plan for one part of the UK to break away from the rest?

On Monday, Alex Salmond will unveil what he describes as "a historic document" - a White Paper spelling out plans to give the people of Scotland a vote on their constitutional future and making the case for independence.

One answer is that he's doing what he promised. The more interesting answer is that he believes politics will change dramatically in the year ahead in a way which will deliver support for a referendum and significant new powers for the Scottish Parliament, if not independence itself.

The election of an old Etonian English Tory prime minister who will be said to have no Scottish mandate is only one part of what he means, should of course the Conservatives triumph.

He also believes that Labour out of power, both North and South of the border, would face irresistible pressure to let the people have their say.

What's more, he thinks the Lib Dems might find the lure of returning to government in a coalition with the SNP irresistible in place of the relative obscurity of being Scotland's fourth party.

Independence will not, Salmond tells me, be a "magic bullet" which will solve all of Scotland's problems.

However, his proposals will aim to move away from debates about symbols. The Queen can stay, so too the pound and the army and there will, he assures non-Scots, be no passports, no Hadrian's Wall, no ditch on the border.

The White Paper will aim to show that real everyday problems could be better solved if the Scottish Parliament had greater powers.

It will spell out what could be possible under the government's version of the Calman reforms or under so-called devolution-max (or independence-lite, as I prefer to call it) in which Scotland controls everything other than defence, foreign policy and macroeconomics - and under full-blown independence.

His real aim is to present independence not as a clean break but as an evolutionary step on a journey which Scotland has already begun.

That way, he hopes to convert majority opposition to independence into majority support for greater powers for Scotland.

Just now, Salmond has neither support for a referendum or independence. Not so long ago, it was unthinkable that he would be first minister in a Scottish government. History, he believes, is on his side.

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Westminster 1440 GMT: Gordon Brown was caught on the hop at %3Ca%20href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8378220.stm">Prime Minister's Questions by questions about schools in Slough and Tottenham which the Conservatives claim have links to alleged Islamic extremists - and which, although they are independent, have received some taxpayers' funds.

The Tories' aim, I believe, was to show that the government has not kept its eye on protecting Britain from extremists at home.

It's no coincidence that this comes at a time when the prime minister has had more success in arguing why British troops on the streets in Afghanistan are keeping us safe here in the UK.

David Cameron's questions follow a letter from Michael Gove to his opposite number Ed Balls. Balls is about to reply insisting that:

• Both have been inspected by Ofsted since 2007
• Both are registered with the Department for Schools, Children and Families
• As a result both schools have legitimately received government funding

He will say that Ofsted has recently reviewed their procedures to ensure that its inspections do take into consideration whether extremist views are being taught in schools.

What's more, he will say that the issue of individual teachers with extremist views or links is already covered by the review which is examining whether to ban BNP members from teaching.

Balls could be seen mouthing (or was it shouting) "shameful" when David Cameron was on his feet in the Commons. Labour believes the Tories are playing politics with a dangerous issue.

The Tories will, no doubt, respond that what matters is the bigger picture - namely the government's failure to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir - an issue Cameron raised at Gordon Brown's first Question Time.

Ministers insist that a ban would require substantial evidence relating to organising, supporting or facilitating terrorism and that could risk driving extremists underground where they are less easy to monitor. Furthermore, individual members or supporters can be prosecuted, they argue, if they incite racial hatred.

There's nothing like a looming election and a few tighter polls to liven up exchanges at Question Time.

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Today, %3Ca%20href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8375520.stm">George Osborne will unveil a new Tory idea: the "green cut". It's really rather simple.

The Treasury, under Tory control, would calculate how much each Whitehall department would save if it cut its carbon emissions by 10%. Then they would simply cut that department's budget accordingly and force them to publish their carbon efficiency performance online.

Hey presto! Saving money and saving the planet at the same time. If only life were that simple.

Labour points out that in the past 10 years, they have struggled to cut carbon emissions by 10% in central government - so promising to cut it by 10% in one year with no specific plan about how to do it looks pretty implausible.

The Tories counter that businesses have done it; but, as far as I can tell, companies like B&Q and Tesco have achieved the reduction by cutting things like transportation costs and packaging - things not largely available to central government.

It could be, of course, that this could be a cut by another name. Dress it up as "green", though, and it looks much more attractive.

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Two speeches at the CBI this morning from the two men who want to be in No 10 after the election with one message in common.

One of them stated:

"Dealing with this deficit is not an alternative to economic growth - the two go hand in hand."

The other insisted:

"our strategy for growth is not at the expense of necessary deficit reduction - it is absolutely central to that objective."

Both are clearly determined that by emphasising growth or deficit reduction they do not seem to have ignored the need for deficit reduction or growth.

As it happens, the first quote is from David Cameron whilst the second is from Gordon Brown.

The prime minister adjusted his rhetoric over the summer to move away from the crude "cuts versus investment" mantra he'd produced week after week with such relish. Now, David Cameron is changing his - ditching talk of an "era of austerity" to outline instead a route to an era of prosperity. Yesterday he even stole a Brown-ism by promising to "go for growth".

Just as with Brown before him, my sense with Cameron is that it is the words rather than the policies or values which have shifted. Both men are positioning themselves ahead of the chancellor's pre-Budget report which will define the economic and political debate between now and the election.

Both are also inclined to find third parties to endorse their approach.

This morning Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, helped Gordon Brown (for once) by telling the CBI that he and his team were owed "a debt of gratitude" for their work in organising a global response to the financial crisis. In words which will, no doubt, be heard at this week's Prime Minister's Questions he also helped Gordon Brown's argument about the need to sustain the stimulus:

"Exit too soon and you kill the recovery. Exit too late and you sow the seeds for the next crisis... we recommend erring on the side of caution as exiting too early is costlier than exiting too late."

David Cameron will have ready three quotes of his own to use in reply which he deployed this morning:

• The OECD pronouncement that "by developing and announcing more ambitious fiscal consolidation plans early... the government would strengthen the recovery"

• The CBI's own director general Richard Lambert who said that the CBI's "strong instincts" are "that the risks of going too soon" on cutting the deficit "are less than the risks of waiting too long" (the opposite of what the man from the IMF said)

• President Obama himself who has said it is important "to recognise that if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence... in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession."

Rest assured. This one will run and run.

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%3Ca%20href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8372838.stm">Much excited talk of a hung Parliament after %3Ca%20href="https://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/22/tory-lead-falls-mori-poll">one poll in the Observer yesterday. Here are my reasons to be careful (parts one, two and three) before getting carried away:

• Polls are interesting because they are surprising. They're usually surprising because they're out of line with other polls. Thus, one needs to be wary of interesting polls.

• Poll leads are the difference between two large numbers which are themselves only accurate within the range of + or - 3%. So poll leads are only accurate within a range of + or - 6%

• Ipsos/Mori sample the electorate differently to other pollsters. A large part of the shift in yesterday's poll appears to be down to this.%3Ca%20href="https://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2351?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PollingReport+%28UK+Polling+Report%29">You can read one interpretation here.

There is, however, one reason to think hard about a hung Parliament. It is easy for Labour to lose this election but hard for the Tories to win it since they start off with fewer seats than Michael Foot won in 1983 and need a larger swing than Margaret Thatcher's in 1979. That, however, was always true - long before yesterday's poll.

And, I'll concede this, there is some evidence in some polls of a hardening in Labour support.

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So Britain has got %3Ca%20href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8369717.stm">one of the top two EU jobs, and arguably the more important one.

Cathy Ashton is a warm, likeable, natural coalition-builder who appealed to the European left as one of its own - and was acceptable to the right as the EU Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso had learned he could do business with her.

It is an extraordinary rise for someone who has never run for elected office, who spent just a year in the cabinet and a year as an EU commissioner. She has no experience of foreign affairs other than the past year of representing the EU in world trade talks.

Will she become the answer to the Kissinger Question ("who do I call if I want to call Europe?") or, as appears more likely, an envoy or ambassador representing positions on which the EU has an agreed position?

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No-one is ready to pronounce Tony Blair's presidential hopes dead but they are certainly reading the last rites for them.

So, Britain looks set to get neither of the top two EU jobs created by the Lisbon Treaty. Gordon Brown's energies are now, some claim, focused on securing an important economic portfolio in the commission for a Brit instead.

It was not, I'm told, Iraq wot lost it for TB. It was first and foremost that he made many European leaders realise what they had potentially created and what they really didn't want - a European figurehead better known, better connected and more charismatic than they were.

So, tonight in Brussels they will haggle instead over which relatively anonymous figure - the Belgian or the Dutch prime minister or the former president of Latvia - should chair their summits four times a year.

Even less clear is who will get the foreign minister or, to be precise, the high representative's job now that %3Ca%20href="/blogs/nickrobinson/2009/11/milibands_futur.html">David Miliband's turned it down.

Henry Kissinger once famously said he didn't know who to phone if he wanted to call Europe. By the end of this evening I'm not sure he - or his successor - will be any clearer.

PS. Diplomats say anything could happen tonight so complex are the competing interests that have to be reconciled. Perhaps Gordon Brown could even reconsider his rejection of the Spanish government's idea that he should be president. Then David Miliband - who Hillary Clinton described this week as %3Ca%20href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8364750.stm">"vibrant, vital, attractive, smart... really a good guy" - could take over as prime minister. Then...I should stop there. Brussels in my experience never produces anything quite that interesting.

Update 12:35: Blair's biographer, Anthony Seldon, argues %3Ca%20href="https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2009/11/neither-shy-nor-retiring/">in this month's Prospect magazine [full article is subscription only] that the former prime minister's rejection might rebound to his successor's benefit.

Seldon claims that Blair now has "an especially jaundiced view of the Conservatives' tribalism in not backing him" and says that the man the Tories have always feared is ready to help Labour campaign but "only if Brown asks him".

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"My Lords, and members of the House of Commons. My government's over-riding priority is to win a fourth term in office.
Ìý
"My government shall bring forward legislation to highlight the big choice facing one's subjects.
Ìý
"A Bill shall be introduced to guarantee high-quality state education and to allow my ministers to suggest that anyone who opposes such Bills shall be in favour of the few and not of the many."

It is always amusing to see what language the incumbent party's spin doctors can slip into Her Majesty's speech without the Royal courtiers vetoing it. They are unlikely, however, to succeed in going quite as far as the mythical extract above.

Ministers insist that they are enacting the people's priorities. Their opponents insist, just as vehemently, that those ministers are electioneering. They may, of course, both be right.

Labour believes that the public wants new laws to guarantee better school standards, to give free personal care to those in greatest need still able to live at home and to strengthen banking regulation. They can point out that proceeding with a flood and water management bill is hardly naked politicking.

Their political foes will point out that laws as gestures or aspirations - promising to halve the deficit, to halve child poverty and to give every child a legal right to good schooling - are worth little more than the paper they're written on.

One thing's clear. Soon, you'll have the chance to vote on who's right.

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Troops out before the election. That's the headline Labour strategists would love war-weary voters to see.

Since that is not going to happen, they had to make do with this morning's headline %3Ca%20href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/11/17/we-ll-begin-afghan-pullout-next-year-115875-21828004/">in the Mirror: "WE'LL BEGIN AFGHAN PULLOUT NEXT YEAR". If the paper had sprinkled in the odd "maybe" and several "if"s, that would be a fair summary of what the prime minister actually said last night.

%3Ca%20href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8361634.stm">Gordon Brown told the Lord Mayor's banquet that he wanted to host a conference on Afghanistan in London in January which should "identify a process for transferring, district by district, to full Afghan control" and "if at all possible, set a timetable for transfer starting in 2010".

So, if there's a conference and if others agree to a timetable and if the Afghans are politically and militarily ready to take over and if the security situation doesn't deteriorate then maybe some British troops would no longer be needed in the most peaceful districts of Helmand province. Not much of a headline, is it?

What's more, even in the most optimistic scenario, no-one is suggesting that British troops facing the fiercest fight in the toughest area of Helmand are going to withdraw next year.

Less political and more interesting is %3Ca%20href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8364070.stm">this morning's speech by the foreign secretary on the political strategy which, he says, must accompany a military one. David Miliband argues that "[u]nless we get this right, our military will be able to suppress the cancers of insurgency and instability, but not tackle their causes."

What he calls "a winning political strategy" would have three elements:

• a programme to "select and train, empower and equip, mentor and monitor those responsible for governing the provinces and districts of Afghanistan": in other words, investing in local leadership rather than a strong national government

• a programme to allow those Taliban who are not committed to global jihad to flip sides by "demonstrat[ing] clearly that they cannot win; and to provide a way back into their communities for those who are prepared to live peacefully"

• a new relationship with Pakistan where the international community helps ordinary Pakistanis - in terms of jobs, education, trade and agriculture - in return for Pakistan fighting not just those who threaten their own citizens, but "al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban who threaten our citizens"

David Miliband insists that "[t]his is not a war without end". Maybe, but we are still a long way even from the beginning of the end.

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This is a week when Labour MPs have to ask themselves a very important question: can they stage a comeback with Gordon Brown as their leader, or are they doomed to defeat with him at the helm? And if the latter, is there any chance of or point in replacing him?

Some - let's call them the plotters - believe that Mr Brown is taking their party to certain oblivion and are still desperately searching for ways to remove him and to install a new leader by January. Look out for an anti-Brown candidate to run for the chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party or a repeat of the letter-writing campaign which helped ease out Tony Blair.

Many - who will not like to be referred to as the quitters - agree with this analysis but have given up hope of installing a new leader who just might do better. Some - like Stephen Byers - are giving up politics altogether. Some will soldier on but with little hope.

Others - the fighters - are beginning to hope that a recovery might just be possible. This week, Gordon Brown will try to rally them with what's being described as a "focused" %3Ca%20href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/guides/newsid_82000/82111.stm">Queen's Speech - focused on beating the Tories, that is.

After a series of conversations with a series of front- and backbenchers, here's my summary of the views of the different camps. (Of course, some people's positions stay fixed. Others move from one camp to the other.)

The plotters' view

• The electorate have made their minds up about Gordon Brown; nothing will change their minds
• If you don't believe us, they say, try what I call the "cereal box test"; that is: "Complete the following sentence: 'I want five more years of Gordon Brown as my prime minister because...'"
• In 1996, just before he was hit by an electoral landslide, John Major's Conservatives were polling 34%; under Gordon Brown, Labour is now polling 25% [Source: ICM]
• Either David Miliband or Alan Johnson would do better; for goodness sake, even Harriet would do better
• A change of leadership would no longer produce an early election
• Hardly anyone in the cabinet - not even Peter Mandelson any more - will be prepared to fight for Gordon
• Everything Gordon's touched since the autumn has turned to dust
• Even an economic recovery won't help us - it didn't help John Major

The quitters' view

• The plotters may be right about Gordon, but...
• ...maybe Gordon will talk to friends and family over Christmas and stand down for the good of the party...
• ...oh alright, he probably won't - but you can't force him out without a painful and divisive fight, since he really believes it's not over yet
• If we couldn't get rid of him when five cabinet ministers resigned, how on earth do you think we'll remove him now?
• We've had a good run... I wonder if there are any directorships I could take on?

The fighters' view

• We won the Glasgow by-election with almost 60% of the vote - so much for the talk of the SNP sweeping through Scotland
• The Tories are struggling to stay above 40% in the polls, whereas in 1996 Labour was often above 50%
• The Tories need a massive swing to even get a majority of one
• Cameron has not "sealed the deal" with the electorate, as the electorate still don't trust his party
• The public doesn't want the Tories' "age of austerity": Tory cuts will always be scarier than Labour cuts
• Tory EU policy is an awkward compromise which will fall apart under pressure
• Voters want a guarantees of better schools and hospitals, not Tory gambles with them
• When politics becomes a choice of two governments and not a referendum, Labour will close the gap
• An economic recovery's just around the corner

Which camp would you be in?

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He did not start this war. He cannot stop it. Yet Afghanistan is fast becoming the third crisis to face the prime minister - as if the economic and political crises were not enough.

It is, above all, a crisis of confidence. Few fear defeat, but there are growing doubts among public and politicians alike about whether "success" can be achieved - whatever success actually means.

Ironically, those doubts are being fed, not by those contemplating withdrawal, but by many in the military who lack confidence in their political master. It is their cause which has been taken up so stridently by the Sun.

It was this which was underlying the prime minister's emotional clash this week with Jacqui Janes - the mother of the 20-year-old guardsman who died in Afghanistan.

She argued with him not about the need to bring the boys home - she backs the war - and not primarily about his handwriting, but about the lack of resource being committed to the fight.

When Gordon Brown called her, she told him "Many, many years ago, in 18-something, somebody said the biggest enemy of our army was our Treasury... They were so right."

Janes, whose sons she called "fifth generation infantry", was reflecting a view held by many in the military who have not trusted Gordon Brown since he was chancellor.

Early in his days at Number 11, Brown clashed with the then chief of the defence Sir Charles Guthrie about the defence budget. "You don't think I understand defence, do you?" a defensive Brown said to Guthrie. The General's reply was forthright "No, I bloody well don't."

It is a view shared by many ex-service chiefs who regularly line up in the House of Lords to criticise the prime minister. Field Marshal Lord Inge has declared that the armed forces never really believed Brown was "on their side".

Guthrie has accused the prime minister of "dithering" over troop deployments to Afghanistan. Though Gordon Brown strenuously denies turning down a request for 2,000 more troops in February, it's clear that he did turn down a request for a major new deployment of 1,500 troops.

Now - months later - when those extra troops have been committed, the former generals grumble about what they see as political and not military conditions attached to their deployment.

If they are needed to do their job, they ask, why should it matter whether other Nato countries do more or President Karzai tackles corruption or increases the size of the Afghan army?

Those conditions were laid down to meet the pressure coming from the public and politicians, including some in the cabinet who have been studying accounts of how the American military sucked politicians into ever-deeper involvement in Vietnam.

Friends of the prime minister reply that while some of the earlier criticisms were fair, they are now out of date and are being used by his political opponents. Guthrie and Dannatt are, they say, both Tory advisers. The Sun is now an openly Tory newspaper.

They concede that Brown once paid little attention to defence - a book of his speeches published during his bid to be PM contains not a single speech on the subject in its more than 400 pages of nine years' worth of speeches.

However, they say, he became actively engaged during the summer and gathered around him a war cabinet which met once a week and now meets once a fortnight.

What's more, they point out, it is in America that the big decisions about Afghanistan will be taken.

President Obama has spent weeks making up his mind or, it would appear, not making up his mind about what to do next. His military, diplomatic and political advisers are publicly split on the issue.

Those friends of the prime minister note bitterly that the president has been praised for taking his time, considering all the options and resisting the military's demands whereas Gordon Brown is now paying a heavy political price for allegedly failing to give the leadership this war demands.

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The Tories have been worrying away about the possibility of a March election giving Gordon Brown an element of surprise.

Now George Osborne's backroom team have found a reason to stop worrying unless, that is, Gordon Brown wants to go to the country without having a Budget.

The date of the pre-Budget report was announced today as 9 December. %3Ca%20href="https://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/fiscal_stability.pdf">The Code for Fiscal Stability [29KB PDF] which Gordon Brown put into law in 1998, states that there must be "at least three months" between the pre-Budget report and the following Budget.

Thus, the earliest possible date for a 2010 Budget is 9 March. That is after the latest possible date - 1 March - on which Gordon Brown could call a March election.

The Treasury civil servants are all working towards a spring Budget and Brown would be pilloried if he went to the country without telling voters what economic horrors might lie ahead.

So, it looks like we're back to May which is, incidentally, where I've always assumed we'd be.

PS. In the run-up to that election we will, it seems, be seeing even more of Peter Mandelson. Number 10 are pushing for weekly televised ministerial briefings replacing, on one day a week, those made by the prime minister's official spokesman. It won't always be Mandelson taking them but, no doubt, whenever there are problems facing the government it will be. Some have suggested that the first secretary of state etc may also become "information minister". Friends tell me that "he has quite enough titles already".

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Dressed in a dark suit and sombre tie, his voice deeper and more gravelly than usual - suggesting he'd had even less sleep than usual - and with damp eyes occasionally glistening in the camera lights, Gordon Brown sought to limit the damage created by a carelessly written letter to the mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan.

The prime minister's tone was, at times, painfully personal as he strove to demonstrate the emotional connection which modern politics demands and with which he is so obviously uncomfortable.

So, after describing himself as "shy" he insisted that he did "feel the pain of those who'd lost loved ones". Without directly referring to the death of his own baby daughter, he declared that "I'm a parent who understands the feelings when things go dreadfully wrong".

His message was that he had been trying to offer comfort, to do his duty and would never have intended to cause further grief.

Like any public gathering a prime ministerial news conference develops its own mood and personality. Often with Gordon Brown it's been one of irritation or anger at his unwillingness to answer straight questions.

On this occasion though the mood was more sympathetic. Many journalists know first-hand that Gordon Brown has poor eyesight and poor handwriting and feel that his staff should have checked this letter and prevented it from being sent.

They know that the prime minister struggles to express sincerely held emotions. They know that the Sun is out to get him and is channelling the raw grief of those who have lost family in Afghanistan to do so. It's clear from the phone-ins, the text messages, the blogs and the like that many share that sympathy.

It is equally clear, though, that many will feel passionately that the prime minister has got it wrong again. They will point out that the prime minister said he'd apologised to Jacqui Janes when in fact he only did so in a statement issued the day after they spoke on the phone.

They will feel that he tried to explain away her anger about the lack of equipment for British troops by putting it all down to her grief. They will feel that Gordon Brown himself used the emotions surrounding Remembrance Day, the return of five more bodies from Helmand Province and even his own personal grief to avoid the tough questions about Afghanistan.

People's reaction to this story will, in large part, be determined by their pre-existing attitude to Gordon Brown and to the continuing presence of British troops in Afghanistan.

What must follow now - at least once President Obama unveils his plan - is a debate about whether there is another strategy which would more effectively safeguard Britain.

Gordon Brown made clear that he'd looked at and rejected the option of bringing the troops home and creating "Fortress Britain" with money saved.

He made plain that he'd examined and rejected the idea of focussing the military effort exclusively on al-Qaeda while ignoring the rise of the Taliban.

The real debate - beneath all this anguish - is surely whether men like Guardsman Janes died in vain or made a sacrifice that is vital to protecting their country. It is a debate that has scarcely begun.

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You've got to be kidding. That's the reaction of many to the suggestion that David Cameron's is the party that will do most to help the plight of the worst-off in society.

And yet the Tory leader returns to that theme in a speech today. In doing so, he's trying to resolve a contradiction that many saw in his party conference speech.

On the one hand, here was his passionate denunciation of Labour's failure to help the poor, something that brought the conference unexpectedly to its feet. On the other, there was his repeated attack on "big government".

Today, in the Hugo Young lecture, Mr Cameron will try to insist that there is no contradiction. His argument is a simple one and an important one.

Big government, he claims, has been tried by Labour, and it has failed. The alternative, though, is not no government - not a return, in other words, to the Thatcherite ideology of rolling back the state. Instead, he argues in a striking phrase, "we must use the state to remake society".

What does that mean? It appears to mean changing the welfare rules while using government to sponsor, to encourage and to avoid holding back social entrepreneurs and community activists. Anti-Tory sceptics will argue that this is in reality simply code for Thatcherite rolling back of the state and will end with the same result: more poorer people.

Some Tory sceptics worry that, although David Cameron's intentions are good, he may simply not be able to replicate the inspired community activism of those like Debbie Scott, whose peerage is being announced today.

Whoever is right, Mr Cameron's speech is well worth studying for anyone who wants to understand what a future Conservative government might do. And if he fails to deliver, it's something that will be returned to again and again, if Cameron is elected.

PS: A young rising Tory star, Grant Shapps, the party's housing spokesman, %3Ca%20href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/6533260/Fighting-poverty-is-at-the-heart-of-progressive-Conservatism.html">has written an interesting piece in the Telegraph in which he argues that Tory concern for the poor is not new and is not spin. He points out that Crisis, the charity that deals with homelessness, was co-founded in1967 by Iain Macleod, the great reforming shadow chancellor.

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David Miliband has turned down the possibility of a new career as "Europe's foreign secretary" - the post formally called EU high representative.

A friend of the foreign secretary has told me that "David sees his future in British politics".

Mr Miliband's decision follows lobbying from colleagues who have urged him not to desert the Labour Party and who regard him as Gordon Brown's natural successor. Some friends have warned him that if he left British politics now he would be portrayed as "a rat leaving a sinking ship" and they have told him that it is possible, though unlikely, that Gordon Brown will step down as prime minister before the next election.

Mr Miliband has recently emerged as the favourite to become EU high representative. However, I have learned that he told the president of the Party of European Socialists (PES), Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, that he was not interested in the job when the two men spoke yesterday.

Up until now Mr Miliband has publicly insisted that he's "not available" and "not running" for the job, although he has refused to rule out taking it if it's offered. This has led senior Labour figures to urge him privately to stick with a career in British politics and not be tempted by a career in Brussels. Labour colleagues have told me that his position has "hardened up" in recent days. One told me that "when he said he was not available, he meant it".

Tonight David Miliband and Gordon Brown are in Berlin for celebrations of the fall of the Berlin Wall. They've joined other European leaders for informal conversations about who should fill the top EU jobs. A final decision has to be made at a Brussels summit likely to be held next week.

Some will spin this news as Mr Miliband rejecting Brussels to challenge Mr Brown. I've no evidence to back this up.

David Miliband was urged and clearly considered challenging Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership in the summer of 2008.

A year later his friend James Purnell resigned from the cabinet calling for a change of leader, but Mr Miliband declined to follow his lead.

Since then the foreign secretary has publicly backed Mr Brown's continued leadership.

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If anyone ever suggests to me that politics doesn't matter, I tell them to remember 9 November. It's a day I will never forget.

Not just because I was lucky enough to stand on top of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago.

Not just because I will never forget the moment I watched a young Berliner jump off the wall into East Germany to hand a flower to one of the troops who, just days before, would have been under orders to shoot on sight anyone who dared to do such a thing.

Not just because when people say the word "freedom", I think of the spontaneous applause which followed and the smiles which broke on the troops' faces.

But also because of a less happy German anniversary. Today marks 71 years since Kristallnacht - %3Ca%20href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht">the Night of Broken Glass - a night of co-ordinated Nazi attacks on German Jews on which synagogues, homes and businesses were ransacked, dozens of Jews were murdered and thousands arrested and sent to concentration camps.

Luckily, my grandparents - who were German Jews - had fled Berlin already.They taught me that politics mattered.

...and when it risks looking like it doesn't

%3Ca%20href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8349757.stm">Much heat has been generated by the front page of today's Sun which highlights the anger of a grieving mother who felt insulted by a handwritten letter of condolence from Gordon Brown which misspelled her son's name. What light is shone by this row?

First, that with grief comes anger.

Second, that there is widespread anger with Gordon Brown in the military.

Third, that the Sun is willing to channel that anger as part of its campaign to be seen to be standing up for "our boys" and to remove Gordon Brown as our prime minister.

Fourth, that Gordon Brown has scruffy handwriting and uses a large black felt pen because he has poor sight in his one functioning eye.

Fifth, that the Downing Street operation has let its boss down by letting this letter leave the building instead of ensuring it was re-written.

So far, so unremarkable.

The reason this is a story is because of the widespread sense of doubt about the continued value of British forces fighting and dying in Afghanistan. The row about this letter and the one about %3Ca%20href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/gordon-brown/6526563/Gordon-Brown-criticised-for-not-bowing-at-Cenotaph.html">the PM's apparent failure to bow his head at the Cenotaph are proxies for the much wider and much more important debate about whether "our boys" are fighting and dying in vain.

On 9 November of all days, we'd do well to remember that.

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This, Messrs Kelly and Brown and Cameron and Clegg all agreed, must mark the end of the MPs' expenses saga. It might not prove that easy.
%3Ca%20href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8341431.stm">
Today's recommendations by the Kelly inquiry are just that - recommendations. Before becoming law they must be adopted by the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) - not yet in existence - which must by law first hold a public consultation.

Despite being told by their leaders and the Speaker not to resist reform, some MPs see this process as a last chance to smooth off the sharpest edges of the Kelly reforms, if not to see them off altogether.

Even if all today's proposals are implemented in full, transition arrangements will mean there will be two classes of MPs in the next Parliament - those still able to employ family members and claim mortgages for the next five years and newly elected MPs for whom that will be illegal.

And in the meantime, those whose behaviour has caused most public anger are still in their jobs, still being paid and still eligible for pay-offs worth tens of thousands of pounds.

All Sir Christopher Kelly could do about them today was to urge the Commons to use its existing rules to deny the worst offenders their pay-offs. That looks unlikely to happen.

So, we may be nearing the final chapter of the expenses saga but the last line has not been written yet - far from it.

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A skim-read of %3Ca%20href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8341431.stm">the document just published reveals two surprises alongside confirmation of the tough new regime on second homes and employing family members.

Kelly rejects the cry of many Labour MPs that MPs should be barred from having other jobs. He also says that the new independent regulator should set MPs' pay and pensions. For those fearing that politics may become a rich man's game, this will be some comfort. To those who fear snouts in the trough, it will be a source of real concern.

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%3Ca%20href="%3Ca%20href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8339464.stm">The Czech Constitutional Court has not stalled let alone torpedoed the Lisbon Treaty. President Klaus - or a Czech Boris as Ken Clarke affectionately calls the maverick Eurosceptic - will also disappoint British Eurosceptics.

David Cameron says he'll tell us what his new position on Europe is later this week. It is the most important new policy announcement he may make before the next election. Simultaneously, he has to assuage the anger of those who will accuse him of betrayal by denying the people a referendum on Lisbon while spelling out how he can get some powers back from Brussels without provoking a major confrontation with the EU in the first few days of a Cameron government.

%3Ca%20href="/blogs/nickrobinson/2009/10/changing_britains_relationship.html">As I wrote last week, he will insist that his "cast-iron guarantee" of a referendum lasted only as long as the Lisbon Treaty was not law. He will reject the arguments of those saying he needs a referendum to give him the people's mandate to negotiate a new settlement with Europe by arguing that an election victory is mandate enough. He will promise a referendum for any future treaty change.

The referendum may be his political problem but his real problem is developing a negotiating strategy which does not descend into the farce of John Major's beef war; does not pretend that a repeat of Margaret Thatcher's handbagging at Fontainebleau is possible when it comes to a much more complex set of negotiations but does not persuade Eurosceptics inside the Tory party and beyond it that Cameron and Hague have "sold out", and put their desire for power before their principles.

Watch this space.

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%3Ca%20href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8337185.stm">The row between the "Nutty Professor" and the red-faced home secretary is, surely, about more than scientific freedom of speech and the evidential basis for policy (something my colleague %3Ca%20href="/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2009/11/why_was_david_nutt_sacked.html">Mark Easton has written about here). It is also about the basis of drugs policy in Britain.

The Advisory Council on Misuse of Drugs is not a purely scientific committee - it includes representatives of drugs charities, the police, social, health and education services as well as scientists. Its advice, therefore, may have science as its foundation but also takes into consideration other factors. Its critics claim that it is in the grip of a sort of "group think" which plays down the risks of drug taking.

Supporters of the philosophy of "harm reduction" argue that it is based on evidence that locking up drugs offenders and scaring young people about the impact of drugs simply has not and will not work. Opponents claim that this is an excuse for "going soft" on drugs and, in the longer term, creating the conditions for legalisation. They claim that the committee at first ignored and later downplayed the evidence about the link between cannabis and psychosis.

Johnson's anger with Professor Nutt stemmed from the repetition of his colourful assertion that more people die from horse riding than ecstasy in Britain - a claim he'd previously apologised for (saying he had "no intention of trivialising the dangers of ecstasy"). Johnson felt that Nutt was trying to undermine or re-write drugs policy which was rightly set by politicians. He feared that Nutt's words could and would be used to suggest that there was no need to worry about ecstasy, cannabis and LSD.

The row about harm reduction is the context in which the political debate exists. Clearly, they also respond to pressure from their constituents and the press not to appear "soft" on drugs. That's why Alan Johnson has the support of many Tories - his shadow, Chris Grayling, the former shadow Home Secretary David Davis and Iain Duncan Smith who has campaigned long and hard to highlight how drug addiction contributes to poverty. However, the Lib Dems led by Dr Evan Harris are firmly on the opposite side of the argument.

I've no doubt that the former Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, is right when %3Ca%20href="https://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8337000/8337370.stm">he argues that the real cause of this dispute was Gordon Brown's decision to promise to re-classify cannabis without consulting the committee and, it follows, while ignoring the evidence. Something, it should be noted, which David Cameron said he would have done too - only sooner.

So, Alan Johnson has stumbled into not one but two major rows. The first focuses on the freedom of unpaid scientific advisers to express their own views in their own ways about the science they study and to have their advice considered by ministers rather than dismissed before it's even been given. The second surrounds who forms drugs policy and on what basis it's drawn up.

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