It’s such a change from the last 13 years!

Prime Minister’s Question Time – June 2nd 2010 – David Cameron vs Harriet Harman

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Prime Minister's Office | CreativeCommons

And the new government is, as Alastair Campbell said on the BBC’s Question Time on Thursday, motoring. Since I last wrote, the coalition has published a detailed programme for government, fleshing out what it’s proposing to the country. Some of the agreement is unsurprising: the coalition will take urgent action to reduce Britain’s budget deficit, it will reform banking and it will legislate to reverse what it sees as Labour’s authoritarian measures, getting rid of the planned identity card scheme, for instance, and reducing the scope of the national DNA database. Some of it is clearly compromise – on European policy, on human rights and on immigration. But other parts of the agreement are much less expected.

The coalition Cabinet | Prime Minister's Office | CreativeCommons

Most controversial has been a complex but important proposal to require a super-majority of 55% of MPs to vote in favour of an early dissolution of Parliament and a general election within five years. Parliament’s term is not fixed like that of the American Congress: at the moment, the Prime Minister can ask the Queen for an election at any time, and most Prime Ministers do so before they are legally required to, usually after about four years. And if the governing party loses its majority in the House of Commons, a vote of no confidence in the government usually triggers an election. The coalition wants to change that for a number of reasons. Liberal Democrats for their part believe in “fixed-term Parliaments“: they have long wanted to remove the PM’s power to initiate elections, which they believe should happen at regular intervals even if the government changes in the meantime. But they also want to remove David Cameron’s ability to undermine the coalition by seeking an election they don’t want. For the Conservatives, abandoning that unilateral right only makes sense if, equally, the Liberal Democrats lose the ability to leave the coalition and join with other parties to force an election. Since non-Conservatives are 53% of the House, settling on 55% as the threshold suits both parties’ aims admirably. But it is precisely this transparently partisan benefit that makes the proposal highly controversial. I’ve written against it myself.

The other surprise proposal is to grant anonymity to rape suspects, a policy that was adopted a few years ago by the Liberal Democrat conference but which most political junkies, never mind the general public, were unaware of. Women who report being raped have been granted anonymity since the 1970s, when the protection was brought in to encourage them to come forward, but this is a rare exception to the principle here that justice should be in public. There is a strand of opinion that thinks defendants in rape cases should be given “equal treatment” with their alleged victims; but strong resistance to this idea comes especially from feminists who see the policy as pandering to the idea that false rape allegations are widespread. The 55% policy will be the first of these to cause real turbulence, as it’s an immediate priority for this year and was trailed in the Queen’s speech – which you can see in its entirety here. There’s no suggestion of a criminal law, sexual offences or criminal justice bill in this session, so the row about rape anonymity will be postponed for the moment.

David Laws | Liberal Democrats | Alex Folkes | fishnik.com | CreativeCommons

But nonetheless, the coalition has already run into a serious, unexpected difficulty. Its early star was David Laws, the rather dashing Liberal Democrat and new Chief Secretary to the Treasury. This is always an important post: it’s effectively deputy to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and is itself a Cabinet post often held by future Chancellors such as John Major and Alistair Darling. But because the Chief Secretary is specifically responsible for public spending levels, it’s even more important than usual at this time of budget cutting. It was Laws who announced the detail of the government’s immediate savings package at the Treasury last week, and it was he who defended them in Parliament. He’s become the pin-up of fiscal conservatives who admire his parsimony in small things as well as big. So it comes as a massive blow to both him and the new government that this Saturday morning the Daily Telegraph reported his having claimed expenses to pay rent to his partner, contrary to Parliamentary rules, since 2006.

The scandal seems to be dividing opinion. David Laws clearly wanted to keep his relationship private; and neither his sexuality nor his desire for privacy are matters of scandal or controversy in Britain, where people increasingly take pride in seeing such things as irrelevant to public life. Some, and not only Liberal Democrats, defend Laws on the basis that he was simply trying to maintain his privacy and that, by claiming for the rent he paid to his partner he actually saved public money, as compared with what he could have claimed had the pair openly bought and shared a property. Certainly, Laws is attracting some sympathy on a human level and because his visible competence has made him look the right man, in the right job at the right time. But this is a very serious business. Laws seems to have plainly broken the rules, which since 2006 have prohibited payments from expenses going to MPs’ partners, and this exposure resurrects the poisonous expenses scandal of last year. Not only that: this apparent abuse of taxpayers’ money comes from the very man – a rich man, at that, who it’s said retired from the City, a millionaire, at 28 – whose duty it is to make the nation face the need for austerity in the use of public funds. This is a sad story of a talented man brought down by a collision between 1950s-style prejudice, or the fear of it, and the fierce new mood of fiscal rectitude in Britain. I’m afraid he’ll probably have to go; perhaps even has gone before you read this.

Maybe next time there’ll be a little less politics to write about, and a little more room for pubs.

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Here is the entire Queen’s Speech:

If you’d like to see the entire pomp and circumstance behind the State Opening of Parliament, CSPAN has the whole thing for view on there website. Click here to watch it all.

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It’s guaranteed to be a day of British pomp and circumstance spectacle. I’ve watched it many times and it’s a lot of fun.

So, where can you partake the fun in the USA if you’re so inclined?

CSPAN2 will be simulcasting the BBC’s coverage of the entire events of the day.

They’ll also be streaming the State Opening live on the web here.

Don’t expect it on BBC America – though they may cover some of it on their early morning shows since it will be going on at the same time.

No word yet as to whether or not the BBC website will be simulcasting as they did during the election. I would hope they would – we’ll keep an eye out so follow our Twitter or Facebook accounts for updates if they start streaming live.

But as of now, it looks like the best place to watch the Queen’s Speech and the State Opening of Parliament in the USA is on CSPAN2 on the TV and on the Web. Also, if you don’t have the heart to wake up early to watch the Queen in action – CSPAN always re-airs it later.

Also, this is a special Queen’s Speech due to the election and new Parliament – there will be another Queen’s Speech and State Opening this fall as usual – so you can see it all again if you miss it.

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Prime Minister's Office | CreativeCommons

Nick Clegg was first, saying the Conservatives – with more seats and more votes than anyone else – had the right to prove they could govern in the national interest. David Cameron acted quickly and more boldly than expected, making a comprehensive offer to open talks about forming a stable government. Gordon Brown emerged from 10 Downing Street to say the other parties could take what time they needed – and that he was ready to talk to Nick Clegg if Tory-LibDem negotiations foundered. The horse-trading began.

The BBC's Nick Robinson reporting on Cameron's "big offer" | Tom Page | CreativeCommons

On Saturday it looked as though agreement could happen very quickly. Tory and Liberal Democrat teams got on well and were clearly engaged in real detail. The mood music was so good that, by Sunday, we wondered why a deal hadn’t been closed. And on Monday, it seemed almost to fall apart when the LibDem MPs met and asked for clarification on various items. At that point, Gordon Brown’s machiavallian instincts showed one final time, as, announcing his own departure as Labour leader, he in effect invited Liberal Democrats to speak to him instead. Was it a last, desperate throw by a man clutching at a last few months of power? Or was it just a low tactic to poison Tory-LibDem relations and damage the new government from the start? We may never know. But for a moment it did throw everything into confusion. Most Liberal Democrats dream, in truth, of an arrangement with Labour, not the Tories, and they found siren Labour calls hard to resist. What killed it was partly the arithmetic – Labour and the LibDems together would still be a majority, dependent on the tolerance of Scottish, Welsh and Irish nationalists – and partly the resistance of a number of prominent Labour MPs for whom clinging on to power would damage Labour and give the country unstable government. Reality took hold again yesterday, when the Tory-LibDem contract was finally signed.

Gordon Brown left Downing Street to offer his resignation to Her Majesty – early on Tuesday evening,  in a final touch of spin, to deny David Cameron a “new dawn” arrival at Number 10. Even before his deal was signed, David Cameron was clearly the man most likely to command a Parliamentary majority, and was summon by the Queen to form a new government as Prime Minister. And we now know the rough shape of that new government. Under Cameron, Nick Clegg will be deputy Prime Minister, and a number of Liberal Democrats will be in Cabinet, including Vince Cable as Business Secretary and David Laws as Chief Secretary to the Treasury – the cutter-in-chief role.

Downing Street | CreativeCommons

The political significance of this week is huge. It marks the end of New Labour, at least in this manifestation. A political era that began with the death of Labour leader John Smith in 1994, and dominated by Tony Blair and his modernising philosophy, will be over. It is the first time Conservatives have defeated Labour to return to power since Margaret Thatcher in 1979. But much, more more historic is the fact that this will be the first peacetime coalition, and the first time Liberals have been in government, since 1935. The political effects are likely to be enormous, too. The Conservative party has survived the civil war that has lasted since Margaret Thatcher was removed from office, and has finally recovered enough to take office. But it remains damaged, without the swagger and confidence it once had. How it fares from now will turn on how well  ministers deal with the serious fiscal position they face, and on David Cameron’s performance as Prime Minister. There’s an upside to the compromises he has had to make to Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats: he is free from the shackles of his own campaign pledges, and can discard his less popular policies. He’s been dealt an unusual hand, and has the chance to play it with skill.

The Liberal Democrats have achieved office for the first time, a development that marks their coming of age. I expect their popularity to decrease somewhat as they lose their opposition identity and are tainted by power. I also think there’s a risk they might even split: tensions are bound to surface in a party divided between the left-leaning majority and the more genuinely centrist group around Nick Clegg. They’ve also lost their dream of proportional representation, not just this time but I suspect for some time. Britain has tasted, this week, what coalition politics is like, and most people have disliked the backroom wheeler-dealing it involves. Exciting though the spectacle may be, it seems undemocratic. I’d be surprised if, at the next election, the two main parties do not increase their share of the vote. There’s a vocal lobby for proportional representation, but I doubt many people support it. We can probably forget it for a while.

President Obama calls David Cameron | Prime Minister's Office | CreativeCommons

Labour is defeated, but not crushed, to the relief of many of its supporters, and its leader Gordon Brown – a divisive and poor leader – is leaving. Opposition to a government making deep cuts and facing certain difficulty gives it a big opportunity to rebuild, and opportunity made all the greater with the effective removal of its competitor on the centre-left. Ideally, Labour would take some time to rethink its new direction. Gordon Brown, with his last-ditch resignation as leader to lure the LibDems into talks, may have done Labour a final bad turn by accelerating its leadership contest unnecessarily. David Miliband is the front runner already, and most expect the fight to be between him and Ed Balls. I’d caution, though, against ruling out Jon Cruddas, who I think stands a good chance of leading Labour by this autumn.

If the British constitution is a fine old stately home, this week we’ve revisited a disused and dusty wing. Absence made the heart grow briefly fonder. I expect, though, that we’ll only visit again if we must.

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This is a significant and historic election for the Brits, every bit as historic as the last Presidential race. But we won’t delve into that. Instead, I would like to point out the differences between voting in the UK and the US. First and foremost, I had to work today and I am going to the pub afterward. Now, I can’t say I’ve been paying much attention to what you do on the first Tuesday in November over there, but when I was young, the bars were closed and we got the day off.

I have trouble believing that is still the case.

Other differences include ticking a box with a pencil instead of pulling a level, but that was specific to my locality in America. We had voting machines where I lived; but you may have voted in “Hanging Chad” country.

So that narrows the big differences between a US and UK election down to who you get to vote for and the length of time they get to campaign.

In the US, I was able to cast my vote for the person I wanted to run the country, and a host of others, besides. But here, I don’t get to vote for the President, my State Senator, my local Representative, the county sheriff and the dog-catcher all in one go. What I do get to do is vote for my local MP. Period.

The idea is, with the backing of my vote, my MP will get elected. If enough MPs from their party get elected, then the party’s Head MP gets to run the country, and that would be the person I would naturally have voted for if I did get a say in who I wanted running the country. Perhaps, but not always. And this year, not bloody likely.

On the other hand, I rarely point this out to the locals because they usually counter by asking me to explain the Electoral College.

The best thing about British elections, however, is that they only last a month. This pales in comparison to the year-long media frenzy that is an American election. As an American, I just assumed our way of doing things was The Way It Should Be and never considered an alternative. But having experienced a different reality, I have come to the conclusion that the US method is well and truly bonkers.

Think of the waste, the effort, the drain on our economy and our nerves. The only winners in a US election are the manufacturers of red, white and blue bunting and media underlings with maxed out credit cards who are glad for the overtime. We put the person who would be President though a media gauntlet designed to kill an average person and expect them to come out the other side unscathed. What we are doing is making certain that, once the election is over, our successful candidate is as totally and thoroughly exhausted as we are tired of listening to them. And by the by, who is running the country during this time?

Our method makes it impossible for anyone but the obscenely rich to even attempt running for office. And the constant need for greater and greater amounts of money practically guarantees that our candidates, if they did not go into the election corrupt, will surely come out of it that way.

Now I’m not naïve enough to believe the UK candidates are any less sullied, but at least I don’t have to suffer their attempts to convince me otherwise for eleven additional months. And, seriously, if it takes you a full year to make your mind up concerning who you want to run the country, maybe you should practice making decisions a little more often than once every four years. Or invest in an 8-Ball.

Really, four weeks is plenty long enough for an election campaign. Try it; you’ll wonder how (and why) you put up with protracted electioneering for so long.

And the best part is, enjoying the post-election coverage at the pub.

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So, while it won’t be on the major networks (probably no more than a blurb on the headlines) there are a couple places in America to watch the British Election results live.

The first is C-SPAN 3 – they’ve been doing a great job so far covering the election by showing the leadership debates to an American audience and showing other party political broadcasts.

I’m happy to report that C-SPAN 3 will be showing the live BBC News Election feed as it happens starting at 3:55pm CST/ 4:55 EST. You’ll see it as the Brits see it with results, analytics and commentary. LIVE. This is incredible and I wish we got C-SPAN 3!

C-SPAN 3 Details Here.

In addition to C-SPAN’s coverage, you’ll also be able to watch the exact same feed LIVE on the BBC News website on their live election coverage section. It’s the same site they’ve been streaming the debates and other election related broadcasts. The streaming quality is quite good and the only drawback is that you’ll have to be glued computer.

Watch the BBC Election Coverage in the USA here.

Also, I haven’t gotten word from my friends at BBC America as to whether they’ll have an special British election coverage. But I have heard that their regular evening news will have an Election special with Andrew Sullivan providing commentary. Whether or not it will extend for several hours beyond their regular 1 hour broadcast, remains to be seen. Their schedule only reflects the one hour news show.

Either way, if you get BBC America, you probably also get C-SPAN 3 so you’ll be covered there.

We’re very much looking forward to tomorrow and we can’t wait to see how things shape up. This election could shape immigration to the UK for years to come – so it could affect us in our plans to move there one day. We shall see.

We’ve been invited to an election party here in Chicago where they’ll have a special live feed from the UK as well. Can’t wait!

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Adam Tinworth | CreativeCommons

The campaign has been a disaster for Labour, in all frankness. Gordon Brown always had an uphill fight to stay in power, after 13 years in office and against the background of the credit crunch, the recession and a ballooning national debt. He had to take huge risks. But they’ve just not worked for him. The big gamble was to agree to televised debates, but he’s not landed the kind of punches he was hoping for. He’s not performed all that badly in fact: last night’s final debate was his most combative and best performance even though he looked shattered. But his hope was always to blow David Cameron in particular away with his gravitas, and with luck to embarrass or browbeat the Tory leader into some sort of blunder – perhaps last night, when the questions focused on the economy. It never happened, and most viewers think Brown lost all three debates. Otherwise the campaign has been lacklustre at best. And “bigotgate” didn’t help. Gordon Brown, visiting Rochdale and being cornered by Gillian Duffy, dealt pretty well with her policy concerns, concerns that included the deficit and immigration. But, forgetting to switch off his TV microphone when he got into his getaway car, he was caught calling her a “bigoted woman” and seeming to blame his staff for what he thought a disastrous encounter. See his reaction when his words are put back to him. It’s just ridiculous, you might say.

Dominic Campbell | CreativeCommons

Most people’s immediate reaction was to think this would destroy him completely, and that Labour would plunge further in the polls – but oddly, that’s not happened. Why not? First I think because most British voters are pretty forgiving about small hypocrisies and muck-ups. We know we ourselves are two-faced, and might smile at someone in public, only to insult them in private. Second, many people seem to me to have felt the broadcasters overdid this story – it got wall-to-wall coverage, and I think many people started to feel it was unfair to Brown. On top of that, “bigotgate” happened at a fortunate time for Brown, just as the final debate was about to happen and just as voters’ minds are turning away from surface and presentation, and, finally, towards policy and substance – causing a certain frustration with this sort of trivia. Lastly, though, and less reassuringly for Gordon Brown, many people already dislike him and think him a rude, out of touch bully and boor. His poll ratings may just be incapable of sinking much further because he’s already down to Labour’s 25%+ core vote.

Dominic Campbell | CreativeCommons

David Cameron, though, must also be hugely frustrated: with such an unpopular government, such a widely disliked Prime Minister and with such a difficult economic outlook, he and his party should be streets ahead by now, with over 40% in the polls. Stuck at about 35% as I write, he looks likely to have the most seats in the next Parliament, but no majority. If that’s next week’s result it will be a most unpleasing kind of victory for the Conservatives – and will feel more like a sort of defeat. What’s happened? The global economic crisis is what happened. Of course in one way that’s helped David Cameron. But in another, it threw his 2005 strategy off balance. He had presented himself as a fresh, optimistic face of a more open, modern Conservatism, committed to public services and the environment. But circumstances have forced him back towards an older, drier, more money-minded Toryism focused on cutting public spending and resisting immigration and Europe. That’s been an unpopular stance for at least 15 years, and precisely what Cameron had succeeded in dragging his party away from. Their retreat to that place left a gap for the fresh, optimistic Nick Clegg to fill – which he did.

So what happens now? There’s always the unexpected – who knows what further gaffes Gordon Brown is capable of. But I expect Tory support to firm up a little as undecideds decide. Labour support may also firm, and LibDem poll support is likely to fall. All Labour supporters must hope so, because if they really did come third, as has seemed likely, that would be a terrible, historic defeat. If the Conservatives manage somehow to scrape a majority, the LibDems would have a good moral claim to be the real opposition; there might be no way back, for Labour, from there. If on the other hand we get a hung Parliament – as seems likely – history will be made anyway. Unless the Tories are close enough to a majority to try to govern on their own, we may have a period of coalition government or at least inter-party cooperation, something that would change the political game here dramatically, and perhaps for good.

Liberal Democrats | CreativeCommons

Who would govern with whom? That’s the big question. Under our constitutional system, Gordon Brown as the incumbent will have the first chance to negotiate another party’s support. But if Labour and the LibDems can do a deal, it’s almost certain someone other than him would be Prime Minister – and the most likely someone else is Nick Clegg. If they can’t, Clegg may negotiate with Cameron – but if he does he may well split his party at the moment of its greatest triumph. The political possibilities are awesome, and the week after the vote looks like being much, much more dramatic than the week before. Is it obvious I’ve no idea what’s going to happen? Almost anything could.

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The first ever Leadership debates in the British election have turned into a game changer that no one expected and the final debate will be held tonight – and it could end up deciding the entire election.

So, if you’re in the USA – where can you watch the third and final Primer Ministerial debate in America?

The British leadership debate will air live on C-SPAN 3 on US cable networks starting at 3:30 EST/2:30 CST. You should also be able to watch it live on CSPAN’s website here.

If you aren’t fortunate enough to get CSPAN 3 – you can also watch the debate live on the web on the BBC’s website here.

Click here to watch the debate live on the BBC.

I’m going to go the live BBC on the web route – I did last time and the quality was excellent and the connection sustained through the whole debate.

Watch British history in the making!

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It’s an exciting time for Anglophiles and British Expats interested in following the British Election. Last week the first history making debate changed the course of the election and upended everything.

It’s British Political Drama at it’s best.

Last week, the first leadership debate aired on ITV News in the UK and they also broadcast it live on their website which was accessible to the rest of the world.

This week, the Sky News is airing the 2nd debate which will be all about foreign policy. There are two places for people outside the UK to watch the debate live.

The first is on the Sky News’s website. They should be broadcasting it live on their live election page here. However, they may block people outside the UK, we won’t know until the debate starts. I suspect they’ll allow it as they usually do for major events.

You should also be able to watch the debate live on C-SPAN’s website. They broadcast it live last week and it was pretty good quality. Check out the C-SPAN British Election page here when the debate starts. C-SPAN will also air it at a later date on the cable channels but the real magic will happen live.

If you’re lucky enough to get C-SPAN 3 – you can watch it live on your television without having to sit at the computer.

The debate is 8PM UK Time – which is 3PM Eastern Time and 2PM Central Time in the USA so plan accordingly.

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Sarah Teather and Vince Cable with Brent activists | Liberal Democrats | Creative Commons

But first, the manifestos. Traditionally in the first week of the campaign each party issues a manifesto – a book or booklet outlining what its programme will be for the next Parliament. What it would do in government, in other words. Manifestos are mysterious things, hugely varying in length and style, and anyway not much read by voters. It used to be that you had to buy them, if you were interested (by law the parties had to sell them; they couldn’t give them away), so no one other than political geeks ever did. And manifestos only tell you so much: a party is in no way bound to carry out its manifesto pledges, and is likely to do many more things, if it gets power, than are contained in its pages. Look at Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 manifesto, for instance – you’ll find no mention of the privatisation agenda that became so important a component of Thatcherism, except for the suggestion of a partial sale of one small organisation. If you’re interested in British political history, you can read old manifestos here. Another interesting website is The Straight Choice, which has now collected and archived over a thousand British election leaflets.

David Cameron | Conservative Party | Creative Commons

This time, manifestos are online. Labour’s, much mocked for it Maoist imagery, promises to secure the fragile economic recovery, and to protect front-line public services, and to deliver constitutional reform including change to the electoral system and even work towards a written constitution. The Conservative Manifesto invites us to “join the government” and pledges to stop Labour’s planned national insurance rise for employers – a kind of payroll tax and to cut the deficit more quickly, while protecting the National Health Service. It promises tougher rules on immigration and a radically different approach on Europe, changing the law to protect the British constitution from EU encroachment. The Liberal Democrats promise fair taxes – including removing all those earning under ￡10,000 a year from tax altogether – and, as they always do, substantial constitutional change including a move to proportional representation.

leaflets I've been sent in Brent Central

Locally, there’s not massive evidence of campaigning yet, at least in my part of London: Brent Central constituency is a rare Labour-LibDem marginal where two current MPs – Labour’s Dawn Butler and the LibDem Sarah Teather, who has the advantage of being one of her side’s most televised faces – fight each other because boundary changes have extinguished their existing seats. There have been a few leaflets, mainly from the LibDems, and there are a few posters around – but nothing at all from the Conservatives, which reflects the highly targeted way all the parties campaign these days. All the declared candidates for Brent Central are listed here, by the way. The leaders have as usual been touring the country wildly in what seems the most “presidential” campaign yet in the UK. This is a development many British people are depressed by: we want politics to be about parties and issues rather than about personalities, or at least we say we do. But somehow, election by election, the focus on the style and personalities of the leaders, and even of their wives, continues inexorably.

Which brings me to last night’s debate between the leaders – a truly historic moment in British politics, since we’ve never had such a thing before, a fact that may amaze Americans and Europeans for whom this sort of thing has long been a fixture. Why has it never happened before? Perhaps precisely because of our traditional preference for seeing politics as a team sport. More importantly, there’s never been agreement before now because it’s never been in the interests of all the party leaders to take part. Conventional wisdom here has been that whoever is in the lead can only lose from a debate: Tony Blair for instance avoided a debate in every election he fought, because he was streets ahead and had nothing to gain. This time, though, things are different. Gordon Brown wanted a debate because he is, or was, so far behind, needed to gamble on a game-changer and, more cynically, want to neutralise the Conservatives’ ability to outspend him in the campaign by focusing the whole election on the equalising format of television. The question is why David Cameron, who was so far ahead, agreed; I think the answer must be that, since he personally is by far his party’s strongest asset and Gordon Brown is by far Labour’s biggest problem, he was happy to make the election a man-to-man contest.

the very first UK TV leaders' election debate

But to comply with the requirement to achieve balance the broadcasters has to include the LibDem leader Nick Clegg – and last night he was the clear winner. You can watch the full 90 minute debate here. Clegg relaxed into the format much more quickly than did the other two, an impression that I think stuck in viewer’s minds even as the other men got into their strides. Although at times he hesitated and looked to his notes, he also on occasion managed to communicate to the audience in front of him and at home much more effectively than his opponents.

The strategy of the others was intriguing: David Cameron steered clear of strong attacks on Gordon Brown, his own polls apparently having told him that goes down badly with voters. But he’ll surely have to revise that before the next debate, having seemed relatively ineffectual in the face of Gordon Brown’s reasonably effective combativeness. He only really impressed in the way you might have expected from such a normally capable public performer right at the end with his prepared speech – though Frank Luntz, the American pollster who’s been hired by the Sun, has been saying this morning he felt that speech came over as too personal and “American” for British voters’ tastes. Brown certainly didn’t land the kind of blow he was hoping for – most people think he didn’t shine. But he’ll be delighted not to have been beaten by Cameron, and that Clegg has done so well. It might not help his candidate here in Brent, but the normal conventional wisdom here (which might not hold quite as usual this time, it should be said) is that LibDem success hurts the Tories more than it does Labour; plus, he’ll be hoping for tactical votes from those in Labour-Tory marginals who are attracted to Clegg (hence his keenness to tell us he “agrees with Nick”).

I think this debate has shaken up the campaign considerably. It wasn’t hugely exciting, but in imposing Nick Clegg so firmly on the scene, it may well shift votes. Clegg is already the most powerful liberal in Britain since Lloyd George. If he can perform as well as this in the next two debates, and avoids blunders, he could achieve his party’s most serious breakthrough yet and have a decisive influence in or over the next government. Remember, too, that his economic spokesman Vince Cable is the most popular and trusted major politician in the country, so you can expect to see them together as often as the LibDems can possibly manage it. A hung Parliament – where no party has a majority – was a real possibility even before last night. Now, it looks like the most likely outcome. And that could change Britain for good.

Just three weeks to go…

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British democracy is a funny thing. For starters it’s not quite a democracy… there’s that whole royal family thing hanging about in various palaces. So the term for the British form of government is a constitutional monarchy. Effectively the country is run by the parliament in the form of the prime minister and cabinet, with the queen serving as head of state. In the US the head of government and the head of state are one person. In the UK there are some elements of the electoral process that are cause for high drama. This time there is only about a month of campaigning before the official vote. The craziness has commenced!

Rules of the UK Election

1. An election can be called at any time by the Prime Minister. The PM asks the Queen to formally dissolve Parliament, which she always does. Then the official horse race begins. First past the post wins! Check out the BBC’s fun Election 2010 tool
2. You must at least pretend to love small children. Conservative (“Tory”) leader David Cameron has really kicked the competition up a notch this year by actually getting his wife pregnant in time for an election season announcement. Visits to schools abound. All the candidates have cute small children.
3. There is a serious contender third party. Sort of. The Liberal Democrats! The third man – Nick Clegg – in the race that could make or break the fortunes of the two more popular parties. Or have absolutely no influence. The excitement of the British system never ends.
4. You must wear the color tie of your party. This is not dissimilar to the US mode of operation, but being Brits, Labour and party leader/ Prime Minister Gordon Brown is allowed to wear various shades of pink. I like it.

David Cameron

So there is your unofficial guide to the UK Election. Countdown until May 6th!

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Alistair Darling | HM Treasury | CreativeCommons

All of which set the scene for this week’s “Chancellors’ Debate” on Channel 4, which you can see extensive highlights of here. As expected, the Liberal Democrat Vince Cable was perceived to “win” the debate. Even a few years ago there were signs that Cable had a rare political gift – I remember the American pollster Frank Luntz spotting in BBC focus groups that he was notably more trusted than other economic spokesmen. Since the global crisis, though, his reputation has soared along with the deficit, and Liberal Democrats must wish, desperately, that he were their leader. A couple of years ago they dumped their old one (Ming Campbell, who’d got the top job off the back of his star performance as foreign spokesman, leading opposition to the Iraq war) precisely for being too old, and replaced him with the less solid, but more telegenic Nick Clegg. Clegg has been doing reasonably well recently but is still untested, while the other old stager Cable would be the obvious choice now.

Vince Cable | Alex Folkes/Fishnik/Liberal Democrats | CreativeCommons

What’s strange about the current political situation, though, is that Alistair Darling’s boringly “stolid” strategy seems to be paying off – and the Conservative challenge to have become distinctly wobbly. It’s very hard to interpret recent polling because some polls still show Conservative leads of around 10%, and the average lead is something like 6 or 7%; but the common feeling of commentators is that that lead is narrowing. Governments here usually narrow opposition leads during election campaigns, so if current trends continue, we may have the closest general election in Britain for decades. Why aren’t the Tories doing better? Surely, with the country’s finances in such a state and against a tired government with an unloved leader, they should be roaring towards power? Tony Blair’s old strategist Alastair Campbell thinks the answer is that their offering is confused; here’s the Times piece he refers to, which agrees. I think the problem for the Conservatives is that they’ve been caught out badly by the banking crisis and recession – in a way, rather like the Liberal Democrats have.

George Osborne | Ewan McIntosh | CreativeCommons

In 2005 when he became leader, David Cameron launched the Tory party in a new direction, trying to ditch the old image of being in favour of cuts in public services and tax cuts for the rich (an approach that had lost them three elections running, don’t forget) in favour of a much more upbeat message of concern for the environment, health and the quality of life. But just as the Tories had successfully case off doom, gloom came to meet them. Now, events have forced their Shadow Chancellor George Osborne back into arguing for deeper, faster spending cuts, which is comfortable, natural territory for them, but means  they can’t help appearing to have turned one way then the other in recent years, with many voters not really knowing what they stand for. So far, so understandable. But they have also made errors, like allowing themselves still to be cast as tax-cutters for the rich. I’m a Labour supporter, so I’m naturally biased, but there is a real feeling here that some voters – especially fed-up previously Labour voters – are looking hard at the Conservatives and are less sure than they were about defecting. It’s not as obvious as it once seemed that they’ll win on May 6th. But who will? Will anyone?

The civil service is certainly planning for the possibility that no one will. This level of organisation for the eventuality of a hung parliament – one in which no party has a Parliamentary majority – is new, but surely sensible. The civil service is the one institution that can provide continuity and offer practical support to politicians if they need to hammer out an agreement for government this summer. The rule is, basically, that Gordon Brown continues in power until it’s clear he can’t, and someone else can, command a majority in Parliament. That could mean even if defeated, he stays in Downing Street for days or even weeks while he tries to put together some sort of deal with the Liberal Democrats. I’m not sure that a hung parliament would be a disaster for the country: a very close election will undoubtedly be good for political engagement here, and a minority government of either colour depending on Liberal Democrat support could be more stable and effective in dealing with the economic crisis than many fear. What would be damaging, though, is a prolonged period of uncertainty – especially if the leader of the biggest appears appears to be trying to hold on to power illegitimately. Whatever else happens, I hope we don’t go there.

The Seven Stars

Booze-wise, I was in the Seven Stars last week, in Carey Street just behind the Royal Courts of Justice. If I had to name London’s best pub, this is one of the three that come instantly to mind. It’s cosy in winter, and the simple, music-free inside is a brilliant place for conversation. The beer’s terrific (it’s Adnams plus a guest beer or two) and it’s worth ordering food here, too – they serve more interesting than usual pub food, which gives the place a really old-fashioned, almost “eighteenth century tavern” feel. It’s right opposite the back entrance to the High Court, so has a very legal theme – and a nice black cat, apparently called Thomas Paine. I’ll be back in the summer when the place is at its very best, with punters crowding the street outside. I wonder which of the three men above will be in Number 11 Downing Street by then – and how much my beer will cost.

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Downing Street | CreativeCommons

What this tells us is, first, that the Prime Minister feels fairly confident about the economic statistics that will be published at the end of April, figures that will say whether Britain continues even a fragile recovery or slips back into recession. He still might panic and go to the country before then, but would be visibly running scared. If there’s a chance the figures will look good, there was always a strong argument for his waiting for them. They may be politically priceless for him. Secondly, they tell us Gordon Brown may be preparing for a short election campaign, something that surprises some political commentators, since the long attritional period of pre-election talk has seen Labour narrow the gap with the Conservatives. Why not stretch the fight out even longer?

For two reasons, I think. First, precisely because the “phoney election” is going so well for Labour. Brown wants to stretch this surprisingly helpful period out as long as possible before changing the dynamic to the real campaign. Second, because Labour wants to fight a new type of campaign. The party is in real financial trouble, and while money from trades unions will come, it needs to neutralise what will surely be the Conservatives’ bigger spending power. The idea is to replace the type of election we’ve become used to – leaders expensively touring the country in helicopters day in, day out, glad-handing voters – with a much more concentrated fight centred on the three massively important, and entirely new, leaders’ debates. It’s not just about money, either. Psychologically, Brown wants to follow the phoney election, in which Tory support has gone soft as doubts have crept in – with a short, sharp wake-up campaign to focus minds more intently than ever on the choice between him and David Cameron. I’m sure he believes a short, intense campaign will help create the drama of choice he wants to produce.

Caribb | CreativeCommons

Two political issues have high saliency right now. First, the fact that Brown has had to correct his evidence to the Iraq inquiry, having wrongly claimed that defence spending rose in real terms in every year he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. That was a blunder that’s done him more harm that the spending record merits, in truth. Second, there’s the British Airways strike, planned to start on Saturday. The strike is politically embarrassing for the PM because the union involved, UNITE, is the biggest donor to the Labour Party. David Cameron tried at Prime Minister’s question time to make the strike a partisan issue; Brown must stay above it, and hope next week’s budget blows it out of the headlines. Yes, many people fly with BA. But in truth, the strike will affect Anglotopia readers, on average, more then the woman in the number 98 bus or the marginal Labour voter, who probably won’t leave the UK until summer, if then. And those Brits who are affected won’t necessarily blame the union or Gordon Brown.

CLF | CreativeCommons

In non-political news, England’s footballers are living up to two of their deserved reputations. First, John Terry who I wrote about a few weeks back (and who was later stripped of the England captaincy) is in trouble again, this time for injuring a steward while driving, apparently after having had a drink following a game. Second, it was always on the cards that one of England’s stars would be injured before the tournament: that always happens. If it happens to Wayne Rooney or Steven Gerrard, England really will be sunk. But it’s happened to David Beckham, still England’s most famous footballer internationally, although football watchers here know he’s past his best and would only have had a supporting role in the World Cup in any case. This is, in effect, the close of a distinguished sporting career. I’ve always thought Beckham overrated as a player, certainly not in the class of real England legends like Bobby Charlton or Bobby Moore. His considerable PR skills having gained him the international profile he enjoys. But even I can’t deny he was a very good player, who made important contributions that swung games for England at crucial times. Or that he was generally speaking a positive example of a well-behaved footballer. He once claimed to have no books in his expensive house, which didn’t impress me. But we may think worse of his coarser colleagues when he’s gone.

Inside the Lamb | Ewan-M | CreativeCommons

Beer? Happily, my local the Queensbury now sells real ale, I’m pleased to say: the quality of life in Willesden has just gone up a notch. Otherwise, I went to the Lamb, in Lamb’s Conduit Street, one of London’s fine old pubs, just north of Holborn. I’m very much hoping, whatever other cautious measures Alastair Darling takes in next week’s budget, that he doesn’t put more than a penny or so on a pint of beer. Much more than that, and all confidence could drain from my personal economy.

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Elliott Morley | Steve Punter | CreativeCommons

There are, though, three MPs who certainly do “get” how serious this all is – because the Crown Prosecution Service has begun criminal proceedings against them for the offence of false accounting, a serious charge for which they could well, if found guilty, face imprisonment. Elliot Morley is the best known of the three Labour members, having served as a minister. He and David Chaytor MP are accused of claiming non-existent mortgage costs and rent on properties they owned, while Jim Devine MP is accused on claiming for cleaning and stationary on the basis of false invoices. A Tory member of the House of Lords is also being prosecuted. They first appear in court on March 11, and are unlikely to be tried until after the general election but their defence is already controversial – it’s thought they are likely to argue that as MPs their conduct was protected by Parliamentary privilege, and so in effect immune from prosecution. Privilege is an ancient and important constitutional principle protecting MPs from arrest for the things they say in Parliament. Whether privilege really covers expense claims, I doubt; if the courts rule that it does, the scandal will have taken yet another dramatic and controversial turn.

The White Bear, Kennington

At the same time, a journalist is being questioned by police over his involvement in a man’s death many years ago. Ray Gosling is an outstanding journalist well known for documentaries and local broadcasting in the North and midlands, covering the unusual, the personal and the unglamorous sides of real life in an immediately recognisable style that could be deeply serious, literate but also ironic. I remember some of the work he did for Granada TV in the 70s and 80s – thoughtful broadcasting that drew you in. Here’s a (low quality, I’m afraid) video of him in his pomp, and here’s a more recent follow-up. In his most recent documentary for BBC East Midlands he’s confessed to smothering an unnamed lover who at some time in the past was dying from AIDS, and in incurable pain. The police presumably suspect him of murder. The police and CPS may have a difficult decision to make about whether a murder prosecution would be in the public interest – I can’t, myself, see how it would. Ray Gosling may take comfort in the knowledge that, whatever the professionals think, any trial would be before a jury – a system that is essentially fair and unbiased according to the findings of a major research report by Professor Cheryl Thomas of University College London. I hope Ray Gosling faces no charge. If he does, I hope he’s acquitted. And without for a moment suspecting him of cynical motives, I hope this incident, which has raised his profile massively, ends up with his making truckloads of money out of this. Because another tragedy is that Gosling was poor and on the verge of bankruptcy a few years ago. How can that happen to such a talented broadcaster? All too easily, I’m afraid, in our glamour-obsessed celebrity culture.

Piers Morgan | thisiscow | CreativeCommons

A different sort of confessional interview this week was Gordon Brown, who spoke on ITV last Sunday to Piers Morgan (the former Daily Mirror editor, and stalwart of ungoslinglike celeb culture) in an attempt to show his real character to the country. Those who don’t know much about Brown will be interested to see him discuss how he proposed to his wife Sarah on a windswept Scottish beach, and the death of their new-born daughter Jennifer. They may also be surprised by the young student radical Brown and his bevy of female fans – the “Brown Sugars”, who he seems to remember very well from the days of free love. I’d have advised him to open up much more about the distant past – even about sex – but even this quite cautious outing may have done him some good. Certainly Brown is a fascinating figure, however you view his politics – you may still be able to watch the interview for a couple of weeks on ITV Player.

The Star, St. John's Wood

I haven’t mentioned beer yet, I notice. I did, though, visit the Star in St. John’s Wood, a pretty pub with decent beer and a fire, spoiled somewhat by an intrusive telly and music, and by nasty, modern, square-block tables that are frankly out of place; and before that I went to the White Bear in Kennington, just south of the river, which is not great for beer but fantastic if you like to watch sports on big screens, which are many. There is a very good reason to visit the White Bear, though – it has a small theatre at the back and often puts on interesting fringe shows. If that wasn’t enough to make me feel okay about ordering yet another pint, I could remind myself that Gordon Brown admitted to regularly sinking six or so back in his Edinburgh days. Perhaps one day I’ll be as successful and unpopular as him.

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The Old Mitre

The other good news this fortnight was that Britain is finally out of recession, after eighteenth months. Only just – growth was 0.1% in the last quarter of 2009 – but technically, the recession is over. If there’s not a “double dip”, that is. It’s been an odd recession, this, in Britain. There have been job losses, but not on the scale many expected. At least not yet. There have not been mass repossessions of homes, either, unlike in the last recession here, in the early 1990s. In fact, many of those who’ve stayed in work have been better off, because low interest rates have cut mortgage costs, in effect putting money in their pockets. In some ways, it’s been a phoney recession in which some of those who weren’t to blame for the credit crunch (those who’d saved since 2000, and more broadly all taxpayers) in effect paid to protect those who do share some responsibility for it (those who’d borrowed substantially over the same period, and highly-paid bank employees) from the consequences of their choices.

Henry Bloomfield | CreativeCommons

But is the recovery phoney? That’s the big question as spring approaches. The next quarter’s figures will come out in April, in the middle of our general election campaign so Gordon Brown badly needs them to show further growth, however sickly. Even more important than the figures, though, is the way people feel between now and May. Brown must hope that a little growth together with continued low interest rates and a canny budget will build confidence and create reasonable conditions for electioneering in May. He retains what control politicians can ever have over economic tides; but he is, more than any Prime Minister for decades, at the mercy of statistics and the animal spirits of voters.

The other important issue of timing is the Iraq inquiry of course – and we now know Brown will give evidence before the election, after all. Tony Blair’s appearance last week was a huge media event, triggering all the old arguments and debates that raged in 2003. The country is deeply divided over Iraq, to say the least: by two to one, or two and a bit to one, people feel Tony Blair’s policy was a disaster. But it matters little now to Blair how much opposition and anger he sets off. For Brown, though, the inquiry is a dangerous trap. It’s very hard to see how he can emerge from the inquiry’s scrutiny with his reputation enhanced – but he must at all costs avoid further damage.

The King's Head

Talking of our great leader’s political future reminds me I was also in the Kings Head this week, just east of Marylebone High Street, not far from Baker Street or Bond Street tube. It’s a shame this place has a TV screen and occasionally piped music – those things slightly spoil what’s otherwise another terrific pub with a very local feel. I especially recommend the bay window in the corner, which is a cosy place to curl up with a pint and a book, or a friend.

Another leader under pressure, and even more talked about down the pub, is the England football captain John Terry, a tough defender with a blunt style and current “Dad of the Year” who has apparently had an affair with the French underwear model girlfriend of an England and former Chelsea team-mate, Wayne Bridge. This is a hot-button affair in more ways than one. Terry initially obtained an order preventing publication on privacy grounds – and even preventing publication of the fact an order had been granted, in what’s known here as a “superinjunction” – but the High Court lifted it last week in another high-profile ruling in what’s become a controversial area of law in Britain. Controversial with the press, at least.

John Terry | zawtowers | CreativeCommons

The case again brings to public attention the selfish, sexually sleazy culture of our overpaid footballers – Terry brings in over £150,000 every week – and the young women who are interested in their glamour and money. But more acutely, it has provoked a widespread fit of morality as many people feel, for rather ill-defined reasons, that Terry is no longer fit to captain the national side and ought to be stripped of the job by England’s Italian manager, Fabio Capello. This outbreak of moralism seems though to be less about Terry’s treatment of his wife than his treatment of a team-mate, which may tell us something profound and perhaps troubling about how we understand loyalty.

Whatever it does or does not tell us about that, it reminds us that the England team is a bunch of overindulged underperformers who not only have less skill but are far more easily distracted by girls, cars and clubs than their Italian, Brazilian or German opponents. If I were you I’d have my money on them, not England, for the World Cup in South Africa this summer.

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Our Congress is an inept, useless body that only exists as a funnel of special interest money. You ever wonder why almost nothing ever gets done? It’s because our Representatives and Senators are owned by corporations and it’s so totally blatant it’s almost laughable. With this SCOTUS decision now corporations can pretty much write blank checks for elections.

It’s wrong. It’s disgusting. And it makes me really want to get out of this country.

But wait. One must research these things and ensure that the place he ends up is actually better. So, I wondered, are politicians in Britain blatantly owned by corporations? Do special interests run the show in Parliament? Who exactly funds British elections and funds individual candidates.

The answer is surprising.

I decided to ask our columnist Carl Gardner – who writes ‘A Pint of Bitter’ and occasionally touches on political issues. He’s more knowledgable on these matters than I could ever hope to be – he’s a lawyer after all that used to work for the British government. His answers were illuminating and motivating.

The short answer is no – British politicians are not bought and sold by special interests or corporations. The whole elctoral system is fundamentally different.

From Carl:

We don’t feel companies own candidates, no. There are several differences between you and us on this.

First, although corporate donations go to all kinds of parties, overwhelmingly they go to the Conservatives. Labour is mainly dependent on funding from trades unions. Labour right now is in huge debt while the Tories are in surplus.

Second, generally speaking companies and donors fund the parties rather than candidates. Individual funding only really happens when people fight for party office, for instance in a leadership contest.

He goes onto explain that elections are more scaled down affairs than we’re used to in the US:

We have limits on what parties can spend both nationally and locally on elections – and these are policed by the EC. I think it’s this that protects us from (what seems to us) the excess of US elections, where spending seems to matter disproportionately. Also political advertising on TV and (I think) radio is banned here, so that’s one less thing they can spend on. The big spending here is I think on helicopters, posters and polling nationally, plus conferences I guess and on leaflets delivered door-to-door locally. The main parties are given free, equal air time by the major broadcasters.

I think (as do others) that we should reduce the spending limits even further – maybe let inflation eat away at them – so that politicians have to rely more and more on free publicity like meetings and news media.

On Lobbyists and influence:

We have lobbyists, yes – they have codes of conduct and so on – and there have been scandals. Google “cash for questions”, “Fayed and Hamilton” and “cash for honours”! But there is no general feeling here that politicians have been bought by interests. The two exceptions perhaps are that it’s sometimes argued Labour is “in hock” to the unions; and there is real and widespread concern here about Rupert Murdoch’s influence on politics, which comes not through donations but through the (perceived) power of the Sun newspaper. It now supports the Tories, and it’s noticeable how closely their media policy now reflects his aims.

And finally he has some comments on the types of people that become MP’s:

What i’d worry about if I were American is how many senators are millionaires. It looks a bit like plutocracy, not democracy. Some MPs here are rich, yes, but most aren’t, and there really isn’t an increasing tendency for them to be rich. Many of them go straight to Parliament from teaching, nursing, lecturing and so on. Our problem is that it’s all about networking now, so far too many of them are “career politicians” working for think-tanks, unions and the parties before being elected, and never having had “real jobs”. Alan Johnson is interesting: he was once a postman, then leader of the postal union – hence his being a Labour MP. Same with John Prescott: a ship’s steward, then seamen’s union leader, then Labour MP.

So, there you have it – it seems to me that the British political system is much more sensible than the way we conduct things here. It’s just absurd that a candidate has to spend $1 billion to win the presidential election. The money could be better spent on so much else. Britain’s political system is by no means perfect. There is no perfect system. But it looks a lot less dysfunctional than the system we created for ourselves. I’ll be interested to see how the upcoming election turns out and how much actually changes.

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The Windmill, Cricklewood

Otherwise, I doubt I’ll be going back quickly. There’s no real beer, it plays bad music too loudly, it has a pointless telly and a stark, uncomfortable, trying-hard to-be-hip feel that puts me off. A pity; this is potentially a cracking pub, with some lovely interior features. Much as I love old pubs, if I can’t have real beer I’d rather drink in a relaxed, welcoming space like the bar of the Hampstead Theatre, just near Swiss Cottage tube, than in the noise, gloom and awkwardness of the Windmill.

Hampstead Theatre bar

The Iraq war is of course no news to anyone, but the hearings of Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq Inquiry is quite a big story this January. There have been a number of inquiries into aspects of the Iraq war: the Hutton inquiry into the circumstances leading up to the death of Dr. Kelly, for instance, and the Butler inquiry into the government’s use of intelligence. This, though, is the proper inquiry many people have been pressing for for years into the whole thing – the government’s decision to invade together with America, the conduct of the war and the reconstruction of Iraq. Minds here are basically made up: a clear majority of British people think the war was wrong, and perhaps half the country thinks Tony Blair took Britain to war by deliberately misleading the public about Iraq’s biological and chemical weapons programmes. Some even see him as a war criminal. What’s less often reported is that there seems to be perhaps a third of the British public who continue to support Blair over Iraq. That third includes me, I should disclose.

Center for American Progress | CreativeCommons

Two weeks ago, Tony Blair’s former press secretary Aliastair Campbell – an enormously influential figure in his administration, and the combative inspiration for Malcolm Tucker of The Thick of It and In The Loop – stoutly defended the government’s public presentation of the case for action in 2002-3. This week, Jack Straw who was Foreign Secretary at the time has been defending his own role. The real action comes next week, though, as Tony Blair himself is called to give evidence in public for the first time, as is Lord Goldsmith, who as Attorney General advised that military action was lawful. Many opponents of the war see this as a sort of trial by ordeal for Tony Blair – a chance to grill him and “call him to account” in public – and hope the inquiry’s final report will damn him irretrievably. I doubt that will happen – it’s bound to criticise him to some extent but I think the worst it might do would be to conclude that the war was contrary to international law, as the Dutch inquiry did recently. I’m not sure it will do that. There’s also a  belief among some that the inquiry is an establishment stitch-up, and is bound to end up in a whitewash.

It’s possible that individual performances by the key players could change some minds – I suspect Lord Goldsmith may be able to make a minority reconsider the commonly and often unquestioningly held opinion that the war was clearly unlawful – but I doubt views are now shiftable, really. The real political (as opposed to historical) importance of the inquiry it that it revives the salience of Iraq in the run up to the general election. Will Gordon Brown have to give evidence before then? At the moment he’s not due to, and it’s up to the inquiry itself to decide. But he will hope and pray that he does not. Close scrutiny now of financial decisions he made then about military equipment would intensify the already heavy pressure on him; in any event, he needs to avoid being linked more closely than he already is to the political poison that is Iraq. The timing of his appearance is crucial.

What will please Gordon Brown is that unemployment is down, surprisingly. He needs to be able to argue in May that his policies through the recession have changed jobs and enabled early recovery – and if the figures continue on this trend, he may be able to make that case persuasively. Timing again will be crucial: his last chance, perhaps, is if next year’s budget combined with economic trends contrive to produce some sense of relief and confidence, before the effect of tax rises and spending cuts really bites on the public mind. He has a serious uphill struggle – but don’t count him out completely yet.

The bar at the Royal Festival Hall

Earlier I mentioned the relaxed Hampstead Theatre bar: even better is the bar of the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank. There’s no real beer here either – which is truly a great pity. Otherwise, though, this is a surprisingly good place for a drink – roomy, relaxed (a customer started playing the grand piano when I was there last night) with lots of comfy sofas and free wifi, which is especially nice for bloggers and anyone who wants to tweet, say, about their visit to London. All in the middle of London’s leading arts centre. I’ll be there again soon – and back with you in two weeks.

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St. Stephen's Tavern

Twenty-ten may only be minutes old, but believe it or not, Gordon Brown’s leadership is in question yet again. There’s been constant muttering: Labour MPs and Labour supporters know their party would be likely to do better with someone else at this year’s general election, and crucially, no one in Britain can imagine him serving as PM until 2014. He survived a serious crisis last June, when one of his Cabinet resigned, calling for a change at the top. Brown was vulnerable then – I thought he’d resign – but the Foreign Secretary David Miliband (much admired by Hillary Clinton) thought better of challenging Brown at that moment – he “bottled out”, as his critics would put it. I and many others thought Brown’s survival then made him safe until the election. But two former ministers, Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt, astonished everyone on Wednesday by calling for a secret ballot of Labour MPs to decide once and for all whether Gordon Brown should lead Labour on polling day.

Downing Street | Creative Commons

In truth, this was an attempt to remove him, veiled only flimsily. It didn’t work. The coup was ineptly timed – Labour MPs were e-mailed the idea just as Gordon Brown was giving an unusually strong performance at Prime Minister’s question time in Parliament – and failed to trigger the ministerial resignations it aimed at provoking. It was much too narrowly based, coming from the New Labour right rather than an alliance of the right, centre and left, which could unseat Brown. And it’s come far too late, with only weeks left before Brown must go to the country. If Hoon and Hewitt really wanted, as they said, to settle the leadership question, then they’ve succeeded. Gordon Brown is now surely unremovable internally. The tepid loyalty displayed by some of his Cabinet weakens him politically outside the Labour Party, though: David Miliband could only say

I am working closely with the prime minister on foreign policy issues and support the re-election campaign for a Labour government that he is leading

a tactically bad response that surely damages his future. I think he’s missed his chance to be Prime Minister, and will never have another. Worse for UK PLC, Alistair Darling made the bare statement that

The prime minister and I met this afternoon and we discussed how we take forward economic policies to secure the recovery. I won’t be deflected from that.

What international markets and credit rating firms think of that evidence of unity at the top of H.M. Government, as they scrutinise Britain’s deficit-reduction plans, I don’t know.

Possible fans of Anjem Choudary | corono | Creative Commons

There was just time before the New Year Coup for another media storm to be shrewdly created by Britain’s leading Islamist, Anjem Choudary. He announced the intention of his group “Islam4UK“, which wants the UK to convert wholesale to radical Islam and to be subject to sharia law, to hold a procession in the market town of Wootton Bassett. It’s not a stronghold of Islam. It’s the nearest town to the RAF Lyneham, where the bodies of British soliders killed in Afghanistan land on return to the UK, and the public have taken to lining the streets as a mark of respect as their remains are driven through the town. There’s little doubt this obviously provocative march, if it was ever seriously planned, will be prevented. The Home Secretary Alan Johnson has already said he’ll stop it. But Choudary has succeeded in what was no doubt his primary aim, of gaining publicity for his strange outfit. It’s difficult to know how seriously to take him: few Muslims will agree with much he says, and his ideas are so extreme, they are unlikely to have any wide appeal. But the connection of Islamist ideology with violence, and that fact that a few vulnerable people can be susceptible to radicalisation and extremism in the service of mad ideas, means his activities can’t be dismissed as harmless crankery.

The Cittie of Yorke

Before I go, I should mention the Cittie of Yorke, a fine, quirky old pub on High Holborn, just by the entrance to Gray’s Inn, where I enjoyed a beer a few days ago. The small booths in the main, back bar are packed with young lawyers and Bar students if you don’t take your seat by 5.30. It’s a place with many memories for me, of drunken nights worrying about advocacy tests, and is one of the few grand old London pubs to have improved in recent times – the Sam Smith’s beer (real ale, but not with a great reputation among drinkers) has improved, there’s not a bad wheat beer alternative, and reasonable food is served. This is quite a good stop for visitors to legal London who are interested in seeing young professional London getting plastered in quaint olde surroundings. I don’t expect to see Anjem Choudary in there. I expect he’d close it down; which is one more reason to oppose him.

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This is quite an interesting development – with a mandated general election looming, several former cabinet ministers are calling for a fresh referendum on Gordon Brown’s leadership to ensure the Labour party is really quite sure they want him around to fight the general election.

From the Times just now:

Geoff Hoon, the former Defence Secretary, and Patricia Hewitt, the former Health Secretary, have written to all Labour MPs calling for the leadership issue to be sorted out “once and for all”.

A source close to the former Cabinet ministers, both of whom were allies of Tony Blair, said: “We can’t go on like this.”

The timing – just before the first Prime Minister’s Questions – was intended to be devastating. The Prime Minister understood to been made aware of the attack shortly before the session.

Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt both wrote a letter to fellow Labour MP’s demanding a that Gordon Brown’s leadership be decided once and for all.

The Labour Coup letter in full: the letter from Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt:

Dear Colleague,

As we move towards a General Election it remains the case that the Parliamentary Labour Party is deeply divided over the question of the leadership. Many colleagues have expressed their frustration at the way in which this question is affecting our political performance. We have therefore come to the conclusion that the only way to resolve this issue would be to allow every member to express their view in a secret ballot.

This could be done quickly and with minimum disruption to the work of MPs and the Government. Whatever the outcome the whole of the party could then go forward, knowing that this matter had been sorted out once and for all.

Strong supporters of the Prime Minister should have no difficulty in backing this approach. There is a risk otherwise that the persistent background briefing and grumbling could continue up to and possibly through the election campaign, affecting our ability to concentrate all of our energies on getting our real message across.

Equally those who want change, should they lose such a vote, would be expected by the majority of the PLP to devote all of their efforts to winning the election. The implications of such a vote would be clear – everyone would be bound to support the result.

This is a clear opportunity to finally lay this matter to rest. The continued speculation and uncertainty is allowing our opponents to portray us as dispirited and disunited. It is damaging our ability to set out our strong case to the electorate. It is giving our political opponents an easy target.

In what will inevitably be a difficult and demanding election campaign, we must have a determined and united parliamentary party. It is our job to lead the fight against our political opponents. We can only do that if we resolve these distractions. We hope that you will support this proposal.

Yours fraternally,

Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt

The buildup to the British General Election just got a hell of a lot more interesting. We’ll keep you posted.

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