What Gordon Should Say

"I came into politics to help people, to make our country a better place for everyone.

"I passionately believe that party politics and our competitive political culture are valuable and necessary ingredients to a healthy democracy.

"Throughout my career, I have always tried to uphold the highest standards of personal integrity in all my dealings. As Chancellor I ensured that lobbyists, pressure groups and potential donors understood that access never buys influence.

"But I now believe that we have reached a fork in the road. We can either carry on as we are, with periodic scandals and crises about one or other parties fundraising, which simply drags all politicians into disrepute; or we can move decisively in another direction, where we clean up our system of politics, once and for all.

"All parties face similar challenges in raising the finance necessary to conduct their affairs properly and professionally. A great deal of time is now expended on fundraising, more so than at any time in the past. On that point, I’m sure all leaders will agree.

"And all parties, mine included, have made mistakes with their fundraising which have damaged the reputation of British politics.

"Grateful though I undoubtedly am for donations to the Labour Party, I feel the time is right for us to look again at how we finance our politics. To look again at how much our parties spend and where they raise their money from.

"This inevitably leads to the question of public funding for political parties. This is not a universally popular remedy; but I think the long-term interest of our political system demands action is taken to restore transparency and trust in our political system.

"And I believe that restoring the trust of the electorate in the integrity of our political system and the reputation of those engaged in it, is something worth paying for.

"In the New Year I will bring forward a White Paper presenting options about how some element of public support for the financing of our political parties could work in practice. "

Icepick anyone?

“To betray”, noted Kim Philby, “you must first belong”.

WCh doesn’t like traitors. Of any kind. Politicians ratting on their parties and crossing the floor is never over principle. So the defection of Lib Dem MEP, Sajad Karim, to ‘David Cameron’s Conservatives’ is of a long tradition of ignoble acts of self-preservation and self-aggrandisement by the politically self-deluded.

Just as Philby eked out his old age in a Moscow flat after he had outlived his usefulness to the KGB, so , too, Mr Karim, (who has only recently discovered that, like his new hero, he too was “a liberal Conservative”), will never be trusted by his new 'comrades'.

But political treachery cuts both ways. The sight of plummy toff defector, Quintin Davies, at the rostrum of September’s Labour conference almost made your humble correspondent vomit into his flat cap. Equally sick-making was the reaction of the twenty-something arriviste barrow boys of New Labour who rose to their feet to cheer this hero of socialism.

In a lobotomised political culture, where conviction and ideology counts for nought, WCH predicts these type of shenanigans will become ever more common.

Make no mistake it will be Labour’s turn soon. For every Alan Howarth, Shaun Woodward, Peter Temple-Morris and Quintin Davies there will be some Labour chancer in a marginal seat offered a golden parachute into a safe Tory berth or a perch in the Lords. Especially if the current polls stretch into a grisly trend.

Then what? Will Labour politicians call for them to resign their seat? Bit late then.

No, traitors should never prosper. If a politician cannot abide either party or policy then they should have the decency to sit as an independent. Or resign.

Interestingly, I gather the first Karim’s constituency staffer knew about his interesting career move was when their contract was terminated by letter.

Funny thing, principles.

Normal Service Resumes

Today’s Guardian/ ICM monthly poll shows Gordon Brown’s honeymoon is well and truly over.

Labour are on 31%, down four points, and back at the level they were in the fag-end days of the Blair premiership.

Confusingly though, the Tories have also slipped back, dropping 3 points to 37%, while the leader-less Lib Dems went up three (go figure).

Of course, no-one should be surprised at this state of affairs given the recent wave of calamities – some avoidable, some not.

From here on in, though, the test will be whether a generation of corn-fed Labour backbenchers who are used to having it easy now have the discipline and loyalty to knuckle down and get behind Brown for the long haul.

Some of those in marginal seats are even going to have to start working for a living, taking seriously their Conservative and Liberal challengers.

And with a moribund party apparatus, unable to help them as in days of yore, they really are the architects of their own fortunes.

But the troops should not be too disheartened with this bout of “mid term blues”. Just have to make a readjustment that the days of plenty are over and electoral normal service has resumed.

Memo to GB: Government Communications

Oh dear. Things had started so well. But like a yo-yo dieter, it doesn’t take long for old habits to creep back does it?

1) Your parliamentary performances need working on. The stuttering, hand shaking and silly habit of diving into minutiae rather than getting your soundbites out clean need urgent attention. You made your name twenty years ago standing in for John Smith when he had his first heart attack and knocked seven bells out of Chancellor Nigel Lawson across the Despatch Box. You can do it champ!

2) Chill out man! You’ve done it; you’re Prime Minister, enjoy it! Be gracious. Delegate more. Stop micro-managing. And remember to smile. A disaster has two elements: the initial calamity and the reaction to it. If you look as though you are taking things in your stride, people have faith in your ability to sort the problem out. Blair spent ten years coasting like this. You often look like problems are cutting you to the bone, so they compound. Work on your non-verbal communication. PDQ.

3) The Government needs a good frontman; someone reliable to communicate the Government’s case. At the moment you are short of decent talent in this department. You should reappoint a Minister-without-Portfolio/ Labour Party Chairman. It needs to be someone tough and silky to front-up the Government’s case.

And let’s face it, casting an eye around the Cabinet table doesn’t turn up much in the way of silk.

Jacqui Smith just looks flaky. Darling is narcoleptic. Yvette Cooper is tetchy. Ruth Kelly sounds like a WPC making an appeal on Crimewatch. While Ed Balls has all your worst habits plus a few of his own to boot. Meanwhile Harriet Harman – job sharing as party chairman and leader of the house - is plodding and dull-witted.

Much as it galls a class warrior like me to say it, the man for the job is Shaun Woodward. He’s not got too much on as Northern Ireland Secretary, so make him party chairman as well. He’s certainly silky. He’s also a tough old media pro. Crucially, he’s also English and speaks fluent Tory. As you’d expect!

In short, everything that the Government needs to project at the moment.

Even if it pains me to say so.

For Whom the Bell Tolls...

Ouch! Steve Bell’s cartoon in this morning’s Guardian will make every Labour supporter wince.

Depicting the PM and Chancellor in underpants and oversized glasses a la John Major is a powerful reminder of what happens when Government blundering become habitual.

True, the guff-up at Revenue and Excise is the kind of curve ball that will always be difficult to deal with. And Northern Rock is one of those issues where a Government is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t.

But it’s the Government’s self-harming tendency that needs sorting. Last Sunday’s papers were full of the quite unnecessary spat between Downing Street and David Miliband over No 10’s fiddling with ministerial speeches.

Obsessive centralisation and government-by-cabal are the frequently cited crimes. And Lord West’s ‘clarification’ of his position on pre-trial detention last week was simply a brilliant example of how to turn a slip into a stupid mistake.

If you’re going to have amateur politicians in government, make a virtue of their semi-independence, because they are bound to put their foot in it. Stamping on their independence also snuffs out their credibility. And what happens next time there’s a similar infraction? The term ‘loose cannon’ might have been coined for Digby Jones.

But the bigger problem is that the Government is beginning to drift. Take the issue of public service reform. The Government knows that the extra money put into public services in recent years has not delivered the kind of improvements that the public expects. The much tighter three-year Comprehensive Spending Review settlement means reforming the structures and workings of schools and hospitals is essential to make them perform better. But unsure how to position themselves in the post-Blair era, the Government dithers and turns inwards, failing to communicate its vision and set the ground for whatever course it eventually decides to take.

The good work of July to September has been erased and Gordon Brown is in danger of walking straight into the Conservatives’ trap. The Tories were initially wrong-footed by Brown Version 2.0 when he appeared to change tack, instituting a government -of-all-the-talents and shedding his reputation as the control freak’s control freak.

But old habits are creeping back. So then, what to do?

The immediate task for the Government is to reboot itself after the self-inflicted wounds of the past two months. Christmas is just around the corner and will offer a few weeks cover. The PM needs to take stock and accept that the Government’s current political narrative is dreadful. For the big danger is that it becomes a ‘paradigm shift’ not a temporary blip.

John Major was sunk after the fiasco of Black Wednesday in September 1992 and every other difficulty which followed had the worst possible interpretation put on it. The die was cast. It became impossible to draw a line under things and a self-fulfilling fatalism took hold and ultimately sapped the life from his government. The same is beginning to happen again.

One thing is clear, if Gordon Brown doesn’t want to emulate the career of John Major – a man he so effectively helped skewer a decade ago – he better get a move on. The cartoonists aren’t noted for their patience...

This Parrot is Dead!

And so to last night’s Newsnight and another tetchy double-header between Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne, peddling their respective wares to become top dog of the Dead Parrot Party.

Smart for Huhne to adopt the Karl Rove strategy and attack your enemy on his strongest ground. By talking about Clegg’s “flip flops” –particularly his indelicate remarks about “breaking up the NHS” he questions his opponent’s ability to communicate clearly with the electorate.

The fringe benefit of the ‘release’ of the “Calamity Clegg” dossier is that the substance of Huhne’s attack – that you can’t really trust Clegg because he has Tory-ish ideas – is now in the open. Won’t do him too much damage in the country, but the beardie-weirdies in the Lib Dems may get cold feet (and not just from wearing sandals!)

“We understand each other, we like each other” Huhne protested (too much). From my reading, Huhne has killed off any chance of kissing and making up with Clegg if he loses. The body language said it all. A high risk strategy, but like Ming, Clegg is fine going forward but flaky on the back foot – and peevish to boot. It’s not in the bag yet Nicky Boy. Yes high risk for Huhne, but fortune favours the bold.

Both were evasive and badly briefed for the inevitable question of who they would back in the event of a hung parliament. Both men are clever; albeit not very quick on their feet. And prone to drift off the point.

Neither has the oomph of Paddy Ashdown. Nor the likeability of Charles Kennedy.

But after 18 fusty months of Ming and tanking in the polls, the only way for the DPP is up.

The Blair Years: Nothing to write home about

And while we're on the subject of private schools, I managed to catch Tony Blair on BBC's 'The Blair Years' last night.

He made some remark about how being in tune with the aspirations of the middle classes was all important and private schools were simply a result of parents wanting to do the best by their kids.

But given Tone benefitted from a private education, he clearly sees nothing wrong with the principle of the rich buying advantages for their kids that others cannot afford.

When an Old Etonian in the shape of David Cameron looks across the Despatch Box at Fettes College-educated Mr. Blair we know our leaders are out of touch.

The last time two public schoolboys faced off at PM's Questions was when Hugh Gaitskell (Harrow) peered across from Harold MacMillan (Eton, again) in 1963.

Amid all the hagiography, its a shame Tone isn't a bit humbler about his utter failure to address the wealth and opportunity gulf his heroine Mrs. Thatcher opened up and he did all to little to close, despite having a decade to do it.

The boulder of social mobility that took the better half of the Twentieth Century to push up the hill has begun rolling back down again at a rate of knots.

Gordo, you're our last hope...

The personal is most definitely political

Lib dem leadership "hopefuls", Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg, went head to head on the BBC's Question Time on Thursday night.

Both were asked about the schooling of their children and whether they went to state schools.

Both are, of course, products of elite Westminster public school. So both were predictibly touchy about the question.

As only a Lib Dem could, Huhne said he sent his kids to both.

Clegg's two young kids go to a state primary - but he didn't rush to pledge that they would go to a state secondary. Instead he whined that the question had even ben put ('politicians entitled to a private life...etc')

Politicians who don't use our public services have no right seeking office to run them. If they're not good enough for them and theirs, they're not good enough for you and yours.

Clegg's whinging echoes David Cameron's slippery entreaty not to delve into his clearly misspent youth.

But politicians can't have it both ways. Nowadays, they are all selling themsellves as a brand and therefore stretch the boundary of what the public is entitled to know about them and the way they really live their lives.

I'm personally not bothered if our putative leaders are into fiddling with livestock - buying advantages for your kids at the expense of someone else's is, as far as this blog is concerned, a far graver crime.

Big Girl's Blouse

Today’s Financial Times carries a piece that has irked your humble correspondent.

Research from Cranfield University apparently shows “macho attitudes at science, engineering and technology companies mean they are less likely to have women in their boardrooms or in senior management positions than companies in other sectors”.

The report goes on to say that some boardroom practices “habits, language and ways of working” keep qualified women out of top jobs.

“Female executives said they sometimes felt excluded, unless they were interested in male sports, and that social occasions could be difficult if there was only one woman present.”

I’m sorry to sound unsympathetic, but there’s a point where the girls should be big enough to stand up for themselves.

Senior women managers presumably need leadership and communication skills to do their jobs – and are paid accordingly. Well, use 'em!

Making a mark among your senior colleagues and gaining respect in the workplace is a challenge for everyone. If football is the conversational currency in the Boardroom, then bone up on the offside rule.

The wider point is that its high time we recognised the Sex Wars are over and stopped forcing men to pay reparations for crimes most never committed.

Gender equality means removing glass celings not lowering the bar.

I’m personally more bothered about women cleaners not being paid the minimum wage, or women shop assistants being forced to work the Christmas holidays.

That faint hum is the sound of the smallest violin in the world playing ‘Just for the Senior Women Executives.’

Who gets the P45 first?

Politics is a cruel business subject to the vicissitudes of unexpected events.

Which is a philosophical way of asking who will be the first minister forced from office in the Brown era?

Poor old Jacqui Smith is already in the dog house today over whether her department covered up the fact that thousands of illegal immigrants were erroneously cleared to work in the security industry.

Add to that the on-going confusion about the pre-charge detention legislation and Ms. Smith looks set for a rough time. Holding the Home Affairs brief is invariably a great career move in Opposition but disastrous in Government.

This morning’s Telegraph parliamentary sketch has some unflattering things to say about Schools Secretary Ed Balls, claiming he is the “weakest parliamentary performer in the Cabinet.” It’s true that the PM’s closest political ally is not the most impressive rhetorician around, but he is surely bright enough to work on that part of his game. But he will have to move sharpish. There is nothing the media loves more than taking a scalp from a minister close to the PM (does the name Stephen Byers ring a bell?)

Those other Brownite protégés Douglas Alexander and Ed Milliband were both burnt by advocating the election-that-never-was. But both are fortunate enough to have lower profile jobs than will keep them out of the firing line until their fortunes improve.

The other Miliband, David, will need all his silky skills as foreign secretary to make sure he doesn’t become the mouthpiece for another unpopular war as the drumbeat of US agitation against Iran grows louder.

Similarly that other old smoothy, Alan Johnson, has to explain to the NHS why it needs to pull its finger out and deliver a lot more on a substantially less generous comprehensive spending review settlement than it has enjoyed in the last few years.

Chancellor Alistair Darling, the proverbial “safe pair of hands,” had the curve ball of Northern Rock to deal with. He fared so-so in the initial skirmish, but a major credit crunch, coupled with a falling housing market really would make his eyebrows go grey. Similarly, I wouldn’t want to be his Number Two, Andy Burnham, if the pack of cards comes tumbling down.

That other narcoleptic Caledonian, Des Browne, remains the front man for on-going operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Defence is hardly a comfortable seat at the best of times, but Browne’s less than impressive communications skills make it difficult for him to punch his way out of tight corners.

Transport Secretary, Ruth Kelly, will have to grapple with that 300lb gorilla of a problem, road pricing. One of those issues which Ministers and Officials want to drive through, so to speak, but is full of political poison. The fall-out of a botched implementation in Greater Manchester may even cost Kelly her marginal Bolton West seat.

Meanwhile the battle-scarred veterans of Blairism seem to have found safer berths in the Brown Cabinet. Geoff Hoon must be thanking his lucky stars he can tuck himself out of harm’s way away in No 12 Downing Street as Chief Whip. Hazel Blears and John Hutton coast, respectively, in the lower profile communities and business portfolios.

Those deputy leadership blow-outs, Hilary Benn and Peter Hain, got a reasonable return on their misfiring campaigns with the middle-ranking jobs of environment and pensions’ secretary.

All in all, the Brownites hold the more sensitive briefs (for that read ‘where things can go wrong’). But a recurrent hallmark among the Brownites is that their intellectual ability is out of whack with their presentational skills. Put another way, they are fine when things are going well, but on the backfoot seem decidedly wobbly.

As the honeymoon quickly receeds, we will doubtless soon see for whom the political grim reaper comes calling first...

No Say on 'The Snip'

This week’s Economist has a brace of letters on the European reform treaty, nee European Connstitution.

The first, from a titan of European politics in the ample shape of former Irish Commissioner, Peter Sutherland; and the second from a, well, semi-titan, in the form of Europe Minister Jim Murphy.

Both are at pains to point out that the reform treaty needs speedy implementation and not the grandstanding of a referendum.

Indeed, admonishing the Economist’s temerity in backing a referendum, Sutherland says it would simply be a “recipe for confusion”.

The problem with Britain and the EU is that the project for greater European integration has never been openly admitted. From the very first moves towards applying to join the then EEC in the early 1960s, the entire concept of the ‘European project’ was kept under a cloak.

“It’s just a common market” we were told.

“It’s just about trade” they assured us.

Indeed the Government maintained this fiction by telling the public that the original constitution was simply a “tidying up exercise.”

The truth is that the British public have been systematically lied to by the political elite of all three main parties for forty years.

Instead of being honest with the public and explaining the issues involved, all governments have conspired to play down the significance of European integration. (All apart from the ultras on the Tory right and Labour left).

None will admit that the EU is effectively a political vasectomy. It snips off pieces of sovereignty from Member States and ties their economies together to prevent another war. Co-operation has replaced conflict for half a century; and the price for that co-operation is a measure of shared sovereignty.

So should there be a referendum on the current treaty? Well Messrs Sutherland and Murphy are right to say that both the Single European Act and Maastricht treaties were massively more important and there was no referendum on either.

But the wider issue of the political elite taking decisions that the public have neither consented to, nor, frankly adequately understand, is no longer tenable.

A referendum? Finely balanced, but not in this case. An honest debate? Most definitely.

There She Blows...

Thought all that “blue skies thinking” nonsense went out with the last fella?

Think again. The newly created Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (the unsexy end of the old Education and Skills brief) is advertising for a Head of something called the ‘Horizon Scanning Centre.’

Wow.

The blurb says Horizon Scanning (HS) is ‘the systematic examination of potential threats, opportunities and likely developments including but not restricted to those at the margins of current thinking and planning.’

They’re after someone with ‘substantial experience and competences in futures work [what?!?] and/or strategic analysis...’

Pays a nice 66k.

So Dr. Who and Doc Brown from Back to the Future fame in with a shout then.

Holey Cow!

Lib Dem leadship hopeful, Nick Clegg, has apparantly struck a bid for political honesty.

In a feat of unrivalled candour, worthy indeed of George Washington, Cleggy, the Hugh Grant of British politics, has admitted that there’s a “black hole” about where he would raise the cash to pay for his not unwelcome idea to dollop an extra £2.5 billion on the poorest kids.

He wants to spend the kind of money that Tarquin at public school routinely has invested in his education (or, for that matter, Nick Clegg at Westminster School) on the poorest in order to improve social mobility.

All very nice but uncosted policies are the political equivalent of window shopping or fantasy football.

Still, makes a change for a Lib Dem to have a hole in something that’s not his cardigan.

So a blow for political honesty then? Or a politician who can’t think on his feet in an interview?

Discuss.

Welcome To The Fold...

"Tony Blair will convert to Roman Catholicism within weeks" intoned yesterday's Guardian, citing a piece in this week's Catholic newspaper, The Tablet.

Your author has always found the prospect of the Rev Blair crossing the aisle, so to speak, from Anglicanism to Catholicism a strange move. Strange because hs seems to be swapping the free form, take-it-or-leave-it, no pressure guv, wishy-washyness of Anglicanism for the no-room-for-doubt moral certainty of the Catholic Church.

Which is strange because his political journey has taken him in precisely the opposite direction. From the doctrinal purity of his erzatz lefty youth (replete with CND membership) to the soggy moral relativism of New Labour, which, as the Guardian points out, has seen such Catholic bugbears as gay adoption, stem cell research, rising abortion rates and the Iraq war
driven through with gusto on Blair's watch.

God moves in mysterious ways. But Tone's are apparantly stranger.

Queen's Greatest Hits

Phew! After a hard day's toil WCH hasn't had time to digest the Queen's Speech in detail. Just managed to catch some of the parliamentary exchanges on the wireless. More on this tomorrow...

Don't know what Joe and Josephine Public make of it all, but I suspect Brown wins on points.

I tend to think that the louder Cameron speaks, the more braying he becomes. Plus he tends to purse his lips and frown a lot when he's trying to look statesmanlike, adopting the visage of Mr. Jeremy Kyle. Or perhaps a constipated baby.

The Clunking Fist sounded a bit dull, but somehow reassuring. Bit like having a backseat passenger who bothers to remember the directions home. Your kind of glad that someone's bothering to keep an eye on the detail.

And lest we forget, when people's mortgages are on the line, dull and reassuring is good.

Seems like the Tory attack line on Brown is focusing on his "lack of vision". The poor fella is blind in one eye you know...Same heartless Tories!

The Toff’s B&Q

Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, he of the black doll’s eyes, metallic voice and shifty name change (he was born Gideon) is famously heir to the family’s posh wallpaper business, Osborne & Little.

By way of a pointless diversion, they are currently advertising for an assistant manager for their King’s Road showroom.

‘Experience within a fabric/ furniture (trade and/or retail) environment and the ability to deal with people at all levels is essential. Candidates should be highly organised, well presented with an outgoing personality and strong admin skills.’

So there you go. Form an orderly queue.

Wonder if they have to draw up an A list of candidates for interview?

Why said advert is on page 22 of this morning’s Media Guardian is a bit of a puzzle...

Perspective is lost: a race-ing certainty

WCH instinctively doesn't like Tories.

But politics is the loser when anyone saying anything remotely controversial is hounded as a result.

Nigel Hastilow, the Tory PPC for Halesowen and Rowley, has 'resigned' following publication of an article he wrote in a Birmingham newspaper along the lines of 'Enoch was right.'

Pensions Secretary Peter Hain said Hastilow’s comments showed the “racist underbelly of the Tory party”.

It showed nothing of the sort.

WCH gets nervous when politicians reach for the ‘R’ word. Finger-wagging, point-scoring piety invariably follows.

Let’s be clear: Hastilow was trying to tap into the very real resentment in many parts of the country about immigration and the changing nature of British culture. A change, I might add, that has never been signed-off by the electorate.

The entire issue might be sensitive and indeed it might even be inflammatory; but we can’t have entire areas of public policy deemed out-of-bounds. We’re not Iran for God’s sake.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davies called his remarks “very unwise”. Indeed they were. A more elegant appraisal of immigration policy and the effect on our society is, however, certainly needed.

Unfortunately, perspective is always the first casualty of a “race row”.

The Liberal Outlaws

Lib Dem street cred appears to be on the up.

Following former leader Charles Kennedy’s ticking off by British Transport Police in July for smoking on a train, the two candidates hoping to follow the Ming Dynasty are both showing their rebel without a cause credentials.

Apparently that nice, quiet Chris Huhne was banned from driving for three months in 2003 after being caught talking on his mobile phone.

This follows hot on the heels of earlier revelations that, as a student radical, he wrote a piece in a university newspaper calling for the legalisation of hard drugs.

Not to be outdone, his arch rival, Nick Clegg, has pledged to lead a campaign of civil resistance in the event of ID cards being forced on an ungrateful nation.

But as The Times recently reminded us, this will not be the home affairs spokesman’s first brush with the law.

As a 16-year-old exchange student in Germany, he secured a minor criminal conviction for arson after he and a friend “torched two greenhouses of cacti belonging to a professor”.

So, basically, whoever becomes leader of the Lib Dems will have a criminal conviction.

Still, some way to go before either man matches up to one-time leader, Jeremy Thorpe, who was, of course, tried (and acquitted) of conspiracy to murder.