Blair's nemesis

Lords reform - and how Tony Blair's failure to address it seriously in his first term has now come back and bitten him on the bum - is the subject of my latest podcast which can be heard
HERE or alternatively read HERE.

"There is surely a bitter irony in the fact that had Mr Blair done the sensible, democratic thing and brought in a fully-elected Second Chamber back in 1997, the whole cash-for-peerages affair would never have happened, but in his lack of radicalism and loss of nerve lay his nemesis. It is as good a summary of the Blair years as any."

Giles Radice knew the score

Giles Radice was the kindest and most courteous of the North-East MPs I regularly dealt with in my old job as Political Editor of the Newcastle Journal. After I left the Lobby he stayed in touch for a while and sent me a copy of his Diaries which were published towards the end of 2004. Thumbing through them earlier this evening, I came across this remarkable paragraph, written on General Election Day 2001.

"Lisanne and I work in Newark for Fiona Jones. It is an uphill task, because despite being a sitting Labour MP, Fiona is the victim of a horrendous whispering campaign. Sad to say, she has been a lame duck MP, ever since she was wrongly convicted of "fiddling" her election expenses. Although she was immediately and totally exonerated on appeal, the mud stuck and the Tories have been conducting a vicious doorstep attack on her personal character. We meet hostility to her as we knock up, including schoolboys who say she is "corrupt." Poor Fiona!"

This needs little further comment from me, as it already says so much: about Giles Radice and his dedication to the Labour Party; about the awfulness of Fiona Jones' plight; but also about the Labour Party's desertion of her, that she was left to try to get the vote out on election day with the help, not of the party's "stars," but of only a veteran backbencher on his way, that very day, into retirement.

Poor Fiona, indeed....

The mystery minister

If you go to this thread on Jane Griffiths' blog, you will find some interesting allegations about the identity of the Cabinet minister who offered the late former Newark MP Fiona Jones promotion in return for sex.

Apparently the News of the World have already named him, but you would need to have read two stories written two years apart to make the link. The second story is HERE. Not surprisingly, the original one published in 2005 seems to have disappeared from its website.

No further comment from me required....

Update 1: Alice Miles of the Times has written a brilliant piece on Fiona Jones HERE. "That image of a teenage son heaving a mother in an alcoholic stupor back into bed for her to die, alone, is a dismal reminder that behind the machinery of politics, beyond the criticism and the cynicism we fling, lie real people struggling in a failing system."

Update 2: For some reason, this has been a record-breaking day on this blog, despite the missing hat-tips.

A sad story

I can't claim to have known Fiona Jones (pictured, left, in happier days) but I was extremely saddened to hear the news of her death last week. Although her death was ostensibly due to alcohol abuse, her problems appear to have stemmed from our hard-drinking Westminster culture coupled with her shocking, but totally predictable, treatment at the hands of the New Labour hierarchy.

Fiona was one of a number of MPs elected in 1997 who hadn't really been expected to win, and who as a result had not been thoroughly Mandelsonised in the way other "Blair Babes" had been. Mandelson actually held a meeting with Labour Press Officers at 6am on the morning of Labour's election victory to discuss what to do about these dangerous loose cannons. In Fiona's case, the answer soon became clear: marginalise them.

She certainly wasn't the only one. Another 1997 intake MP who I won't bother to name also became well-known for enjoying a drop or two and for consorting with journalists, and within a couple of months of the election I was being told by people in the whips' office that she "would probably have to be deselected." Another victim of the briefing culture around this time was Gordon McMaster, who committed suicide in 1997, alleging that two fellow Labour MPs had spread rumours about his sexuality.

Like McMaster, Fiona Jones was not a heavy drinker before entering Parliament, but once subjected to its degenerate boozing culture she allowed a taste for alcohol to get out of control. Having worked in the Commons for nearly a decade I know how easily this can happen, and at one time I had to take steps to make sure it didn't happen to me.

In 1999, Fiona was wrongly convicted of falsifying her election expenses in what, in the light of what we now know about this sleazy New Labour regime, now seems a pretty inconsequential hill of beans. The sum total of the case against her was that she had overspent her allocation by a few quid by neglecting to fill in her expenses form properly.

She was cleared on appeal, but "whiter-than-white" New Labour had now cut her firmly adrift and in 2001 she lost her seat. Perhaps this is one of the reasons they were so keen to see the back of her.

Several other pieces sympathetic to Fiona have appeared on the blogosphere over the weekend, but perhaps the most revealing comment came from an anonymous poster on Paul Walter's blog, Liberal Burblings.

"She was treated like shit by a local and national Labour Party that should have at least the minimal duty of care that we would expect (especially a trade-unionised party) in any other type of work. I was told not to speak to her - "she's bad news." Fiona's story is not the first and will not be the last."

This post was featured on "Best of the Web" on Comment is Free.

In my dreams?

I had a fairly vivid dream last night that Tony Blair would resign today, although I think this stems more from reading too much of Iain Dale's Blog than any genuine prophetic insight on my part.

Nevertheless, today's revelations that he was questioned a second time over the cash-for-honours affair last Friday have surely pushed him even closer to the exit door.

It's not that often I take issue with Guido Fawkes but I was surprised to see him advising punters today to back a July departure, admittedly before news of the second interview broke.

I honestly think the very best he can hope for now is a March announcement on a formal departure just after the local elections in May. That way he still gets to do his 10 years, while at the same time lancing the boil ahead of those elections to limit the damage to Labour.

Of course, Blair himself remains in denial about the degree of damage he is doing by hanging on, but the man who has run Britain like an elected president is about to be reminded that we live in a parliamentary democracy after all.

To put it bluntly, I don't think Labour MPs are going to put up with another five or six months of this. It will be a plain, old-fashioned backbench revolt that gets him in the end.

They don't learn, do they?

You would think, wouldn't you, that with all the problems it is encountering as a result of the cash for peerages inquiry, Labour would have the good sense to end all Prime Ministerial patronage over House of Lords appointments and support a fully elected Second Chamber.

But, according to The Guardian's Patrick Wintour, apparently not.

Is No 10 playing the expectations game?

When dealing with stories emanating from "Senior Ministers," "Downing Street sources", "Friends of the Prime Minister" and the like, it is never particularly advisable to take things at face value. Such, I think, is the case with today's Guardian story asserting that Tony Blair will "go early" if anyone at No 10 is charged over the cash-for-honours affair.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't doubt for a moment that Patrick Wintour's story is accurate, in the sense that (i) someone fairly senior said this to him, and (ii) that Blair would indeed quit if one of his key aides faced charges. He could hardly do otherwise.

But what I am questioning is why someone close to Blair - and Wintour's contacts are pretty good in that sort of area - would want this information out in the open now, and specifically why a story speculating about the circumstances in which he could be forced to quit would be considered helpful.

It's just a thought - but I wonder if No 10 is playing the expectations game, deliberately setting the bar at "charges" so that, for instance, any further "arrests" involving his inner circle can be brushed aside.

My reason for asking this is that while I suspect that the cash-for-honours probe will eventually result in charges - the claims on Guido and elsewhere that they've found the smoking gun ring true to me - I also suspect that no charges will actually be brought until Blair has left No 10.

Why do I think that? Well, for no reason other than that if the Police and the CPS can somehow avoid embroiling themselves in the unedifying spectacle of unseating a democratically-elected leader, with all the inevitable constitutional flak that will entail, then what have they really got to lose by a few months' delay?

But let's just say for the sake of argument that Blair's people actually know, rather than just suspect, that this is the case. Well, if so, they know they can pretty safely promise that Blair will go early if charges are brought, without any fear of being made to deliver on the pledge.

As I said, it's just a thought....

This post was featured on "Best of the Web" on Comment is Free.

Blair is just making things worse for Labour

Writing in this morning's Guardian, Jackie Ashley makes the point that the longer Tony Blair tries to drag out his increasingly discredited premiership, the worse it gets both for him and for the Labour Party.

Following the shameful events of last Thursday, I came to a similar conclusion in my weekend columns and podcast which has gone live today.

"The man who promised to clean up politics continues to sully it beyond anything achieved by John Major’s administration. Until the day he finally goes, his capacity to damage both the Labour Party and the reputation of British politics in general will remain unhindered."

The full text is available HERE.

No coincidence

I must be getting less cynical in my old age, but in retrospect I was far too kind to New Labour in yesterday's post on whether the Government might have been guilty of burying bad news under the cover of the Ipswich murders and Lord Stevens' inquiry in the death of Diana. It's now absolutely bleeding obvious that this is exactly what they were doing.

According to the Daily Tel's George Jones and others, Scotland Yard has made it clear that the timing of yesterday's interview of the Prime Minister over the cash-for-honours affair was determined by Downing Street, not by the police.

Another Lobby doyen, Trevor Kavanagh, writes in his Sun column: "We all guessed weeks ago that this would be the perfect day for Mr Blair to invite the police in – the day the world would be transfixed by the [Diana] report."

Somehow, though, I don't think even a gnarled old cynic like Trevor really thought they would actually do it. And neither, I confess, did I.

Burying bad news?

Of course it could just be coincidence. But isn't it just a teensy bit suspicious that the long-awaited interview of Tony Blair by police investigating the cash for peerages affair should take place on the very morning that Sir John Stevens publishes his equally long-awaited report on the death of Diana?

Further, isn't it also a teensy bit suspicious that someone should see fit to leak a damaging story about Gordon Brown's possible involvement in the affair on the very day that Blair is questioned?

I only ask the question....

Update: Iain unearths some more bad news while Guido speculates on the contents of today's "grid."

Blair cannot escape shadow of sleaze

Avoiding the temptation to write about the US elections, I returned to thye cash-for-questions affair in my latest column and accompanying Podcast this weekend.

As Mike Smithson speculates, the ongoing inquiry - which ministerial spinners assured us would be completed by now - could play an increasing important part in determining Tony Blair's departure date.

"Given the rate at which the wheels of British justice turn, it is reasonably unlikely that any charges will have been brought by the time Mr Blair leaves office as scheduled next summer.

"But the prospect of having the ongoing inquiry overshadow his final months in office has led some to speculate that Mr Blair could yet surprise us all and go early."

The one that got away

My copy of the Little Red Book of New Labour Sleaze arrived in the post yesterday. A great effort all round to get this into print, particularly from co-editors Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes.

There are three contributions from yours truly, but I was mildly disappointed to see that my piece on the downfall of Ron Davies is not one of them - so I'm publishing it here instead!

***

A Moment of Madness

The bare facts are beyond parody. Welsh Secretary Ron Davies, returning to London after a difficult weekend spent dealing with a spate of floods, goes walkabout on Clapham Common near a notorious gay cruising zone known as "Gobbler's Gulch."

He meets a Rastafarian who invites him back to his place in Brixton for a curry. On the way there, Davies is mugged and some personal items stolen.

The hapless minister might have left matters there had it not been for the fact that one of the items stolen was his House of Commons pass, obliging him to report the matter to the police.

Within 24 hours, Davies was an ex-minister, ruthlessly dispatched into the political outer darkness in one of the most clinical operations of the entire New Labour era.

The police, it later emerged, told Home Secretary Jack Straw. Mr Straw told Tony Blair. Mr Blair told Mr Davies he would have to go, and asked Alastair Campbell to write his resignation letter for him.

But was he forced out because he had shown a lack of judgement in his dining companions? Or was it simply to appease a tabloid press who were convinced Britain was being run by a "gay mafia?"

If his case was "sleazy" it was more to do with the dishonesty involved in maintaining a double-life behind what was a robustly heterosexual façade.

Over drinks with journalists in opposition, Davies would regularly make jibes about the sexuality of the then Welsh Secretary William Hague, but Hague turned out to be straight, while Davies eventually admitted his bisexuality in an emotional personal statement in the Commons.

Would Davies had been forced to resign today? Probably not. His behaviour was foolish for a man in his position, but what tended to be forgotten was that he was essentially a victim of crime.

The fact that he was also Old Labour, Welsh, and a leading proponent of devolution meant he was never likely in any case to top the Prime Minister's Christmas card list.

Freed from the shackles and constraints of office, Davies went on to develop a passion for what he called "badger watching."

But that, as they say, is another story.

Labour Party profits from the death of Dr David Kelly

Iain Dale has this story on his blog at the moment which I hope he doesn't mind me linking to ;-)

It shows that the Labour Party have been auctioning off signed copies of Lord Hutton's report into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly to raise more cash for party coffers.

Of course, we knew New Labour had no sense of shame. But even I never thought they would stoop this low.

May 23 Update: Tory MP Stewart Jackson has now tabled this Early Day Motion into the affair. Let's hope some Labour members have the guts to sign it.

The Little Red Book goes live

The Little Red Book of New Labour sleaze is now on sale at all good bookshops and also has its ownwebsite.

The book, detailing 101 scandals to have hit the government since the whiter-than-white one came to power in 1997, has been put together by Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes with help from around 30 or so political bloggers, including myself.

For what it's worth, I contributed entries on Ron Davies's "moment of madness," the award of peerages to deadbeat old MPs in return for safe Labour seats for Blair favourites, the routine trashing of out-of-favour ministers by Alastair Campbell and Co, and the "dodgy dossier" under which the country went to war with Iraq.

As Guido says - buy this book, and throw it at Tony Blair every time he claims to be a "pretty straight kind of guy."

The Little Red Book

In the unlikely event that there is anyone who reads my blog who doesn't also read Iain Dale and/or Guido Fawkes, here's a plug for their forthcoming Little Red Book of New Labour Sleaze to which I and other bloggers have contributed. You can order a copy online, via Politicos, natch, by clicking here.

Is this the smoking gun?

I think I might have spoken too soon in signing off for Easter. Today's story about the arrest of former Government adviser Des Smith could turn out to be one of the political stories of the decade.

It's also another triumph for Guido Fawkes who set out as long ago as 24 March why Mr Smith might be a fit subject for investigation, as they say at the Yard.

Why is it such a big deal? Because Mr Smith was involved in helping to recruit potential business sponsors for the establishment of specialist schools and city academies - one of Mr Tony's flagship policies.

If it is found that peerages were offered in return for such sponsorship, then this is a fuse that is going to lead straight back to Number 10.

Tessa to stay, Blair to go?

I have by and large refrained from commenting on the Tessa Jowell thus far, mainly because no-one has managed to explain to me what exactly it is that she is supposed to have done wrong.

I expand on this point in this week's Column and accompanying Podcast but I conclude with a look forward to what might happen to Tony Blair following this week's education vote.

"Thankfully for Ms Jowell, it is Mr Blair’s own future to which the attentions of the media will surely now turn. Tory leader David Cameron’s carefully-laid “bear hug” strategy of trying to kill the Prime Minister with kindness by detaching him from his own MPs is now very close to success.

"As I have written before, if Mr Blair is forced to rely on Tory votes to get those reforms through next Wednesday, he will be finished as Labour leader. Very soon now, we could well be writing a far bigger political obituary than that of the Culture Secretary."