The Top 10 Labour Twits

A week or so ago, Tara Hamilton-Miller in the New Statesman put together a list of the Top 10 Tory Twits. It was entertaining reading, though she unaccountably omitted both Sir Nicholas Fairbairn, who was once cut off mid-flight by Mr Deputy Speaker when attempting a graphic description of the homosexual act during a Commons debate, and Alan Clark who famously got his penis out in the hallway of his mistress's flat after feeling neglected during a party.

Surprisingly, no-one has yet put together a list of the Top 10 Labour twits, so I thought I would ask for nominations.

As Monty Python noted, it is hard to define what makes a really first-class twit. Political twittishness is essentially about more than mere rank bad judgement. Its essential ingredient is frivolity, not just in the sense of lack of seriousness but in the sense of failure to think about the consequences of one's actions.

To help kick start the debate, I have put together the following shortlist of ten, although all other suggestions will be gratefully received.

Anthony Wedgwood Benn, as he was then, for nearly wrecking the party for good during the 70s and 80s.

Clive Jenkins, for his continual meddling in leadership elections which invariably produced the wrong result.

Lord Longford, for his silly campaign in support of child killer Myra Hindley.

Chris Bryant, for practically every public utterance since he swapped vicarhood for politics.

Robert Kilroy-Silk, for declaring in the mid-80s that he would be Labour leader and PM within 10 years.

John Spellar, for saying "these cunts must be stopped" when he meant to say "cuts."

Tom Driberg, for numerous indiscreet sexual adventures from the 1930s to the 1970s.

David Winnick, for failing to acquire the slightest degree of gravitas despite nearly 40 years in the Commons.

George Brown, for throwing his toys out of his pram in 1968 and resigning while pissed.

Martin Salter, for thinking what a great idea it would be to get rid of his neighbouring Labour MP.

The Top 10 Political Turning Points

As a companion piece to my Top 10 Political Misjudgements, here are what I consider to be the Top 10 Political Turning Points of my lifetime. With the exception of Black Wednesday, which stemmed directly from the misjudgement over the rate at which we entered the ERM, most of these were either random acts of chance which politicians were helpless to deal with - "events, dear boy, events" as Harold Macmillan called them - or, as in the case of the Falklands War or Denis Healey's defeat of Tony Benn, acts of political courage which succeeded in changing the course of history. Will Gordon Brown's election-that-wasn't eventually join the list? Come back here in two years' time and I'll tell you!

1 The Winter of Discontent, 1978

Modern political history turns on the question of what would have happened had Margaret Thatcher never become Prime Minister. We would now be living in a quite different country, a less prosperous one maybe, but a more civilised one too. It was the industrial chaos of 1978-79 that paved the way not just for her election victory, but for the whole tenor of her premiership. Outgoing PM Jim Callaghan captured the shift in public mood in his famous comment "I believe that there is now such a [sea] change - and it is for Mrs Thatcher."

2 England 2 Germany 3, 1970

Or was it the balance of trade figures that were to blame? Either way, days later Harold Wilson lost an election he was universally expected to win, and this proved to be the pivot on which the subsequent history of the 1970s, and arguably also the future of the Labour Party turned. Had Wilson won in 1970, Roy Jenkins, not Jim Callaghan, would have succeeded him. Had Heath lost, he would have been replaced as leader, possibly by Enoch Powell, but certainly not by Mrs Thatcher. Peter "The Cat" Bonetti has a lot to answer for!

3 The Death of Hugh Gaitskell, 1963

This had profound consequences which weren't really appreciated at the time. It didn't affect the result of the following general election - Labour would have won that anyway - but it did affect the way the Labour Party developed thereafter. Had he lived, Gaitskell would have turned Labour into a modern social democratic party. He would have established a revisionist line of succession from Jenkins to Healey to Hattersley to Brown. There would have been no need for the SDP breakaway, and arguably, no New Labour either.

4 Black Wednesday, 1992

The counterpoint to the Winter of Discontent. Whereas that destroyed Labour's credibility as a governing party for a generation, this destroyed the Tories' - perhaps unfairly as the Labour frontbench of the time under John Smith had been committed to exactly the same monetary policy that caused the debacle. The only leading politician who opposed this unholy consensus was Bryan Gould, who ended up running a university in New Zealand. Which only goes to show that there is very little justice in politics.

5 The Falklands War, 1982

People now talk about the Thatcherite hegemony of the 1980s as if it were a historical inevitability. But up until this point, her government's long-term survival was seriously in doubt. The recently-formed Liberal-SDP Alliance was riding high in the polls and even Michael Foot's Labour Party was more popular than Thatcher's Conservatives. The Falklands campaign, which could easily have turned into the biggest military debacle since Suez, changed all that. It gave us back our self-belief, and Thatcher her aura of invincibility.

6 The Miners' Strike, 1984

The defeat of the miners destroyed not just a union, but also an industry, a movement, and eventually an entire Northern British and Welsh subculture to which the film Brassed Off now stands as a memorial. Politically, the strike reinforced the Thatcher legend that had been born in the Falklands conflict but socially, its effects went much deeper, and I don't think many of them were positive. When I started out in journalism in North Nottinghamshire, the pit villages in the area were vibrant places. Now most of them are riddled by drugs.

7 The Profumo Affair, 1963

Of course I was too young to remember this, but it did occur in my lifetime - just! It's a turning point not just because it contributed to the downfall of Harold Macmillan and the loss of the 1964 General Election for the Conservatives, but also because it captured a decadent ruling elite in its death-throes. Up until this point, the British ruling class thought it could behave moreorless as it liked. Afterwards, as Nigel Birch put it poetically, it was "never glad confident morning again" for Macmillan and his ilk.

8 Healey v Benn, 1981

Much of the credit for transforming the Labour Party in the 80s and 90s has gone to Neil Kinnock for his "grotesque chaos" speech and Tony Blair for his New Labour reforms. But Big Denis was the man who really saved the party. By fighting off Tony Benn's challenge for the deputy leadership, he turned the tide of the left's advance and prevented a haemorrhage of support to the SDP. Together with the Falklands War, it was this that dished Roy Jenkins and Co. Had neither happened, Labour would now be the third party.

9 The Bombing of Canary Wharf, 1993

This one will probably get me hate mail, but the cold hard facts are that it was only when the IRA started targeting big financial institutions on the mainland that they finally succeeded in bombing their way to the negotiating table. After this the Major government realised that it could not defeat the provisionals militarily and set about achieving a political solution. The Anglo-Irish Agreement, then the Good Friday Agreement, and finally the restoration of devolved government earlier this year, was the end result.

10 The Death of Dr David Kelly, 2003

It was not, I think, the Iraq War itself that turned the nation against Tony Blair, but the realisation that we had been systematically lied to about it. Dr Kelly's death was not just a personal tragedy, but the moment we knew that the core value our country had to defend was not democracy, nor even national security, but the sainted reputation of its leader. It was a moment of profound disillusionment that affected the way many people now view politics, and from which the reputation of our political system has not recovered.

The top 10 acts of political altruism?

Following on from my Top 10 Political Misjudgements, which looked at political bad calls which adversely affected the careers of those who made them, a number of people have asked whether I could compile a list of acts which, while bad for their perpetrators, actually turned out to be good for the country.

My initital, perhaps rather cynical reply was to doubt that there were actually ten politicians who had been prepared to sacrifice their careers in such a way, but I am open to being proved wrong!

Politaholic, writing on Westminster Wisdom, nominated John Hume, saying:

"I can think of one act of political altruism (or at any rate putting public interest ahead of party interest): John Hume's participation in the Hume-Adams talks. Bringing Sinn Fein into the political mainstream was something from which the SDLP could only lose. I don't think this was a misjudgement: Hume knew what he was doing."

I can think of one other example - Roy Jenkins' decision to rebel against the Labour leadership in 1972 and vote with the Tories in favour of joining the EEC. Readers will have different views as to whether this course of action was good or bad for the country, but ultimately it cost him the Deputy Leadership and the inside track in the race to succeed Wilson.

Are there more examples? If readers can find at least ten, I will duly compile the list based on your nominations.

Political misjudgements - the debate continues

It's been great to see so many comments on my Top 10 Political Misjudgements post, and to see the debate about this continuing on other blogs. I have tried to reply to all the points listed below on the blogs concerned.

Jonathan Calder of Liberal England questions the assumption that Jim Callaghan would indeed have won a 1978 election had he risked it.

Thunder Dragon argues ingeniously that, far from ending his frontline career, it was Powell's Rivers of Blood speech that could have made him a contender for the Tory leadership.

Mick Fealty on the Telegraph's new Brassneck blog sees the whole thing as proof of Powell's dictum that all political careers end in failure.

Stephen Tall on Lib Dem Voice asks for nominations for the biggest misjudgement by a Lib Dem politician (since there weren't any in my list.)

Gracchi on Westminster Wisdom makes the case for political chaos theory.

Thanks also to Comment is Free, Tim, Rupa, Some Random Thoughts, Vino S, Guido and of course Iain for linking - I'll leave you to guess which one was responsible for the most traffic!

The Top 10 Political Misjudgements

Ever since Gordon Brown decided not to hold an autumn General Election this year, there has been speculation that it could prove as fatal a misjudgement for him as it did for Jim Callaghan in 1978.

I myself speculated in a recent column: "The danger for Mr Brown is that his government, like Major’s, is now entering a period of what the Germans would call Gotterdammerung – the twilight of the gods. Far from renewing Labour in office, it could be that his destiny is to spend the next two years fighting back the inexorable Tory tide, while Mr Cameron prepares for his inevitable victory."

I have already listed my Top 10 political gaffes - so what's the difference between a gaffe and a misjudgement, you may ask?

Well, it's a qualitative one, really. A gaffe is primarily a one-off mistake, often humorous and with few lasting consequences. The misjudgements listed here, by contrast, are ones that arguably changed the course of history, and certainly adversely affected the careers of those who made them.

Five of them were mistakes made by Prime Ministers in office which either ultimately brought them down or, as in the case of Harold Wilson, set their governments off on the wrong course. Three were mistakes made by people who went on to become Prime Minister before the said mistakes in question came back to haunt them. Two were mistakes made by people who could easily have become Prime Minister had they not made them.

And yes, Callaghan is not only at the top of the list, but is the only politician to appear twice....

1. Jim Callaghan not calling an autumn election, 1978

What happened: Prime Minister Callaghan ducks out of an autumn 1978 election after private polls show it might result in a hung Parliament. The ensuing Winter of Discontent puts paid to Labour's credibility as a governing party and leads to 18 years of Tory hegemony which ultimately removes all vestiges of democratic socialism from the British state.

What might have happened: Narrowly re-elected, Callaghan serves for a further three years as Prime Minister before handing over to Denis Healey, who, buoyed by North Sea oil revenues, goes on to establish Britain as a stable, continental-style social democracy. The defeated Margaret Thatcher is replaced by Francis Pym and relegated to a historical footnote as only the second Tory leader of the 20th century not to become Prime Minister.

2. Enoch Powell playing the race card, 1968

What happened: Enoch Powell, spiritual leader of the Tory Right, makes a speech about immigration prophesying that the streets of Britain will soon be "foaming with much blood." He is immediately sacked from the frontbench by Ted Heath and becomes a peripheral figure on the margins of British politics, eventually joining the Ulster Unionists.

What might have happened: After distinguished service as Defence Secretary in the 1970-74 Heath government, Powell successfully challenges Heath for the leadership in 1975 after his two election defeats. Using his supreme oratorical skills to destroy Jim Callaghan at the Despatch Box in the late 70s, he becomes Prime Minister in 1979 at the age of 66, serving for one term before handing over to his faithful protege, Margaret Thatcher.

3. Tony Blair joining the US-led invasion of Iraq, 2003

What happened: Tony Blair, the most electorally successful Labour leader in history, gambles his career on joining a US neo-con inspired military adventure to get rid of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Although militarily successful, it later becomes clear that the public has been duped into supporting the conflict by a tissue of lies, destroying their trust in the Prime Minister.

What might have happened: Using his world-class diplomatic skills successfully to keep Britain out of a disastrous conflict, Tony Blair is re-elected by a third successive landslide in 2005 and immediately announces his intention to fight a fourth election in 2009. In spring 2007, Gordon Brown accepts the presidency of the International Monetary Fund, and Mr Blair appoints David Miliband as his Chancellor and heir-apparent.

4. Margaret Thatcher implementing the poll tax, 1987

What happened: Believing herself to be politically immortal after a third successive election triumph in 1987, Margaret Thatcher decides to implement a 13-year-old pledge to reform the rates. Her decision to introduce a flat-rate tax unrelated to ability to pay sparks off a popular revolt which ultimately sweeps her away.

What might have happened: Continuing to see-off all pretenders to her crown, sometimes by deliberately over-promoting them as in the case of John Major, Margaret Thatcher secures a fourth term in 1991, albeit by a narrow margin over Labour whose leader Neil Kinnock antagonises some floating voters with his triumphalism. Despite having vowed to go "on and on and on," she serves for only three more years before handing over to her young acolyte, Michael Portillo.

5. Ted Heath's "Who governs Britain?" election, 1974

What happened: Prime Minister Heath, his authority under constant threat from union unrest, ups the stakes by calling a general election on the theme of "Who Governs Britain?" The voters respond: "Obviously not you," and deliver a hung Parliament with Labour as the largest party. Heath loses a further election the same year before being toppled by Margaret Thatcher.

What might have happened: Heath delays the election until the following year and trumps Labour's calls for a referendum on Britain's membership of the EEC by calling one himself, and leading the "Yes" campaign. With the two votes held simultaneously, the public votes overwhelmingly in favour of staying in and returns a triumphant Heath to No 10 for a further five years. He is still succeeded eventually by Mrs Thatcher, though.

6. Harold Wilson not devaluing the pound, 1964.

What happened: Newly-elected Prime Minister Harold Wilson ignores the good advice of his best economist, Tony Crosland, and decides not to devalue the pound, believing it will merely strengthen the widespread belief among voters and the financial markets that Labour governments always devalue. In 1967, Wilson is forced to devalue, thereby strengthening the widespread belief....

What might have happened: Knowing that it pays politically to get the bad news out of the way at the start of a government's lifetime, Wilson overrides the objections of George Brown and Jim Callaghan and devalues in 1964. Recovering from this initial hit, Wilson establishes for Labour such a reputation for economic competence that he is twice re-elected, in 1966 and 1970, finally passing the baton in 1972 to his long-serving Chancellor, Crosland.

7. Michael Heseltine resigning over Westland, 1986

What happened: Tiring of Margaret Thatcher and her autocratic ways, Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine ignites a row over the fate of a small West Country helicopter company which gives him the excuse to stage a dramatic resignation. But his bid to set himself up as the Tories' king-over-the-water backfires when he is defeated by John Major for the leadership in 1990.

What might have happened: Remaining studiously loyal to Mrs Thatcher throughout the late 1980s, Heseltine's steadfast support in the face of a bitter attack from Sir Geoffrey Howe is widely-held to have headed-off a potential leadership challenge in 1990. After Thatcher is gently persuaded by the men in white coats grey suits to stand down the following spring, Heseltine's loyalty in allowing the old girl a final lap of honour is rewarded by grateful MPs who elect him leader by acclamation.

8. Jim Callaghan opposing In Place of Strife, 1969

What happened: Big Jim takes on Barbara Castle over her plans to curb union power and wins. His gamble in appointing himself as Labour's Keeper of the Cloth Cap appears to pay off when seven years later he wins the leadership, but nemesis awaits in the shape of the still-unreformed unions who sweep away Callaghan's premiership in the Winter of Discontent.

What might have happened: Capitalising on the public acclaim engendered by his tough stance against the unions, Harold Wilson wins a comfortable victory in the 1970 General Election. Overtaking Asquith's 20th century record of continuous service as PM in 1972, Wilson hands over the leadership to his long-time heir apparent, Roy Jenkins. But tiring of the endless battles with the Labour left, Jenkins quits in 1977 to become President of the European Commission, leaving Callaghan in charge.

9. John Major entering the ERM, 1990

What happened: After years of saying "no, no, no" to British membership of the European Monetary System, Margaret Thatcher is finally prevailed upon to enter by her new Chancellor, John Major, at a rate of 2.95DM to the pound. The level proves unsustainable, and on Black Wednesday in 1992, Prime Minister Major is forced to withdraw from the EMS and effectively devalue sterling.

What might have happened: Siding with Mrs Thatcher against her pro-European Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, Major decides the time is not right (or ripe) for ERM entry. Hurd and Geoffrey Howe resign, precipitating a leadership challenge by Michael Heseltine. Thatcher is brought down, but Major emerges as Prime Minister and reaffirms his decision to stay out despite sustained Labour criticism. Two years later, his stance is vindicated and the Tories' reputation for economic competence reinforced.

10. Gordon Brown not challenging John Smith, 1992

What happened: Gordon Brown, seen as the natural leader of Labour's modernising faction, declines to challenge John Smith for the party leadership in 1992. Over the ensuing two years, he is eclipsed by his younger rival Tony Blair, and is forced to stand aside in his favour when Smith unexpectedly dies in 1994. Blair goes on to serve for 13 years as leader, ten of them as Premier.

What might have happened: Brown loses to Smith, but establishes himself as the clear heir apparent. He is elected unopposed in 1994 on Smith's death and become Prime Minister in May 1997, winning again in May 2001 before handing over to Tony Blair after ten years as leader in 2004 as previously agreed between them. Blair goes on to win another landslide for Labour in 2005, but faced by the prospect of a Tory resurgence, embarks on a radical plan to renew the party in office under the banner "New" Labour.

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

My Top 10 New Labour Cock-Ups

The knives are out today for Ruth Kelly following the HIPs debacle which is being understandably seen as another example in the long list of New Labour ballsups. Mike Smithson is tipping both Kelly and Patsy Hewitt for the chop in El Gordo's first reshuffle, while Iain Dale has been inspired to launch a poll to find New Labour's most incompetent minister. Only Guido Fawkes of the uber-bloggers has a good word to say about the Blessed Ruth, pointing out (rightly in my view) that Housing Minister Yvette Cooper was much more personally associated with the wretched sellers' packs.

But where, if at all, does it figure in the list of all-time New Labour cock-ups? Well, let's face it, no-one died. Here, for what it's worth is, my Top 10, and with reference to Iain's poll, it follows from this that, without question, the most incompetent New Labour minister is Tony Blair, with Stephen Byers a clear second.

1. Iraq. Hundreds of British soldiers killed in conflict over non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Total absense of pre-planning for aftermath leads to state of civil war. Trust in political process totally collapses after truth about WMD and dodgy intelligence finally emerges. Minister primarily responsible: Tony Blair.

2. Foot and mouth. Millions of healthy animals needlessly slaughtered after Government fails to send in Army soon enough for fear of panicking the country ahead of 2001 general election. Minister responsible: Nick Brown took the rap, but this was Blair's call too.

3 Pension fund raid. PM-elect Brown has valiantly defended this move as a means of targeting resources where they were needed most, but some other way should have been found to do this without entirely wrecking the country's private pensions industry. Minister responsible: Gordon Brown.

4. Jo Moore burying bad news. Besides the death of Dr Kelly (which is covered by the generic cock-up heading of Iraq) this did more than anything else to destroy public trust in New Labour. Minister responsible: Stephen Byers for employing Moore, Blair for initially refusing to allow Byers to sack her.

5. Deportation of foreign prisoners. Proof that the Home Office was indeed "not fit for purpose," it was amazing that such a media-obsessed government didn't spot this disaster waiting to happen. Minister responsible: Charles Clarke, with input from Jack Straw and David Blunkett.

6. Railtrack. The creation of Failtrack will go down as possibly the greatest cock-up of the Major Government. Stephen Byers attempted to put things right, but went about it in totally the wrong way and then tried to evade the truth about it when challenged. Minister responsible: Byers.

7. Health overspends. A government that comes into office pledging to "save the NHS" and pumps more than £20bn of additional spending into the service ends up closing hospitals. Minister responsible: Pat Hewitt has got the blame, but most say the rot set in under John Reid.

8. Millennium Dome. I have been criticised for including this folly in a previous list of New Labour policy failures but seriously, this should have been a celebration of British endeavour on a par with the Festival of Britain or the Great Exhibition. Minister responsible: Peter Mandelson, abetted by Blair.

9. North East regional assembly referendum. You could list any number of devolution-related cock-ups from opposing Ken Livingstone to making Alun Michael Welsh First Minister. But holding a referendum you were bound to lose goes down as the silliest. Minister responsible: John Prescott.

10. The 2003 Reshuffle. This was the one that was supposed to create a Ministry of Justice and abolish the Lord Chancellorship together with the Scottish and Welsh Offices. It was all reversed within hours of being announced. Minister responsible: Tony Blair.

Those Top 10 speeches again....

Tomorrow's Guardian is beginning a series on the greatest speeches of the 20th century. Polly Toynbee was on the Today Programme this morning justifying the paper's choice which apparently doesn't include Neil Kinnock's "grotesque chaos" speech to the 1985 Labour Conference.

Kinnock's militant-bashing epic was of course No 1 on my own list published on this blog last year. You can find it HERE.

My Top 10 Political Heroes

I've done books, speeches, gaffes, journalists and blogs, so as a logical conclusion to the political Top 10s series, here's my list of the politicians I most admire from home and abroad.

1. Sir Winston Churchill. Okay, so he was a Conservative and an imperialist, and I am neither. But maybe you don't choose your political heroes, maybe they choose you, and try as I might, I can't put the man who saved the country from Nazi tyranny anywhere other than at Number One. Yes, he had his faults. For a start, he was pissed for most of the Second World War, which puts Charles Kennedy's problems into their proper perspective. But sentimental old sod that I am, hearing those "fight them on the beaches" speeches still brings tears to my eyes. "We will never surrender."

2. Denis Healey. A theme of lost leaders run through this Top 10, and if Churchill was the greatest Prime Minister we ever had, Denis was surely the greatest we never had. It is the enduring tragedy of the British left that he didn't get the top job instead of James Callaghan in 1976. Had he done so, he might have taken on and beaten the unions himself instead of waiting for Mrs Thatcher to do it, and thereby relegated her to a footnote in Tory history. The man with the legendary hinterland, his autobiography, "The Time of My Life" is the best political book of the last 30 years.

3. Anthony Crosland. If Healey was the left's lost leader, then Crosland was its greatest thinker. He was never a realistic candidate for the leadership, but he is regarded by many Whitehall mandarins as the best departmental minister of all time. His seminal work "The Future of Socialism" in 1956 became the creed of the so-called "revisionists" who aimed to adapt socialism to modern circumstances and was cited by Tony Blair as an inspiration behind New Labour. Personally, I think the entire Blair project would have made this great egalitarian turn sharply in his grave.

4. David Lloyd George. One of three genuine radicals to occupy 10 Downing Street in the 20th century - Attlee and Thatcher, in their different ways, were the others - the "Welsh Wizard" turned on Britain's antiquated class system with unparalleled ferocity. As possibly the greatest reforming Chancellor of all time, his Budgets did as much to lay the foundations of the welfare state as Beveridge's famous report thirty years later. The first PM from a genuinely working-class background, he sadly fell prey to the corruptions of office and a cash-for-honours scandal. Plus ca change...

5. Mikhail Gorbachev. I was a bit of Kremlinologist in my younger days, deriving endless fascination from the machinations of the Soviet Politburo. Mikhail Gorbachev was at least 10 years younger than the rest of the Russian gerontocracy, but he sliced through them like a knife through butter to succeed Konstantin Chernenko in 1983. He then proceded to revolutionise the Soviet Union and with it world politics. Admirers of Reagan and Thatcher like to claim they won the Cold War. Wrong. It was Gorbachev's political courage that really brought down the Berlin Wall.

6. Albino Luciani, Pope John Paul I. Okay, so the Vatican City State is not really a country, and the Pope is not really a political leader, but I had to get him in somewhere. This was the man who was pontiff for 33 days before he was murdered by an unholy alliance of freemasons, mafiosi and corrupt cardinals. The church lost a humble, holy man who might well have abandoned the Vatican Palace and lived in a Roman slum as a genuinely prophetic Christian witness to the world. Instead, Catholicism fell into the clutches of the hardliners Wojtyla and Ratzinger. It has not recovered.

7. Bishop Abel Muzorewa. Most people would think of Bishop Desmond Tutu as the greatest African churchman of recent times but I had tremendous sympathy for this brave little bishop who briefly led "Zimbabwe-Rhodesia" in 1978-79. Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo resfused to accept the so-called "internal settlement," and the British staged a conference to find a political solution that included them. When Mugabe won the resulting election we congratulated ourselves on a smooth handover to black majority rule. White Zimbabweans who knew Mugabe better disagreed, and they were right.

8. Martin Luther King Jnr. Second only to Churchill among the ranks of 20th century orators, his speeches inspired a generation not just within the American civil rights movement but around the world. I love the analogy he drew between arbitrary musical categorisations and the artificial divisions within humanity. "Today on this program you will hear gospel, and rhythm, and blues, and jazz - but all those are just labels. We know that music is music." Died a hero's death, but like Lloyd George, his personal life did not always reflect his high Christian ideals.

9. Henry John Temple, Lord Palmerston. My favourite 19th century Prime Minister, his famous last words were "die, my dear doctor - that's the last thing I will do!" But as well as this memorable quote he also made the definitive statement of British foreign policy in the 19th century: "We have no perpetual allies and no eternal enemies. Our interests are perpetual and eternal and these we support." His words still have resonance today. Would that Tony Blair could have approached the Iraq issue on the basis of whether British interests, rather than perpetual alliances, were at stake.

10. Michael Heseltine. The second of two names on my list who should have been Prime Minister but weren't, the Tories made a catastrophic error in overlooking Tarzan. He'd have been a great Prime Minister and would have weaned his party off the absurd Little Englander mentality that contributed to its three successive election defeats. Should have been rewarded for his political courage in getting rid of Thatcher when it was clear she had become an electoral liability. Instead, his fate was to be largely vilified by a party still hopelessly in thrall to its defeated heroine.

And that's it. If I could have chosen my Prime Ministers of the past 30 years, they would have read something like: Healey 1976-1983. Heseltine 1983-1992. Smith 1992-94. Brown 1994-to date. We would now be a much more civilised, social democratic country, instead of one where so-called Labour governments dance to the increasingly shrill tones of the Murdoch press. But for Gordon, at least, it is not too late.....

My Top 10 Political Blogs

Okay, so this will quite possibly bring me even more hatred, ridicule and contempt than the Top 10 Political Journalists list did...but for the sake of completeness, here are the adversaries I deem most worthy.

It is quite clear that there are two political blogs that are currently way out in front of the rest in terms of visitors, frequency of posts, volume of comments and general political influence, and there is no use pretending otherwise. The real challenge for the rest of us is for a liberal or left-of-centre blog to come forward and challenge these two front runners, or at the very least, provide a distinctive and authoritative left voice in what is currently a rather right-leaning political blogosphere.

It's also a very fast-changing world. At various points in the last year my Top 10 might have included the likes of Honourable Fiend, Westminster Village, Ming's Dynasty, Talk Politics and the Apollo Project - all now sadly defunct. Anyway, here goes.

1. Iain Dale's Diary. I don't of course agree with all of Dale's views - he is after all the former chief-of-staff to David Davis and a former Conservative candidate. But his blog offers an unrivalled insight not only into what's going on in right-wing circles but also which stories are pressing the buttons of the right-wing press, with whom he evidently has close personal links. Unlike many at the top of their professions, Iain is a generous-minded character and often features posts from other less widely-read blogs (like mine) on his site. Pips Guido Fawkes to the top spot solely because his blog is updated more often and covers a slightly broader range of subject matter.

2. Guido Fawkes. Love him, hate him, you certainly can't ignore him. What I love? The complete and total irreverence for all forms of authority and the sheer chutzpah (and apparent lack of regard for the libel laws) with which he publishes his exposes. What I hate? The druggy references - the real-life Guido was a major player in the rave scene of the early 90s - and the occasional boasts about betting coups, such as making money out of the death of John Smith. But these are but minor personal irritants. This blog is, basically, essential reading for anyone with a serious interest in contemporary politics.

3. Labour Watch. It won't surprise many people to know that a Lib Dem councillor is behind this. But if you can put that to one side, this blog is a superb journalistic resource for anyone interested in the decline of New Labour as a governing force. Not only will you find here most of the national news stories charting Blair's gradual demise but also a host of local examples of what the author calls "Labour mendacity, corruption and failure." There are cleverer, wittier anti-Blair blogs out there, but none which manage to reflect so well what's really happening on the ground.

4. Political Betting. I thought long and hard about whether this is actually a blog - in truth it's more a one-man punditry factory, and a hugely influential one at that. But either way, you can't fault Mike Smithson's political analysis, even if the punditry is geared towards the betting markets rather than as an end in itself. It is to some extent a victim of its own success though - each post routinely gets over 100 comments and it is hard going to plough through all of those to see whether the point you want to make has already been made by someone else.

5. Conservative Home. The third right-wing blog to make my Top 5, illustrating the current centre of political gravity in the blogosphere. But Tim Montgomerie's CH is a very different animal to Dale's Diary. Whereas the latter is very much about Iain's personality and views, Tim is an aggregator par excellence, culling together all the big issues of the day with particular emphasis on Tory matters. If I have one criticism it's that too much of it tends to lead back to the mainstream media rather than to other blogs, but that may change as the blogosphere grows in importance.

6. Nick Robinson. I don't like mainstream media blogs generally. Most of them aren't real blogs in the accepted sense of the word - Trevor Kavanagh's being a good example - and even the Guardian's much-vaunted Comment is Free (not a blog, but a blogging platform) is fairly restrictive in what it will let you link out to. As a BBC blog, Robinson's suffers from the same problem, but he does at least respond to comments and, unlike some other MSM bloggers, is often more outspoken online than he is on screen. Oh, and his analysis is spot-on too - most of the time.

7. Skipper. Very much a personal choice, but there's a far amount that Skipper - aka politics lecturer Bill Jones - and I have in common. He lives in the North, his views are distinctly left of centre, his blog aims to be serious yet unpretentious, and he demonstrates that you don't need to be in the Lobby and/or London to write authoritatively about politics. Like me Skip also updates his blog most days, and aims to provide a big-picture overview of what's happening rather than break individual stories. But unlike me, he tends to give Mr Blair the benefit of the doubt most of the time!

8. Recess Monkey. The humour on this blog can sometimes seem a bit impenetrable to those not well-versed in the ways of Westminster, and a lot of the comments on it are somewhat incestuous. But what's clever about this blog is that, although it is written by a journalist, Alex Hilton, it reads as if it really is written by a bunch of 20-something researchers in MPs offices, of the type that congregate outside the Red Lion on Friday afternoons in summer and then go and shag eachother. That said, it's undergoing a slight dip in quality at present - three months back, it would definitely have been placed third on my list.

9. Forceful and Moderate. What sets this apart from other Lib Dem blogs is not the quality of its political analysis or aggregation - Jonathan Calder's Liberal England is much better at that - but the sheer brilliance of its main writer, Femme de Resistance, although it is technically a group blog. Like many bloggers, she doesn't post often enough, but when she does it's always worth reading. In contrast to all the other pseudonymous bloggers on this Top 10, all of whose identities are actually fairly well known, I have no idea who Femme de Resistance is, but I suspect she's a journalistic star of the future.

10. Bloggerheads. Just as you don't judge a book by its cover, don't judge this blog by the design. Tim Ireland is the "twisted genius" behind it, and, for the most part, it is brilliant anti-Blair agitprop, if slightly pre-occupied in recent weeks with the fate of noisy anti-war protester Brian Haw. Tim's sheer creativity rivals that of Guido and ought by rights to make him as influential on the left as his right-wing counterpart, but he suffers slightly from that peculiarly British problem, of being too clever by half. He also doesn't allow unregistered users to comment, which is, frankly, a pain in the arse.

And that's it. If you want to know who I think is bubbling under, you could take a look at my "Best of the Blogosphere" blogroll once I've got round to rebuilding it which will list what I think are the Top 40, but they will be listed alphabetically, not in order of preference.

Finally, there are three blogs on that would make it into any other Top 10 but which are not political blogs in the strictest sense although they do touch on political issues, and those are Tim Worstall, Dr Crippen and, pre-eminently, Rachel from North London, the single best writer so far thrown up by the blogging medium. If by now you're bored of reading about politics and need to get back in touch with your emotional side, suggest you make yourself a coffee and read this.

My Top 10.....Political Journalists

I thought long and hard about this one. At least three of the people on this list are people I worked closely alongside in the Lobby and doubtless some will think that's all a bit incestuous. However most of my nominations either retired before my time, worked in fields of political journalism far removed from my own, or are sadly no longer with us.

The one thing they all have in common is that they were never seduced into becoming mouthpieces for the government of the day, or dependent on them for stories. That is one way of doing political journalism, and it can be a richly rewarding one for those who practice it. But it is not mine.

1. Hugo Young. Without question in my view, the greatest political commentator of the past 40 years and a great loss not only to the profession but also to British public life. His column on the death of Dr David Kelly, written shortly before his own death, will stick in my memory for ever. Cutting to the real core of the tragedy in a way Lord Hutton never managed, he said that Kelly's death illustrated "the dynamic that is unleashed when the Prime Minister's sainted reputation becomes the core value his country has to defend." He commanded public opinion in a way no other commentator has managed in my lifetime, and I genuinely believe that, had he lived, the Blair administration would by now have been consigned to the history books.

2. Anthony Bevins. Most of his best work was done by the time I joined the Lobby, but as the inaugural political editor of the Independent he helped shape a newspaper-of-record which, for a time, filled the gap in the market left by Murdoch's dumbing-down of The Times. Is justifiably remembered for asking Mrs Thatcher a killer question about the NHS, namely whether she had ever used it. It was sad that he spent his final years working for a crap paper like the Express.

3. John Cole. What more can be said? Virtually created the role of BBC political editor in its current reporter-cum-pundit format but never forgot that the reporting role ultimately came first. In 1990, Mrs Thatcher said she would "fight on and fight to win" after being forced into a second leadership ballot against Michael Heseltine. Cole duly reported her line but said he was keeping 2pc of his mind open to the possibility that she would in fact throw in the towel. She did.

4. David Hencke. In my opinion the best reporter of his generation, political or otherwise. Secured the Neil Hamilton scoop which seriously damaged John Major's Tories, then showed his even-handedness by uncovering the Peter Mandelson home loan affair. Had Tom Baldwin been able to follow Hencke's example and use his considerable talents for mischief-making against both parties instead of allowing himself to become a tool of Alastair Campbell, he too would be up there.

5. Alan Watkins. I grew up with Watkins' peerless Observer column and a large part of my fascination with politics and politicians came from him. I would guess that, in common with Trollope and Roy Jenkins, he saw politics as essentially the interplay of personalities seeking preferment rather than as a battle of ideas, a worldview which was brilliantly reflected in his writing. Was once absurdly sued by Michael Meacher after questioning the left-winger's working-class credentials.

6. Peter Oborne. One of the great iconoclasts of political journalism, Oborne is often regarded as some sort of Tory mirror-image of Campbell, about whom he wrote a memorable biography. But don't be fooled - the bucolic Old Etonian may be a right-winger, but his career in journalism to date shows he is nobody's poodle. Most rate the Campbell biog as his masterpiece, but I would nominate his pamphlet on the Government's hypocritical dealings with Robert Mugabe.

7. Elinor Goodman. I never really got on with Elinor but it was impossible not to admire her refusal to get sucked into the New Labour propaganda machine, especially as a woman of the centre-left. Her contributions to No 10 press conferences and lobby briefings were memorably waspish and her reporting incisive. A shame she never got the BBC job - she'd have done it with far more brio than Robin Oakley and far more objectivity than Andy Marr.

8. Andrew Roth. A one-off who carved his own unique niche in the profession, Roth is included on account of his exhaustive profiles of MPs which, for decades, have been an essential research tool. Also writes most of the obits of obscure former MPs which appear in the Guardian, ensuring some sort of memorial for those whom the slings and arrows of political fortune have left behind. One of two regional lobby men on my list, Roth was also Pol Ed of the Manchester Evening News.

9. Andrew Rawnsley. A slightly reluctant nomination, as in his closeness to New Labour he has on occasions come very close to crossing the line between journalism and propaganda. But there is no-one to rival the sheer elegance of his writing and he edges out Don Macintyre as the must-read chronicler of the Blair-Brown "project." His Observer column is to modern-day politics what Alan Watkins' was to the 70s and 80s - simply the best big picture summary of the week's events.

10. Ian Hernon. As well as being a fine reporter in his own right, this Glaswegian gets in for his amazing record in tutelary political journalism. In 80s and 90s, he ran a Lobby news agency that turned out numerous stars of the future, notably Joe Murphy (Evening Standard) and Roland Watson (The Times). Some claim they owed their success to Hernon's bizarre initiation rituals which allegedly involved consuming a half-pint or equivalent in every one of Westminster's 17 bars.

As to those big names I haven't included....you can draw your own conclusions. Suffice to say that too many of the big beasts of political journalism over the past 10 years ended up by getting slightly too close to New Labour, and like Harry Evans, my definition of news is that it's what the Government wants covered up, not what it wants out in the open.

At the end of the day, what do Messrs Kavanagh, White and Marr care about my opinions? Probably not a lot. But I will say this. If I had been nominating the ten most courteous men in political journalism, all three would have been included.

My Top 10 Political Gaffes

We've done books, we've done speeches, so here are my Top 10 Political Gaffes, with not a George W. Bushism in sight.

1. John Redwood's attempt to sing Mae Hen Wlad fy Nhadau. Redwood's goldfish impersonation didn't have enormous political repercussions, but I've placed it at No 1 simply on account of its sheer ridiculousness, betraying as it did a complete ignorance of how politics operates in a TV age. Unlike most of the other famous gaffes, it couldn't be explained away as a trip of the tongue or a rush of blood to the head. It was pure, premedidated stupidity. According to his former adviser Hywel Williams, Redwood "regarded the Tory leadership as his by moral and indefeasible right." Well, if he ever was in with a genuine chance of it, this finished it.

It had interesting consequences in which I was a bit-part player. At his first press conference, I asked Redwood's successor as Welsh Secretary, William Hague, whether he would be learning the words of the Welsh National Anthem. He replied: "I think that will be a priority." Shortly afterwards, he recruited a Welsh Office civil servant, Ffion Jenkins, to teach it him. The rest, as they say, is history.

2. Jo Moore's 9/11 email. Within two hours of the hijacked planes smashing into the Twin Towers, Jo Moore sent an email to a colleague at the Department of Local Government, Transport and the Regions saying: "Today is now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury." It laid bare not only her own crass insensitivity but the cold stony heart of the New Labour spin machine. It ought to have brought about her immediate resignation and that of the Secretary of State, Stephen Byers, who had the appalling judgement to employ her. In fact both continued in their jobs until a similar furore blew up the following year over an attempt to bury more bad news under the cover of Princess Margaret's funeral, at which point the press decided it was now time to bury Jo Moore.

3. The Sheffield Rally. "We're all right," bellowed Neil Kinnock, sounding a bit like Jim Broadbent attempting to warm-up the audience in Little Voice. They weren't, and the public reaction to this display of triumphalism helped send Labour to a fourth shattering defeat against John Major's Tories. Those who seek to downplay the rally's impact on the result forget how tight a contest it was. Major's majority of 17 actually rested on just 3,600 votes in the most marginal constituencies. So if just 1,800 people in those seats had voted Labour rather than Tory, we would have had a hung Parliament and, in all probability, a Kinnock-Ashdown government.

4. "These cunts must be stopped". This is a personal favourite of mine on account of the fact that I was one of only about ten journalists who actually heard it. It occurred during a Commons debate on the Government's defence white paper, and the immortal words were uttered by the then Armed Forces Minister, John Spellar, who of course meant to say "These cuts must be stopped." Predictably, Hansard cleaned it up and, because of the media taboos still surrounding the c-word, the whole thing went almost wholly unreported. But believe me - it really did happen!

5. The Quiet Man turns up the volume. I stopped attending Tory conferences during the leadership of IDS because they had become frankly irrelevant, but I wish I'd been there in Blackpool to hear this classic. I was actually in my office in the Press Gallery when a colleague phoned through with the advance briefing of the speech they'd had from the Tory spin doctors. When she read out the quote "The quiet man is here to stay - and he's turning up the volume!" I practically fell off my chair. His leadership was probably already doomed, but this piece of idiocy sealed his grisly fate.

6. "Crisis, what crisis?". This was part-gaffe, part example of the trend away from straight political reporting and towards interpretation which eventually was to change the nature of political journalism. Prime Minister Jim Callaghan was returning from a summit in Guadeloupe when a reporter asked him about the "mounting chaos" back home as a result of the "Winter of Discontent." Jim gave the reply: "I don't think other people would necessarily share the view that there is mounting chaos," but when the story appeared on the front page of the Sun under the headline "Crisis? What Crisis" it was widely assumed that those words were his. In fact Callaghan was stitched-up by the Tory-supporting Murdoch rag, though you could argue that such a wily and experienced operator should have chosen his words more carefully.

7. Curried Eggs. Doorstepped by a local radio reporter in the midst of the salmonella-in-eggs scare in 1989, health minister Edwina Currie proffered the view that "most of the country's egg production is now infected." A classic political gaffe in that it was simply a too-honest answer to a straight question. But contrary to popular belief it wasn't this that wrecked her career - it was her affair with John Major. Currie's talent made her a candidate for Cabinet promotion, but Major was terrified that such an obvious act of preferment would lead reporters to the smoking gun, and so offered her the dismal post of Prisons Minister. She turned it down in one of her trademark huffs, and eventually sailed off into the Tory sunset.

8. Prescott's Green Pledge. From the habitually mangled syntax, to mispronouncing the name of Slobodan Milosevic, to driving his jag 300 yards from the Labour conference hotel to the conference hall, I could give numerous examples of the Deputy Prime Minister putting his size 10s in it. But my favourite has to be: "The green belt is a Labour achievement and we intend to build on it." It rather unfairly fixed Prescott in the public mind as a blundering idiot, which he decidely isn't. But it did inadvertently and fairly accurately sum-up New Labour's policy of concreting over the British countryside.

9. 7x8=54. Stephen Byers getting his times-tables wrong was primarily interesting in my view for the fact that it was first time he had put a foot wrong in what until then had been a remarkably trouble-free rise up the greasy pole. It seemed to mark a turning point in his career, however, because after this he could scarcely put a foot right. Byers was once spoken about as a future Prime Minister. He is in fact a walking incarnation of the Peter Principle, namely that everyone tends to rise to the level of his own incompetence.

10. Bovine stupidity. John Selwyn Gummer was Agriculture Minister at the time that BSE or "mad cow disease" first entered the public consciousness in the early 90s, so just to "prove" that British beef was safe, he fed his young daughter a hamburger in front of the TV cameras. Far from restoring consumer confidence in beef, it merely exacerbated the collapse in confidence in the Tories, leading to their eventual replacement by New Labour who would of course never stoop to using their children as political props.

And that's about it. In case you're wondering, Dubya was omitted because he'd fill a Top 10 to himself. Also failing to make the cut was Hague's Baseball Cap as I've never understood why a bald man wearing a cap should be considered anything out of the ordinary. Policy gaffes are also excluded as they could cover anything from Brown's 75p pension rise to Hitler's decision to invade Russia. But alternative views are, of course, always welcome!

My Top 10 Political Speeches

Folllwing the success of my top 10 political books - well, four comments are better than none! - here's my list of the ten best political speeches I have heard during my lifetime. Unfortunately, I am too young to have heard either Churchill, John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King in their prime.

1. Neil Kinnock, party conference speech, 1985. No surprises here. This was the speech that, in my view, defined modern politics, in that it set in train the process that eventually led to New Labour. But don't hold that against it - this was political passion at its best. No full text exists online sadly, but James Naughtie's Guardian report of the time has been re-created here while the key paragraph, about the far-fetched resolutions that were pickled into a code and ended in grotesque chaos, has a permanent home at the foot of the contents panel of this blog.

2. Robin Cook, resignation statement, 2003. This was the best Commons speech I heard in nine years as a Lobby Correspondent, and the hushed atmosphere in the Chamber as he delivered it - and the spontaneous applause when he finished - was something I will never forget. The statement, explaining his opposition to the Iraq war, has become all the more poignant in retrospect for being right, and in view of Cook's tragically early death. Full text here.

3. Geoffrey Howe, resignation statement, 1990. If Kinnock's speech was the most passionate, and Cook's the most prescient, Howe's was easily the most lethal. Denis Healey memorably said that being savaged by Sir Geoffrey was like being savaged by a dead sheep. I doubt if Margaret Thatcher sees it that way. Full text here - the only British political speech to get its own page on Wikipedia.

4. Roy Jenkins, Richard Dimbleby Lecture 1979. This was the speech that laid the ground not just for the SDP but arguably also New Labour in its appeal for an end to class-based politics and the "queasy rides on the ideological big dipper" that accompanied it. At the time, Jenkins looked like the likeliest successor to Thatcher as PM. No text, but more information by following the links from here.

5. William Hague, "annual report" debate, 2000. With the possible exception of Sir Nicholas Fairbairn's attempt to describe the homosexual act, this was the funniest speech I heard in my time at the Commons and deserved to inflict much greater damage on Tony Blair than it actually did. A fuller appreciation from the BBC's Nick Assinder can be read here.

6. Denis Healey, party conference debate, 1976. With the economy in a state of near-meltdown, Chancellor Healey dashed to the Labour Conference in Blackpool to defend his proposals for an IMF loan coupled with savage cuts in public spending. With the Labour left baying for blood - his - it took all the guts this great man possessed. More here.

7. Norman Lamont, resignation statement 1993. Unlike Healey, Lamont was not a great Chancellor, but he was very unfairly made to carry the can for the 1992 Black Wednesday debacle, which was really much more down to Prime Minister John Major's decision, when Chancellor, to enter the ERM at the wrong rate. Lamont had his revenge by memorably describing Major as "in office, but not in power." Full text here.

8. Tony Blair, post 9/11 conference speech, 2001. This speech was much derided, notably by Matthew Parris. "Tony Blair left the runway on a limited strike to remove one individual from a hillside in Afghanistan - and veered off on a neo-imperial mission to save the entire planet," he memorably wrote. True, but even for a cynic like me, it was impossible not to admire the passion and brilliance of his oratory. Full text here.

9. Margaret Thatcher, party conference speech, 1981. It's no great secret that I had very little time for Mrs Thatcher and spent most of my teenage/student years wishing she was no longer Prime Minister. But this was a wonderfully crafted speech capped by possibly the greatest sound-bite of the late-20th century - "U-turn if you want to - the Lady's not for turning." More here.

10. David Steel, Liberal assembly speech 1981. "I have the privelege of being the first Liberal leader in half a century to be able to say to you: go back to your constituencies and prepare for government," declared Steel. Okay, so history records that it turned out to be a false dawn for the fledgling Liberal-SDP Alliance, but there could be no doubting the power of the moment. More on Steel here.

Before anyone asks, I'm not going to compile a list of the ten worst speeches I've heard, because I've forgotten most of them. But if I did, it's a fair bet that IDS and his "quiet man turning up the volume" speech would be up there!

My Top 10 Political Books

Political blogging is an essentially ephemeral phenomemnon, but a good political book lasts for ever. Here's my Top 10 reads.

1. The Time of My Life - Denis Healey. Beautifully-written autobiog from the best Prime Minister we never had.

2. Friends and Rivals - Giles Radice. Superb triple biography of Labour's original modernisers - Healey, Roy Jenkins and Tony Crosland.

3. Diaries - Alan Clark. The original and best account of the high politics of the Thatcher era, which now all seems strangely far-off.

4. Peter Mandelson - Donald Macintyre. Don never even said hello when I was in the Lobby but his biog of Mandy is a masterpiece of objectivity.

5. Alastair Campbell and the Rise of the Media Class - Peter Oborne. Devastating expose of the man and his methods from a true comrade-in-arms.

6. Prime Minister Portillo and Other Things that Never Happened - Iain Dale and Duncan Brack. Book of counterfactuals I wish I'd thought of first.

7. The Ashdown Diaries Vol 2 - Paddy Ashdown. Detailed chronicle of the abortive Lib-Lab "project" and Ashdown's ultimate disappointment.

8. Servants of the People - Andrew Rawnsley. The "official" version of the world according to New Labour, 1997-2004.

9. Blair - Anthony Seldon. Brilliantly conceived biography looking at the PM through his relationships with the 20 key figures in his life.

10. The Autobiography - John Major. Okay, so he should have mentioned Edwina, but ghostwriter Julian Glover did a wonderful job with this.