With the Scottish and Welsh elections coming up, indefatigable Anglo blogger Gareth Young is currently carrying out this survey on how people would vote in an election for an English Parliament. It's a great idea so I heartily recommend you to take part.
Among the questions asked is who should be First Minister of such a body. There are no prompts, and you have to write in your answer, so doubtless there will be some wiseacres who respond "Gordon Brown" as a wind-up.
Actually it's quite a good question, and not one I can remember being posed before in the MSM. I suppose the answers, particularly in the case of the Tory candidate, would depend on whether the EP was an entirely separate body along the lines of the Scottish Parliament, or whether it was merely English MPs sitting without the Welsh and Scots.
Assuming the former (because it makes more sense apart from anything else) my favourites to become candidates for English First Minister in their respective parties would be William Hague for the Tories, Alan Johnson for Labour, and Chris Huhne for the Liberal Democrats.
Friday, April 20, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
The Portillo Myth
A propos of whether David Miliband should challenge Gordon Brown for the leadership of the Labour Party, there has been much discussion of late over whether there are tides in a politician's life which if taken at the flood lead on to fortune, etc, and whether, in apparently passing-up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Miliband is kissing goodbye to his chance of the premiership forever.
This point of view was exemplified by a supremely egotistical article in last weekend's Sunday Times by Michael Portillo, whose position in the 1995 Tory leadership crisis is seen by some (including himself) as analagous to Miliband's now.
Portillo wrote: "The premiership of the United Kingdom is almost within Miliband’s grasp, as it was for me in 1995. Unlike Cameron, Miliband could be prime minister without winning a general election, without even having to wait. He could be in No 10 by the end of June.
"If he does not grab it now, the opportunity may never recur. Brown will become leader, might lose the general election and condemn Labour to a decade in opposition. By which time Miliband will be a has-been, his best years spent fruitlessly harassing the Cameron government, for ever marked by his failure to seize the day, consigned to history as a vacillator. I can tell Miliband that this does not feel good."
Leaving aside the question of whether Portillo is over-estimating Miliband's current prospects, is he also over-estimating the strength of his own position back in that balmy summer of '95, forever etched on my memory as it was my first year in the Lobby?
I think he is. Over the years, a myth has grown up that if only Portillo had had the balls to challenge Major himself instead of letting John Redwood run as a stalking horse, he would have succeeded in dislodging the Prime Minister in the first ballot and gone on to defeat all-comers in the second.
It's a seductive theory, but it's not how I remember things. I recall a Tory Party that was split moreorless three ways - between those who wanted Michael Portillo to be Prime Minister, those who wanted Michael Heseltine to be, and those who couldn't care less who it was so long as it wasn't either of those two.
It followed that the only way either Heseltine or Portillo could have forced Major out was by working together, and I seem to recall one or two kites being flown to that effect. But the wily Major knew such a "dream ticket" was highly unlikely, which is why his "put up or shut up" gamble was always likely to come off.
The one time Portillo would undoubtedly have become Tory leader was in 1997 had he not lost his seat - but that is another political counterfactual.
This post was featured in The Times' daily blog round-up Web Grab.
This point of view was exemplified by a supremely egotistical article in last weekend's Sunday Times by Michael Portillo, whose position in the 1995 Tory leadership crisis is seen by some (including himself) as analagous to Miliband's now.
Portillo wrote: "The premiership of the United Kingdom is almost within Miliband’s grasp, as it was for me in 1995. Unlike Cameron, Miliband could be prime minister without winning a general election, without even having to wait. He could be in No 10 by the end of June.
"If he does not grab it now, the opportunity may never recur. Brown will become leader, might lose the general election and condemn Labour to a decade in opposition. By which time Miliband will be a has-been, his best years spent fruitlessly harassing the Cameron government, for ever marked by his failure to seize the day, consigned to history as a vacillator. I can tell Miliband that this does not feel good."
Leaving aside the question of whether Portillo is over-estimating Miliband's current prospects, is he also over-estimating the strength of his own position back in that balmy summer of '95, forever etched on my memory as it was my first year in the Lobby?
I think he is. Over the years, a myth has grown up that if only Portillo had had the balls to challenge Major himself instead of letting John Redwood run as a stalking horse, he would have succeeded in dislodging the Prime Minister in the first ballot and gone on to defeat all-comers in the second.
It's a seductive theory, but it's not how I remember things. I recall a Tory Party that was split moreorless three ways - between those who wanted Michael Portillo to be Prime Minister, those who wanted Michael Heseltine to be, and those who couldn't care less who it was so long as it wasn't either of those two.
It followed that the only way either Heseltine or Portillo could have forced Major out was by working together, and I seem to recall one or two kites being flown to that effect. But the wily Major knew such a "dream ticket" was highly unlikely, which is why his "put up or shut up" gamble was always likely to come off.
The one time Portillo would undoubtedly have become Tory leader was in 1997 had he not lost his seat - but that is another political counterfactual.
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