Campbell and Cable: About as balanced as Geoff Boycott's wonky grin

We keep hearing that the Liberal Democrats contain the "brighest and best" young talents in British politics, as well as the most promising batch of new women MPs.

So why is that, hard on the heels of the election of 64-year-old Ming Campbell as party leader, the party has now elected the 62-year-old Vince Cable as his deputy?

I am no ageist, but parties have to try to maximise their appeal to all age groups, especially when they are confronted by a phenomenon like David Cameron.

The deputy should either have been a woman - preferably Susan Kramer - or one of these bright young things we are endlessly being told about.

So will Hilary sack Ashok?

Following on from yesterday's post, International Development Secretary Hilary Benn has now disowned his parliamentary aide, Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland MP Ashok Kumar, over this article in which he called on Tony Blair to quit.

Meanwhile Downing Street has attemped to stay out of the row, saying it is a matter for Hilary Armstrong, the Chief Whip.

That, of course, is nonsense. Hilary Armstrong can't chew gum without Tony Blair's permission, so she's unlikely to do anything as radical as sacking a PPS for saying something many in the Labour Party will agree with.

I think that what happens to Kumar could be a very interesting litmus test of the mood within Number 10 vis-a-vis the handover. If they are prepared to make a martyr of him over this, it would suggest to me that Blair is digging in for the long haul.

4pm update: He's kept his job. In other words, the most junior members of Mr Blair's administration can now openly call for the Prime Minister's resignation and not be sacked for it - an interesting reflection on the strength of his current political position.

Milburn makes his move

You can tell something's amiss in the byzantine world of New Labour politics when arch-Blairites Stephen Byers and Alan Milburn launch what is obviously a co-ordinated attack on Chancellor Gordon Brown.

You would also have to be very naive not to believe it was in any way linked to the Prime Minister's comments at the weekend about maybe having made a mistake in pre-announcing his resignation.

I think it is steadily becoming clearer that the Blairites are holding Brown responsible for the Jack Dromey ambush in the loans-for-peerages row and are, at the very least, firing a warning shot across his bows that they are prepared to challenge him for the leadership.

I have posted a comment on Nick Robinson's blog which goes into this a bit further and I will be interested to see if Nick himself returns to the issue.

Meanwhile loyalist North-East MP Ashok Kumar has become the latest Labour politician to call on Mr Blair to stand down this year.

I think this is a particularly noteworthy contribution to the debate as Kumar has shown absolutely no Brownite sympathies until now.

Regional government not dead then?

In a Guardian article guaranteed to raise the blood pressure of the Campaign for an English Parliament and others, UCL Constitution Unit head Robert Hazell has today argued that there is a future for regional government in England after all.

"Regional government in England is the only solution that offers an answer to both versions of the English question. It could help give England a louder voice within the union, and help decentralise the government of England. But defeat in the North East referendum in 2004 has raised the bar," he writes.

"Any future proposals for elected regional assemblies will need to offer a stronger set of powers and functions. The GLA provides a possible model, with London's Olympics bid showing that a strategic authority can make a difference in promoting a region, both within the UK and to the wider world."

I think I shall just light the blue touchpaper, and retire....

Blair-must-go watch: So is he staying after all?

What are we to make of the situation regarding Tony Blair's leadership following his admission that he may have "made a mistake" in pre-announcing his decision to resign at the end of a third term?

Downing Street is predictably trying to play down the comment, but as far as the Brownite Guardian commentator Jackie Ashley is concerned, it's a declaration of war.

Ashley's argument is that there is agreement on an handover date to Gordon Brown and that the Prime Minister means to stay on as long as he possibly can - all the better if that means an alternative succession candidate has a chance to come forward.

In this context, I would draw attention to an extraordinary piece is currently running in the Press Gazette's Axe Grinder column. Although it has not been followed up by the MSM, that of course does not necessarily mean it is not true.

I can't link to it as the Press Gazette is a subscription only site (growl) but the gist is that the loans-for-peerages revelations have caused a near-irreperable breakdown in relations on both sides - on Brown's side, because he believes Blair is tarnishing the Labour Party, and on Blair's, because he believes Brown's people blew the whistle on it.

"One senior ex-minister told Axegrinder the disclosures were the last straw for Brown, who believes the loans have dealt a hammer blow to his and the Government's reputation for financial probity. Extraordinarily, the veteran politician said: "Gordon has told Tony ‘I didn't get you on education, but I will get you on sleaze'."

Incidentally, the UKPG piece goes onto say that the Guardian's decision to call for Blair's head has caused consternation in its "Blairite" political team which might explain why Mike White was so keen to disassociate himself from it on Sky News last week (see previous posts.)

But I digress. What is becoming clear is that Blair intends to try and go on to that 10th anniversary of his coming to power next May - whether Gordon likes it or not.

Whether he manages it will depend largely on events, in particular whether there are any further damaging sleaze revelations, whether there are further major backbench rebellions on key legislation, and whether Labour's position in the polls starts to deteriorate.

But I have to say that if any of the above rumours are true, then things are not looking good for that fabled "orderly transition."

If the Blairites sincerely do believe Gordon was behind the loans-for-peerages disclosures, or that he is trying to use them to bring about the Prime Minister's political assassination, they will not forgive him.

They will run an alternative candidate against him - Milburn or Miliband are the most likely contenders - and, although Brown will still win, he will inherit a fatally divided party that will go on to lose - and lose bad - in 2009/10.

Brown v Cameron: Let battle commence

"Wednesday showed us a foretaste of how Mr Brown would tackle David Cameron if and when he moves next door to Number 10. I suspect that the public, as well as a growing number of Labour MPs, is now becoming increasingly impatient for that real battle to commence."

That was my overall verdict on the significance of last week's Budget as set out in my newspaper columns and podcast this weekend.

I have also had a bit to say about the proposed police mergers which, in the East Midlands at any rate, seem to me to be an extension of the unwanted regionalisation agenda by another means.

You can hear the whole thing in its podcast form here or alternatively read the (shorter) written version here.

Now Rhodri plunges the knife in

Welsh First Minister Rhodri Morgan has today become the latest senior figure to call on Tony Blair to stand down.

Some will doubtless interpret this as disloyalty but it is surely no less than Blair deserves in the light of his extensive but ultimately fruitless attempts to keep Morgan out of the Welsh Assembly leadership in 1999-2000, as chronicled by Paul Flynn MP in his book Paper Dragons and also by Andrew Rawnsley in Servants of the People.

As Rawnsley says in his book, the lengths to which the party machine went to stop Morgan were out of all proportion to the threat which this engaging maverick represented to New Labour.

Meanwhile old lobby mucker Nick Assinder has produced a thoughtful piece on the BBC website about the shifting balance of power in 10 Downing Street.

"Many believe that Mr Brown has just delivered his last Budget. They claim it would be difficult, if not downright embarrassing, for him to have to deliver a repeat premier-in-waiting performance in a year's time," he writes.

Quite right Nick. The public is fed-up of the phoney war betwen Blair and Cameron and now wants to see the main event. Bring it on.

Blair-must-go watch: the story so far

The general consensus on the political impact of the Budget is that it has rendered Tony Blair even more of an irrelevance as British politics gears up for the Brown v Cameron era. This piece by Jonathan Freedland is typical of many that have appeared in today's papers. I'd include another by the great Peter Oborne if the Mail had bothered to put it online.

Interestingly Mike White took a different tack in a post-Budget discussion with Sky's Jon Craig on College Green yesterday. Together with the Telegraph's Rachel Sylvester and Andrew Pierce of the Times, White said he still expected Blair to go next summer, openly questioning his own paper's editorial stance. "I'm not sure they've got that quite right," he said of Monday's leader calling on the PM to go this year. I suppose when you are Mike White you can get away with that sort of thing....

Anyway, a week after I launched Blair-must-go watch, here's a reminder of what the key opinion formers (!) in both the MSM and the blogosphere have been saying so far:

The Economist kicks things off by arguing that it would be in Blair's own interests to go now rather than get mired in a damaging war with his party.

Guido Fawkes reveals that his money - a lot of it apparently - is on a Labour Conference handover.

Polly Toynbee urges Mr Blair to retire with good grace in the wake of the schools rebellion and the loans-for-peerages affair.

Yours truly finally succumbs to the temptation to fire Cromwell's golden bullet in Blair's direction, telling him: "In the name of God, go!"

Matthew Parris exceeds even my level of vitriol by branding Mr Blair an "out and out rascal" and "pathological confidence trickster."

Iain Dale agrees with Guido that an autumn handover looks increasingly on the cards.

The Guardian publishes its by-now famous editorial saying that nine years is quite long enough.

BBC Newsnight publishes the results of a poll showing more than 50pc of the public now want Blair to go.

Charlie Clarke bravely attempts to hold the line by telling the womens' lobby lunch the PM will go in 2008.

Jonathan Freedland tells Blair his luck has run out, citing Iraq as the major cause of his inevitable downfall.

That's about all for now. By my reckoning the Sun, the Mirror, the Times and the FT are the only national newspapers who haven't yet called on Blair to go in some form or another, so it will be very interesting to see who's next.

And if anyone is wondering why I'm rehashing all this, then let's just say that that New Labour's "repeat messaging" techniques taught me a thing or two...

Budget 2006

Another exhausting Budget Day comes to an end - albeit rather earlier than it used to when I was writing it all up for the Newcastle Journal!

If you're interested, my coverage of today's events can be found here. As well as the main story, there is also a list of key points, a live commentary of the speech as it unfolded, and of course, a political analysis which is also available in podcast form.

There is also a Budget preview so you can see how much I got right - or wrong as the case may be!

I've not touched on the issue of whether the Budget will speed up Mr Blair's departure as some MPs have apparently said this afternoon, but doubtless I will be returning to this issue shortly.

Ken Linford 21.12.27 - 21.3.81

Today is the 25th anniversary of the death of my father, Ken Linford.

He was in the motor trade for most of his life and at the time he died was general manager of a car showroom in Hitchin, Herts where I grew up.

We didn't always have the easiest of relationships but I like to think we'd have got on a lot better once I was older, although he would probably have been horrified that his son ended up in a grubby profession like journalism instead of something fine and upstanding like architecture or the law!

I do know however that he would have been very proud of his little grandson George. Right from the moment he was born in 2004 I have caught glimpses of my dad in him, and I find it very comforting that even though he has been dead such a long time some small part of him has managed to survive.

Of my many memories of dad, the one which I perhaps treasure the most is of an evening about three months before he died when we went out for our first curry together. It was perhaps the first and only time that I felt we were able to relate to eachother as adults, and I suspect there would have many more such times had he lived.

I also pay tribute to his honesty in business, which was legendary in his field of work, and his gift for friendship.

As a mark of respect, there will be no other posts on this blog today even if Blair resigns.

Rest in peace dad.

Blair-must-go watch: Linford beats Guardian to it!

"You have been sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

That was my blunt message to Prime Minister Tony Blair in my columns and accompanying podcast this weekend. After months of toying with the idea of firing Cromwell's Golden Bullet in his direction, I have to confess it gave me immense satisfaction to let him have it at last!

Of course, if it was just me (and Bob Piper!) he'd ignore it - but it isn't just me and a consensus now appears to be developing across the political blogosphere that Blair will be gone by the time of the Labour Conference this autumn.

Most devastatingly of all, the Guardian has now come out and said, in a leader entitled Nine years is enough published this morning, that Blair should go this summer rather than attempt to see out a decade in Number 10.

I don't think the Grauniad has quite the monopoly on progressive/left-of-centre political thought that it thinks it has - it's a fact that this Government is far less concerned about what it thinks than it is about the Sun, for instance - but this editorial will undoubtedly be seen as a further nail in the Prime Minister's political coffin.

I'm just glad I managed to beat them to it...!

March 21 update: A Newsnight poll published last night reveals that
half the population now want Blair to go. This is, surely, the tipping point...

Farewell, Humphrey - you were a reminder of a gentler age

I was very sad to learn from the BBC this morning of the death of Humphrey the Downing Street cat.

Humphrey was a stray who was taken in to Number 10 during the last days of Margaret Thatcher and became almost synomymous with the place during John Major's time as Prime Minister.

He was unceremoniously evicted in 1997 at the behest of Cherie Blair amid all sorts of ghastly rumours she had actually had him done in.

Thankfully those rumours were untrue - but it's a shame poor old Humphrey didn't live to see the Blairs equally unceremoniously evicted from Number 10 as they doubtless will be before too long.

March 21 update: The great Michael White has now penned a full tribute to Humphrey which can be read here.

No to Ming's Dynasty

I see that Iain Dale is mischievously touting me as a contender for the job of Press Secretary to Sir Menzies Campbell as advertised in this week's Press Gazette.

I'm sorry to have disappoint him. Even if I had the slightest inclination to return to London from glorious Derbyshire, going back to the Parliamentary Press Gallery as a spin doctor would be a bit poacher-turned-gamekeeperish for my liking.

But even if I was interested, I think this column published a week or so ago would probably rule me out!

I will however be sure to recommend Iain Dale for the post of Number 10 Press Secretary if and when David Cameron becomes Prime Minister.

March 20 update: Forget No 10 Press Sec - I hereby nominate Iain for the forthcoming vacancy at Folkestone which was announced on Friday night. And unlike me becoming Ming's press spokesman, I reckon he'd be in with a serious chance!