Is there more to Clegg than meets the eye?

I have to say that Nick Clegg went up in my estimation today after reading this story in which he pledges to lead a public campaign of law-breaking against the Government's ID card scheme.

"If the legislation is passed I will lead a grassroots campaign of civil disobedience to thwart the identity cards programme ... I, and I expect thousands of people like me, will simply refuse ever to register," he said.

Clegg has spent most of this leadership campaign giving progressives like me reasons not to vote for him - all the talk about the Lib Dems needing to stop "looking inward" is really just code for saying the party needs to travel lighter in ideological terms.

But if he really is prepared to become the first party leader in living memory to go to jail for his principles, then perhaps he is not quite the identikit member of the "political class" that on the surface he seems to be.

As I pointed out in my Saturday column last week, Gordon Brown's pretensions to be a champion of "liberty" will be pretty hollow unless he is prepares to reconsider the ID card scheme.

Loath as I am to urge him to nick any more ideas off the Tories, David Cameron's mob have put themselves on the right side of both popular opinion and liberal opinion on this one - two things that rarely seem to coincide.

Of all the crazy ideas put forward during the Blair era, this is the very first that Brown should have dispensed with in his determination to put some distance between him and his predecessor.

By comparison, supercasinos and the law on cannabis are pretty small beer.

Blair's last reshuffle

More fascinating stuff today from Anthony Seldon's new "Blair Unbound" biography currently being serialised in The Times. Today's excerpt reveals he planned to make Charles Clarke Foreign Secretary in his last big reshuffle in May 2006, but was persuaded against it following Clarke's mishandling of the row over the deportation of foreign prisoners.

Seldon goes on to claim that Blair then formulated a plan to give the job to David Miliband, but got cold feet at the last minute before settling on the third choice, Margaret Beckett.

The fascinating question here is why he decided not to promote Miliband, a move which, according to Seldon, Blair himself believed would have "renewed" the government.

Perhaps it would. But what it would also have done, of course, was hugely destabilised the government, in that the appointment to a major office of state of such an obvious potential rival to Gordon Brown for the succession would have been viewed as a declaration of war by the Brownites.

The Brownites would then have pushed harder to get the Prime Minister out, and would quite possibly have succeeded in removing him earlier than June 2007.

Seldon says that Blair decided against Miliband in the end because he had only been in the Cabinet a year, but this doesn't really ring true. I think he decided that the appointment would simply be too divisive, and opted for Beckett as the safe option.

The other interesting counterfactual question is whether, had the debacle over the deportation of foreign prisoners not happened and Clarke gone to the Foreign Office as originally planned, would he have been able to mount a successful challenge for the top job?

What it all goes to show is that, even though the Brown coronation ultimately assumed an air of historical inevitability, it never really was. Any number of circumstances could have led to a different outcome - these are just two of them.

What should Gordon do?

I had my say HERE and HERE. Now it's the turn of Jon Cruddas, Jon Trickett and Compass.

"One strong aspect of the New Labour project that must be jettisoned is a rather dry economic puritanism which sees work as the solution to every moral and social problem. Clearly, the effective management of the economy is critical and Brown has been brilliant at it.

But a tendency to prioritise the market inverts the principal point of social democracy - to ensure society is the master and that social justice and cohesion are our objectives. Left uncontrolled, the market leads to the growth of inequality and social recession across all classes."

I really couldn't agree more. But the paraphrase contained in the Guardian's headline - "Brown's fightback must be built on a real shift to the left" - doesn't really help matters in my view.

English Votes by English Laws by just another name

I'm with Gareth Young rather than Iain Dale over the Tories' plans for an "English Grand Committee" as set out in yesterday's Observer.. With all due to respect to the superior intellect of Sir Malcolm Rifkind, this is simply the old policy of English Votes for English Laws dressed up in new clothes.

As Gareth points out on the Campaign for an English Parliament Newsblog, not the least problematical aspect of the proposal is the idea that the Speaker would have to rule on which bills, or parts of bills, were English-only, or English-and-Welsh-only on those areas which are devolved to the Scottish Parliament but not to the Welsh Assembly.

"If, as suggested, it is up to the Speaker to decide what is and what is not English legislation then the impartiality of the Speaker will be compromised. A brief look at Gorbals Mick’s record on impartiality should alert people to the dangers of this. Even if it were up to some higher, or more impartial, authority than the Speaker to designate bills as English-only then it would inevitably cause arguments before the bill is even drafted."

To be fair to Iain Dale, he is a supporter of the CEP and he argues that an English Grand Committee would be a stepping stone towards that eventual aim. Possibly in the longer-term, but I would argue that in the shorter-term, the introduction of further assymetric devolution into the constitution will actually make things worse rather than better, and make it more likely that the end of all this will not be a union of four equal autonomous nations but four wholly independent states.

That said, the distinction between an English Grand Committee and an English Parliament will probably be lost on most voters. The Tories will doubtless get some public support for this, simply for being seen to do something about the problem while Labour continues to bury its head in the sand.

The upside for Labour is that, with the next election not due until 2009, Gordon Brown has 18 months to expose the policy as unworkable, and maybe even to come up with an alternative proposal that is, although if I knew how he could dothat without handing his Scottish heartland over to the SNP lock stock and barrel, I'd probably be sitting in his chair.

Scrapping the Barnett Formula would take much of the current heat out of the issue, but Brown cannot now do that without handing a huge propaganda victory to Alex Salmond. The sensible time to have done it, as he was warned at the time, would have been in 1998/99, when Labour was still reaping the benefit of the devolution dividend.

I have taken a fair amount of mockery down the years for taking an interest in this subject - when my son was born the joke in the Lobby was that he would be fed on Barnett Formula Milk - but I always knew it would become a big political issue one day, and now it has.

A wider choice, please

Nominations in the Lib Dem leadership contest close on Wednesday, and it seems 99.9pc certain that the party will have a straight choice between Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne. The distinctions between the two candidates have sharpened over the weekend with Huhne coming out against Trident and Clegg making clear his support for the independent nuclear deterrent. Twenty years on from the infamous Steel-Owen wrangle over defence which wrecked the Liberal-SDP's chances in the 1987 election, it seems the differences within the party over this issue are as strong as ever.

Meanwhile, readers of this blog have been making clear their own view that they would have appreciated a wider choice in this leadership election, as indeed I would. My two polls show Huhne narrowly ahead of Clegg in a head-to-head contest, but well behind Charles Kennedy and Julia Goldsworthy in a notional poll involving all the candidates who previously ruled themselves out.

To say how you would cast your vote between Clegg and Huhne, click HERE. To choose between Vincent Cable, Clegg, Ed Davey, Goldsworthy, Simon Hughes, Huhne, Kennedy, Susan Kramer, David Laws and Steve Webb, click HERE. And if you think I'm paying far too much attention to the Lib Dem contest, please say so in the comments!

Brown must be bolder

Reviving the constitutional reform agenda was always going to be a central aspect of Gordon Brown's premiership as he seeks to restore public trust in politics following its near-collapse under Tony Blair. But with Labour now lagging behind in the opinion polls after the non-election debacle, he needs to do more than just rehash a set of proposals - albeit worthy ones - that were first unveiled last July.

In particular, he needs to take a fresh look at proportional representation for Westminster. The first-past-the-post system, by encouraging the parties to target their messages at voters in a hundred or so marginal constituencies, has resulted in the effective disenfranchisement of most of the population and thereby increased the public's alienation from the political process.

In addition, if Mr Brown is going to starting banging the drum for "liberty" as he did in his Westminster University speech this week, he must look again at the ID card scheme. As well as being potentially the biggest infringement of individual liberties in this country since rationing, it will also cost an estimated £15bn to implement which most people think could be better spent elsewhere.

More in this vein in my weekly Saturday round-up of the week's political events, which can be read in the Newcastle Journal and HERE.

A sick society

A society is judged by how it treats its weakest and most vulnerable members. Which is why this story sickened me to the core.

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.

Less than bostin Austin

Ian Austin was not someone who endeared himself to the Lobby during my time there. He took over from the great Charlie Whelan but entirely lacked his illustrious predecessor's wit, roguish charm or indeed ability to tell you anything useful, so I naturally enjoyed this piece from the inimitable Simon Hoggart Bill Blanko.

Oborne on 18DS

If you can't be bothered to read Peter Oborne's masterwork The Triumph of the Political Class, you should at least watch him being interviewed about it by Iain Dale on 18 Doughty Street.

Oborne's analysis of the ills of current-day politics and journalism is spot-on and, in the light of recent events, his bewailing of the tendency of career politicians to come into the House without any previous experience of life is particularly topical.

This point is usually made in relation to people with no experience of running a business. Indeed Dale himself makes that very point in his interview. Oborne however reminds us that it is not just a lack of business experience we are talking about here but a lack of any sort of experience outside of machine politics.

Military experience is a good example. During the latter stages of World War 2, the Allies staged an amphibious landing in the area of Anzio, Italy, intended to outflank the Axis forces and enable an attack on Rome. The Military Landing Officer for the British assault brigade at Anzio was Major Denis Healey, who went on to become possibly our most distinguished postwar Defence Secretary from 1964-70.

My fellow Newcastle Journal columnist, Denise Robertson, recently expressed her frustration at the downgrading of experience as a political virtue with her own characteristic bluntness.

"I thought Cameron had a nerve standing for leader of his party after four years in the Commons. Now Clegg and Huhne are doing it after two, while some Labour ministers look as if they are still shaving their bum-fluff."

I've still not made up my mind

In my Saturday column last weekend, which can be read HERE, I set out the dilemma currently facing the Liberal Democrats thus:

"Can they bring themselves to vote for someone whose views they know to be well to the right of their own, in the knowledge that he is the candidate most likely to win them more seats?"

I am still unsure in my own mind what the answer is. So, for that matter, are at least three of the Lib Dem bloggers I have the most respect for - Jonathan Calder, James Graham and Paul Walter.

What I am sure of, as I argued HERE, is that the choice is a very real one which will have repercussions not just for the the Lib Dems but for the whole balance of British political debate.

There was no such dilemma last time round. Up against Sir Ming Campbell and Simon Hughes, Chris Huhne was easily the most right-wing of the candidates, and thus the one most likely to win seats off the Tories. But his views were still identifiably social democratic in a way that Nick Clegg's are not.

My heart still says Huhne. He is much the more centrist of the two candidates, has made clear he is prepared to use the tax system in the cause both of greater equality and a greener environment, and has insisted that proportional representation should remain a precondition of any post-election deal with the other parties.

By contrast, Clegg appears to be the establishment candidate, favoured by the very same numpty MPs who thought replacing Chatshow Charlie with Mogadon Ming would restore the party's fortunes.

Part of me admires his courage in that he is clearly running against his party in this election, but like Matthew Huntbach I have no illusions about what that will mean - that most of the principles the left of the party has most held dear will end up being sold down the river.

So if what was at stake was simply the future of the Liberal Democrats as a progressive, social democratic party, it would be a no brainer: vote Huhne.

But what is at stake goes much wider than that - specifically, the fact that the choice could have very clear implications for how many people end up voting Conservative at the next general election.

If the greater cause of British social democracy requires that David Cameron has to be stopped in order that the governance of this country should continue to reflect the views of its natural centre-left majority, then Clegg is clearly the more sensible choice.

It's a tricky one, isn't it? Maybe you, dear readers, can help me make up my mind by casting your preferences HERE.

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!

A siren Lib Dem voice?

"In particular, I find merely for raising concern about the way Britain is becoming more economically divided, the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, I’m getting dismissed as some old style lefty who shouldn’t really be in the party by Clegg supporters. Well if that’s what you lot are really like, it’s bye-bye Liberal Democrats from me if Clegg wins. I wish I hadn’t bothered with all the work I put in helping to turn Lewisham from a LibDem black hole into an area where we’re now seriously considering winning at Parliamentary level."

- Matthew Huntbach, commenting on Lib Dem Voice.