A very special Christmas

I've just got back from Midnight Mass - so great to be able to sing the last verse of O Come all ye Faithful at last - and everyone else in the house has been in bed for about three hours, so just time to wish all my readers a very happy Christmas.

It's a very special Christmas in the Linford household this year - our first as a family of four, our first in the new home, and the first at which we've been able to invite all our surviving parents to stay at the same time. Most of yesterday was spent cooking and a good part of tomorrow will be too...it's just as well that it's my favourite way of relaxing!

I hope all your Christmases are equally special.

My review of 2007

For the past 10 years, I have written a review of the political year for the Newcastle Journal. This year's was published yesterday, and here it is in full.

***

Eventful? The political year 2007 was certainly that. Entertaining? Well, that too – if you are the kind of person who enjoyed seeing Gordon Brown fall flat on his face, that is.

But as for epoch-making – only time will tell if 2007, or 6 October, 2007 to be precise, will go down as one of the great turning points of modern political history.

That was the day that Mr Brown finally resolved the question that had dominated the agenda ever since he had taken over as Prime Minister in June - whether or not he would hold a general election.

His decision not to go to the country changed the political weather at a stroke and left Labour on the defensive for the first time in 15 years.

The widespread public reaction to the decision was that a government that appeared to have so little confidence in itself certainly did not deserve the confidence of the voters.

Suddenly, a Labour Party which had carried all before it for a decade and a half began to look like losers.

The mistake, though, did not lie in the decision itself. Despite his earlier surge in popularity, by October the polls clearly showed the best Mr Brown could have hoped for was a hung Parliament.

No, it was in having allowed the speculation and planning to get so wildly out of control beforehand that the eventual cancellation could only be seen as a humiliating retreat.

The first few months of the year had been dominated by the endgame of the long Tony Blair premiership, played out against the grisly backdrop of the “cash for honours” inquiry.

In the event, no charges were brought, but the stench of sleaze would hang over the Labour Party long after the men from Scotland Yard had departed.

But the background story of the spring was not so much whether there would be charges, as whether there would be a challenge – namely to Mr Brown for the Labour leadership.

For a time, it seemed that South Shields MP David Miliband was the chosen one - not least in Mr Blair’s eyes – but he wisely decided that discretion was the better part of valour.

Mr Blair had stayed on, apparently with Mr Brown’s acquiescence, in order to “take the hit” for what were expected to be disastrous local and Scottish election results in May.

In the event these were every bit as bad as anticipated, with Alex Salmond’s SNP overtaking Labour to become the dominant force in the Scottish Parliament.

After what had seemed like the longest farewell tour since Frank Sinatra, the outgoing Prime Minister finally said his goodbyes with a bravura performance at his last Commons Question Time.

It was followed swiftly by his resignation as MP for Sedgefield to take up a new role as a Middle East peace envoy, though the irony of this seemed lost on most observers.

After such a long spell at 10 Downing Street, it was remarkable how little Mr Blair was initially missed.

An attempted terrorist attack, a spate of summer floods, and even a foot and mouth outbreak were all calmly and competently dealt with by Mr Brown and his new-look Cabinet team.

Even when the global “credit crunch” led to the first run on British bank in 150 years – Newcastle’s very own Northern Rock – the Government acted swiftly to cool the situation by agreeing to guarantee investors’ savings.

Consequently Labour went into the autumn conference season on a big high, with one poll showing a snap election would give them a majority of 134.

But the mood began to change after Mr Brown’s closest aide, Ed Balls, speculated openly on whether “the gamble” lay in going now, or delaying – with the clear implication that the bigger risk lay in delay.

From this, it became clear that uppermost in Mr Brown’s election calculations was not the long-term good of the country, but short-term party advantage.

His subsequent non-announcement created a new political narrative in which a government that had seemed destined to succeed appeared instead to be doomed to failure.

And as if to confirm that view, the government then found itself buffeted by a whole series of mishaps – all of them made and manufactured in the North-East.

First, the Northern Rock crisis blew up again, with questions over whether the £25bn of taxpayers’ money spent propping up the bank would be repaid. The outcome may yet be nationalisation.

Then it emerged that a computer disc had gone missing from the Revenue and Customs office in Washington containing the personal details of 25m child benefit claimants.

Finally, Labour sleaze reared its head again after it emerged that a Newcastle businessmen, David Abrahams, had used intermediaries to give money to the party in breach of the rules on donations.

Within a few short weeks, Mr Brown’s long-awaited inheritance had turned to dust and ashes in his hands.

The turnaround in Tory leader David Cameron’s fortunes was no less dramatic. Earlier in the year he had been vilified for going to Rwanda while floods devastated his constituency and for bungling a policy shift on grammar schools.

But he was rescued by Mr Brown’s dithering and an ace-in-the-hole from his Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, who pledged to scrap inheritance tax for all estates under £1m.

Ironically, Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell had made probably the best speech of the conference season - but much good did it do him.

Within a month he was gone, citing the media “obsession” with his age, to be replaced after the closest-fought leadership contest of modern times by the 40-year-old Nick Clegg.

Mr Brown ends the year in a deep, deep hole, with opinion polls now consistently showing a Tory lead of 10-15pc.

The Prime Minister is nothing if not resilient, but his government, of which Labour supporters had such high hopes, has thus far been a huge disappointment.

Where he promised quiet competence, there has been only ineptitude. Where he promised “vision” there has been only drift. Above all where he promised to restore trust in politics it has been dragged only further into the mire.

Can he turn it around? That’s the question for next week’s column, when I’ll be looking ahead to what we can expect the political year 2008 to bring.

A study in contradictions

Should we be even mildly surprised that the man who singlehandedly pushed through a piece of legislation earlier this year which forced the closure of several Catholic adoption agencies is now promising to follow all of the teachings of that church?

Well, we are talking here about the instinctive conservative who became leader of the Labour Party; the one-time CND supporter who went to war more times than Churchill; the "pretty staight kind of guy" who presided over the sleaziest government in modern times; the man who "didn't do God" but claimed he would "answer to his maker" for his most controversial decisions; the invader of Iraq who became an ambassador for peace in the Middle East; and the man who promised a "stable and orderly transition" and then spent the first half of this year trying to persuade David Miliband to stand against Gordon.

So no, I think the honest answer is that nothing that Tony Blair says or does should surprise any of us in the least any more.

Like Archbishop Rowan, I wish him well on his Christian pilgrimage. But if there is one thing on which myself and most of those who commented on this recent post would agree, it is that he is not a particularly great recruiting sergeant for those advocating the importance of faith in political life.

Could Milburn come back

Some interesting speculation today from Peter Diapre, writing on Boulton and Co, about the possible return of Alan Milburn to a governmental role in 2008.

"With his impeccable working class background and rags to riches story (single mum, council estate etc), he has the right credentials to look at issues such as social mobility. It wouldn't surprise me to see him leading a review of some kind in 2008, or how about a return to government? Watch this space."

For the record, this was what I wrote about the prospect of a Milburn comeback in my Newcastle Journal column a week ago today. I was writing in the context of the damning report published ten days ago which found that social mobility in Britain had ground to a halt.

"The upside for Labour is that there is a challenge here for Gordon Brown which, if he can grasp it, might just give his government the moral purpose it currently lacks, and a way out of its current political malaise.

There is also, if Mr Brown’s pride will permit, an old adversary who could help in that task – Darlington MP Alan Milburn, Labour’s Mr Upward Social Mobility himself in more ways than one.

The former health secretary famously grew up, the child of a single mother, on a council estate in a remote ex-mining town in County Durham.

Yet he himself has stated that he could not now imagine anyone from such a background as his reaching the Cabinet.

He is also, as far as this issue is concerned, Labour’s prophetic voice crying in the wilderness, having first warned about the looming problem as long ago as 2003.

Back then he wrote: “We should aim to reverse the slowing down of social mobility of recent decades. If these trends continue, Britain will be in danger of grinding socially to a halt.

"Getting Britain socially moving demands a new front in the battle for equal life chances. The most substantial inequalities are not simply between income groups but between those who own shares, pensions and housing and those who rely solely on wages or benefits.”

When Mr Milburn wrote those words, it was designed as a possible prospectus for the third term, a call to arms for Labour to be more, not less radical in its thinking

It didn’t work out that way. Although he did come back briefly to help run the election campaign, Mr Milburn along with most of his ideas ended up being marginalised.

Would Mr Brown now pick up the phone and ask Mr Milburn to join his Cabinet line-up? I don’t know, but it would certainly strengthen what is commonly seen as a rather lacklustre team.

Would Mr Milburn, for that matter, ever want to work again with Mr Brown? I don’t know the answer to that either.

I do know, however, that the last time I spoke to Mr Milburn, he was reading Giles Radice’s “Friends and Rivals,” a cautionary tale about three men whose rivalry prevented them working effectively together.

And as the Tories used to say in the days when they regularly won elections, surely now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party?"

Political blogger of the year: Sunny Hundal

Tory blogfather Iain Dale is running a comprehensive set of End of Year Political Awards, with categories from Politician of the Year, to Political Journalist of the Year, to Sexiest Politician of the Year (what?) and Political Blogger of the Year. The results should be entertaining.

But rather bizarrely, his shortlist for Political Blogger of the Year includes neither himself nor his left-of-centre counterpart, Sunny Hundal. This is odd as the pair of them are by far the two most influential figures in the blogosphere at present.

Sunny is the man who, in setting up Liberal Conspiracy has brought some sort of order to the disparate left blogosphere this year. The site is still in its early days, but to get 15-20 left-of-centre bloggers working together at all represents a huge achievement in my view.

The political blogosphere, initially a rather liberal-left fragment of cyberspace, has been dominated by the right for the past couple of years. Next year, thanks in no small part to Sunny's efforts, we will hopefully see some balance restored.

* To spare Sunny's blushes, I have NOT cross-posted this at Liberal Conspiracy.

Birthday memories

My dad, Ken Linford, would have been 80 years old today. It's weird to think of what life might have been like over the past 27 years if he had lived, and what kind of life he and mum would be living if he was alive now. Would they still be living at our old house in Hitchin, Herts? Would they have moved down to Devon to run a garage as they had often spoken about? Would he even have enjoyed being old? Almost certainly not.

I still dream about him quite regularly as if he is still alive, that he didn't really die but went off to start a new life somewhere, but I guess this kind of thing is normal when you lose someone so important at a young age. Wherever he is, I hope it's somewhere peaceful.

The importance of faith

By way of reply to Ourman, Davide Simonetti and others who have questioned my previous post about Nick Clegg, and an earlier one about whether Tony Blair should have discussed his faith, the first thing I want to say is no, I don't believe non-Christians are lesser people, no, I don't believe Christians have a monopoly on morality, and yes, I do agree with Archbishop Rowan that, while I would prefer it if Clegg was a Christian, it is his integrity that matters most.

But I do nevertheless believe that having a personal faith does on the whole make you a better politician, although as I will also make clear, there are always exceptions. So why do I believe this?

There are two main reasons. Firstly, I believe that faith can and usually does give politicians a stronger ethical framework for their actions. I am not saying here that atheists will invariably lack a moral compass, just that having an outside point of reference for one's political beliefs and decisions is helpful.

Canon David Sharp puts it thus: "The Protestant tradition particularly requires a careful examination of the conscience; what will be popular with the public or the party comes far lower down. [His] belief creates another criterion to be passed before he can act. Surely such extra moral tests, over and above strictly political considerations, are likely to make for more responsible decisions."

Secondly, and more fundamentally, I think that because faith in a higher being gives people an awareness of their own limitations and imperfections (the Biblical word "sin" is probably not helpful here) it generally tends to incline them towards humility, and this for me is an essential personal quality for anyone seeking to exercise power over people's lives.

This was why I found Tony Blair's particular brand of Christianity so perplexing. I don't doubt he is a Christian, as indeed is Margaret Thatcher, but his apparent Messiah complex and belief that he could singlehandedly save first the Labour Party, then Britain, then the World, often struck me as evidence of a rather anti-Christian state of mind.

Gordon Brown is a much more genuinely humble man in this regard. His Christianity is much more about applying Jesus's ethical teachings to present-day social problems than rescuing the planet from an axis of evil, and in this sense he seems to me to be a much better example of a Christian politician.

I realise that in the current climate, citing Gordon as a good example of anything is unlikely to convince many to change their point of view, but it is nevertheless as sincere an explanation as I can give of why I believe faith to be important in a political context.

Clegg says no to English Parliament (and God)

BBC coverage of this morning's radio Q&A with Nick Clegg has thus far focused on the revelation that he doesn't believe in God. While that is certainly concerning for me as a Christian, equally so is the fact that the new Liberal Democrat leader used his first day in office to deliver a clear snub to those of us campaigning for symmetrical devolution across the UK - ie giving English voters the same democratic rights and representation as their Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish counterparts.

"Do you believe there should be a Parliament for England similar to what Scotland and Wales has?" was the clear question posed. Clegg replied: "No, but we should devolve power to regions and communities," apparently contradicting his own policy announcement of April this year in which he ended decades of Lib Dem support for elected regional government.

I don't think this is going to play at all well with English voters alienated by New Labour's half-finished devolution project and disillusioned by David Cameron's failure to properly address the issue. Maybe Clegg feels he doesn't need them, but the desire for proper representation for England is part of a much broader revolt against current political structures with which the Lib Dems should be aligning themselves.

English Parliament campaign guru Toque is somewhat pithier as you would expect. "The Clegg family motto is “Let him take what he is able to take”. In Nick Clegg’s case he feels able to take the piss, and so he does."

The challenge for Clegg

So Nick Clegg it is. I made no secret of the fact that I supported Chris Huhne, but although I still have my doubts over whether Clegg is quite the gifted communicator his supporters have always made him out to be, I wish him well.

Britain needs a successful Liberal Democrat party for the simple reason that New Labour has never really been that serious about implementing the constitutional changes needed to introduce genuine democracy to this country. It abandoned any meaningful look at a fair voting system within 18 months of the first term, and has had to be dragged kicking and screaming to an acceptance of the very basic democratic principle that members of the second chamber of Parliament should be elected.

Labour's conversion to greenery has also been rather dilatory and skin-deep in my view. On these and other issues the Lib Dems and their predecessor parties have been setting the agenda in British politics for most of my adult life.

So the first challenge for Clegg in my view is to re-establish the Lib Dems as the party of the environment at the very point it has become the touchstone issue for many voters, and the party of political reform at a time when trust in the established order has never been lower. If he can do this, then I and others will forgive him any amount of cliche-ridden vacuity of the kind we heard in his acceptance speech.

It is clear from both post-declaration speeches that the two candidates have now put the Calamity Clegg episode behind them and are now preparing to work closely together. Huhne has to be Shadow Foreign Secretary in my view, possibly also retaining the climate change brief - it is global warming we are talking about after all.

As a further unifying gesture, I hope Clegg can find room in his team for Huhne's campaign manager, the excellent Lynne Featherstone.

He would of course be mad to move Vince Cable from the Treasury brief, and I don't think for a minute that he will do, but the now-vacant Home Office brief offers the chance for a bold appointment, with Julia Goldsworthy, Ed Davey and David Laws all potential candidates.

Meanwhile, expect Clegg to be the subject of a sustained love-bombing campaign from the Tory bloggers as they seek to persuade Clegg to join Sham Cam's so-called "progressive alliance." Indeed, some would say this has already begun.

Is Cameron playing fast and loose with words?

David Cameron is nothing if not audacious. He is after all, the Conservative leader who set out to be the "heir to Blair," who tried to steal the Lib Dems' long-held mantle as the party of the environment, and who even attempted to convince us that the Tories are now the party that cares most about "society."

So it should come as no great surprise that Mr Cameron, in his call for a Tory-Lib alliance to topple Gordon Brown, is now trying to purloin the label "progressive," which has, in British politics at least, traditionally belonged to the centre-left.

I seem to recall there was some discussion about using the word "progressive" in the title of the Liberal Conspiracy blog, but the common consensus was that it's a word that's more readily abused even than "liberal." If so, Mr Cameron's initiative seems to show we probably made the right decision.

Dictionary definitions are no great help. Among those listed by the Free Dictionary are:

Moving forward; advancing.

Proceeding in steps; continuing steadily by increments: progressive change.

Promoting or favoring progress toward better conditions or new policies, ideas, or methods: a progressive politician; progressive business leadership.

By this token, "progressive" is about as meaningful as that irritating and vacuous piece of management consultancy jargon that is now heard in offices up and down the land - "going forward."

The dictionary also lists a specific definition for "progressive" in the context of taxation, namely:

A tax that takes a larger percentage from the income of high-income people than it does from low-income people.

This is more helpful in terms of defining a centre-left agenda, but then again David Cameron probably claims he believes in this as well, in the sense that we already have a progressive taxation system, and he isn't seeking to make it any less progressive.

Is progressive a word worth fighting over - or should its definition forthwith be restricted to a form of rock music involving long guitar solos, mellotrons and metaphysical imagery?

Cross-posted at Liberal Conspiracy.

Kylie in X-factor fix

I'm glad I'm not the only political blogger who watched the X-Factor, and I agree that young Leon Jackson probably couldn't lose after a skimpily-dressed Kylie Minogue took to the stage to duet with him in a smooth jazz version of her summer 1990 classic Better the Devil You Know.

Meanwhile, here (according to a poster on runner-up Rhydian Roberts' fan blog) is how the conversation between Kylie and X-factor judge sister Dannii might have gone....

Dannii: "Kylie we want you to sing with Leon"
Kylie: "Isn't he the one that you said almost wets himself on stage and sings flat?"
Dannii: "Yes, but...well Simon says he can do something with my career if you agree"
Kylie:" Hmmm"
Dannii: "Oh, and don't bother with clothing, just wear your underwear"

Spot on, Sir John

Sir John Major is spot-on with his comments about the difference between Tory sleaze in the 1990s and Labour sleaze now. And rather than bluster on about how useless a Prime Minister Major was, Labour people ought to have the good grace to accept it.

Dr Crippen "not dead" shock

Over the past couple of years, one of the best and most informative blogs around has been NHS Blog Doctor, written by an anonymous GP who styled himself Dr John Crippen.

Unfortunately Dr Crippen had a long break over the summer and has not posted anything since October 17, which was understandably the cause of some perplexity among his regular readers.

Earlier this week, someone purporting to be a colleague at his workplace left the following comment:

I am a senior partner at 'John's practice, I have only become aware of this 'weblog' after accessing his email account through our internal system. Other partners have read this website, but none of us knew who the author was - although in retrospect there are a number of clues we could have picked up on!

There is no easy way to say this, but the doctor known as 'John' or 'Crippen' passed away in a road traffic accident mid-October. Although I appreciate the esteem in which many of you obviously held him, I must ask that the emails cease as of now - they are all redirected to our mail server and this is causing some difficulty.

Dr. Crippen's identity may no longer need to be secret for his own purposes, but out of respect for his family and remaining colleagues I shall not be sharing this here, neither will I post another message or reply to any left. This webblog will be removed once I can circumnavigate the security protocols for obvious reasons of confidentiality.

This said, I thank all who visit here for their support of our dear, and much missed colleague.

Kind regards, Dr.P.

I thought this comment was exceedingly odd, not least because the bit about deleting the blog and "circumnavigating security protocols" sounded more like the work of a censorious saboteur than someone genuinely concerned to protect "confidentaility."

Subsequent investigations by myself and a number of other bloggers revealed there had been no road accidents reported anywhere in the UK between 17-31 October involving the death of any GPs.

The esteemed swearblogger Devil's Kitchen now claims to have proof that Dr Crippen is not dead, just that he has had enough of blogging for the time being.

If that is so then I'm glad he's still with us - but if he has indeed given up blogging it's a sad loss to the 'sphere.