English Parliament campaigners put me on the spot!

As readers of this blog will know I support the Campaign for an English Parliament as a means of balancing our topsy-turvy constitution which gives Scottish and Welsh MPs a say over English affairs but no corresponding say for English MPs over Scotland and Wales. Now the CEP's Gareth Young has carried out a wide-ranging interview with me on the issue which can be read on the campaign newsblog.

In return Gareth has kindly admitted me to the Witanagemot Club which is a corner of the blogosphere devoted to exploring the issues around English political identity.

Blair's vanity could wreck Labour

What are we to make of this year's Labour Party Conference? The week began with an apparent consensus between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown over their proposed "orderly handover" but the feeling at the end was that the Prime Minister was set to go "on and on."

Now my old lobby colleague Paddy Hennessy of the Sunday Tel has revealed that the Blairites are talking yet again of putting up Alan Milburn as a rival contender for the leadership, even though he has twice walked away from the political frontline. Read the full story here.

My own view on this is that if Blair does not make way for Brown by 2007 he risks causing a calamitous split in the party that will lose it the next General Election. I explore this further in my post-conference column.

A similar viewpoint came from David Clark - not a journalist by background but increasingly one of the country's most perceptive political commentators - on Guardian Unlimited.

Keep cricket free-to-air!

So England have won back the Ashes at last. I think on balance we deserved it, although you have to admire the way the Aussies fought to the bitter end even though they were clearly the lesser side. In the end, it really came down to that 2-run victory in the Second Test. If we'd gone 2-0 down then, it would have been game over.

But for many cricket lovers, this is a bitter sweet moment, with cricket about to disappear from our TV screens for four years at the very moment it has regained its place in the national psyche.

The blame for this lies squarely with the New Labour Government which has allowed the systematic rape of our sporting "crown jewels" by the Aussie presss baron Rupert Murdoch, the most pernicious influence on British public life over the last 30 years.

Having ruined the Sunday Times, which at one time was the best newspaper in the world, he's now ruining British sport - and New Labour, terrified that he will turn on them in the way he turned on Neil Kinnock and John Major, is letting him do it.

A campaign has now been launched called Keep Cricket Free which aims to put political pressure on Blair and Co to review the deal between the English Cricket Board and Sky TV.

You can find their site and sign their petition here