Charles Clarke is a Kinnockite to the last

Much discussion in the mainstream media today on whether Charles Clarke is set to do a Geoffrey Howe and take revenge on Tony Blair over his sacking from the Cabinet last month by demanding that the Prime Minister set a date for his departure.

If so, it is odd that he is choosing to do it in a Newsnight interview which hardly anyone will watch rather than in a Personal Statement on the floor of the House of Commons, but his decision to speak out is significant none the less.

After all, it is not so very long ago that Clarke was still publicly maintaining that the Prime Minister would stay on until summer 2008 before standing down.

Perhaps the key to it is to remember that Charles Clarke was never really a fully paid-up Blairite. He was a Kinnockite, and Kinnock himself made clear as long ago as April 2004 his view that Blair probably ought to go soon after winning a third term.

June 27 Update: The story was not quite as billed. Despite the trenchant criticisms of Reid and the implied criticism of the reshuffle, Clarke apparently still wants Blair to stay on until 2008. Moral: Don't believe everything you read in the Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Mail...

Politics or football - take your pick!

My two latest podcasts are now live online, one focusing on the World Cup and the other on the past seven days in politics.

The World Cup podcast, put together with colleagues on the thisis network of regional websites, focuses not unnaturally on England's efforts against Ecuador yesterday and their prospects for next weekend's Quarter Final encounter with a weakened Portugal team.

My colleagues are very upbeat about England's chances of making the Final but I remain cautious - I don't really think the experiment of playing Rooney on his own upfront is the best use of the player, and I still maintain a choice will eventually have to be made between Gerrard and Lampard in midfield if we are to get the best out of either.

Anyway to hear the podcast in full, click HERE.

Meanwhile the weekly politics podcast, acompanying my weekly Saturday column, focused on Gordon Brown's nuclear bombshell, and what it could mean for the chances of an "orderly transition."

It can be listened to HERE with the text version available HERE.

The lost leader returns

I watched Charles Kennedy on Question Time last night, his first appearance on national television since his resignation. And he was brilliant, just brilliant.

Given by the audience reaction to him, his rapport with the public remains as strong as ever and his answers were invariably both sensible and judicious, including one to a question from Dimbleby about whether he was now teetotal.

When he was asked about a possible return to the leadership in future, Charles made clear he was not ruling it out, bringing further cheers from an audience that clearly thought he should never have lost the job in the first place.

Bring it on, I say. Besides mumbling Ming and over-hyped political teenager Nick Clegg, Kennedy remains a class act.