Bloggers 4 Benn?

With Hilary Benn now officially in the race for Labour's deputy leadership, it is already clear that a head of steam is building up behind the International Development Secretary - in the blogosphere as well as among MPs.

A totally unscientific survey of leading Labour bloggers appears to show support pretty evenly dividing between Mr Benn and Jon Cruddas, with little support as yet for Harriet Harman, Peter Hain or any of the other possibles.

Among the Bloggers 4 Benn are Mike Ion who says: "I admire Benn enormously and feel that he is a man of real moral stature and courage and I am confident that he will have broad appeal both across the party and the country."

Paul Burgin, author of the Mars Hill blog agrees saying: "Like his father - although father and son are from different wings of the Party - he is charming, polite, sociable and thoughtful....He is also down-to-earth and the only sitting cabinet minister I have met who I have dared to address by his first name."

Against that, Reclaim Labour's Harry Perkins reminds readers of a speech earlier this year in which Mr Benn criticised the Make Poverty History campaign this evening for ignoring the role jobs and economic growth play in lifting the poor out of poverty.

Influential Labour blog Kerron Cross appears to be firmly behind Cruddas, as is The Daily, whose Westminster-based authors claim to have been the first to reveal plans for a Benn challenge.

And me? Well, I am really none too sure at the moment who I will back, although, as I will be supporting Gordon Brown for the leadership come what may, I will be looking towards the candidate who I think will provide the most balanced ticket.

In this context, there is a good case to be made for a gender balanced ticket, but Ms Harman was in my view one of the least distinguished of Blair's female Cabinet ministers and the only other female alternative, Hazel Blears, comes from the wrong wing of the party in my view.

No, what is needed to balance a Brown leadership is someone from the sensible left, and, although Hilary Benn may pick up substantial support from this section of the party, I don't think he really fits the bill in terms of bringing an alternative perspective to bear on future policy direction.

For me, then, the choice currently lies between Cruddas and Peter Hain. I like a lot of what Cruddas has been saying about reconnecting the Government and the party, but am not at all convinced that disconnnecting the roles of Deputy Leader and Deputy Prime Minister is the best way to achieve this.

As for Hain, I have great admiration for him and what he has achieved in his career as a campaigner and as a politician but I think there has to be some question mark over whether, alongside Gordon, he would provide a sufficiently fresh face.

So, for now at least, I'm keeping my options open.

Democracy in Iraq? We should have tried it at home first

What's the relationship between the War in Iraq and House of Lords reform? Well, perhaps little, except that they were both in the news last week and therefore provided some of the subject matter for my latest Column and accompanying Podcast.

But is there not a delicious irony in the fact that a Government which has preached so much about the need to export democratic values to other countries cannot, even after nine years in power, bring itself to support a democratically-elected Second Chamber?

"[Jack] Straw's plan for a 50-50 split between elected and appointed peers scarcely seems like a great step forward, especially when a 2003 plan for the Upper House to be 80pc elected came within three votes of gaining Commons approval. But the really amazing thing is that there should be any debate about this at all.

"As one newspaper's leader column put it this week: “The starting point for any debate about any legislature should be that is democratically elected. It therefore ought to be for the opponents of democracy to have to justify themselves.”"

Incidentally, the Lincolnshire Echo version of the column is now no more, having been summarily axed in an email sent out on Friday. Coming soon after the loss of my North West Enquirer column as a result of that newspaper going into receivership last month, it is a not inconsiderable blow.

They say these things normally come in threes, don't they?

Better late than never

Having just come back from possibly the wettest walking weekend I have ever experienced in the Lake District - the highlight of which was having to wade across a swollen river normally crossed by a small footbridge - I am fairly sympathetic towards the Government's belated attempts to push climate change to the top of the political agenda.

Of course, Labour are playing catch-up here. The Liberal Democrats have a well-deserved reputation as the most environmentalist party in British politics, having long favoured greater "green taxation." Latterly, David Cameron has also jumped on the bandwagon and, to be fair, seems to be far more serious about green issues than any of his predecessors.

Nevertheless, today's publication of the Stern Report together with Gordon Brown's appointment of Al Gore as an environmental adviser have to be seen as steps forward. I cannot understand my fellow blogger Iain Dale's oft-stated objection to Gore and can only put it down to pure Conservative tribalism.

When I went to bed at 2am on 8th November 2000 after watching the early results come in, Gore was US president-elect. When I got up at 7am and turned the telly back on, Bush was. There are very few people among my own circle of friends who do not think the world would now be a much better place had that reversal of fortune not occurred.