The lost leader's lament

This BBC interview with the former Labour leadership contender Bryan Gould has been around for a few days but I think it's well worth a read, if only for his less-than-flattering views of the current crop of leadership hopefuls.

On John Reid: "It would be frankly amazing if he became the next Prime Minister."

On David Miliband: "He seems to be more of a back-room intellectual who lacks the political touch."

On Charles Clarke: "The most serious challenger in terms of ability but he has been behaving in a bizarre way recently."

On Alan Milburn: "Government didn't seem to suit him - he became more pompous".

Neither does Gordon Brown emerge unscathed, with Gould appearing to damn the Chancellor with faint praise. "He's got deeper roots than Blair with the party, more affection for the party than Blair, but the reason he was dumped as a leadership candidate by Peter Mandelson in 1994 was because Tony was more voter friendly."

His most complimentary words are reserved for Jack Straw whom he praises as "a politician to his fingertips", before adding obliquely: "I don't think he's got charisma or the personality to be prime minister, but that's not to say that someone without personality can't become the prime minister."

I rated Gould very highly during his time in British politics and was sorry to see him depart to the world of New Zealand academia, although I don't doubt that the move has proved a happy and fulfilling one for him personally.

In 1992, he was told that he would get John Smith's backing for the deputy leadership if he agreed to stand aside and allow Smith a free run at the leadership, but refused and was ultimately elected for neither post.

This begs the interesting counterfactual question whether, had he accepted the deal and thereby become Acting Leader at the time Smith died, Gould might have actually become leader instead of Tony Blair.

My bet is that he would, at the very least, have held on to the deputy leadership, and gone on to become a senior figure in the Blair administration, with John Prescott's Cabinet career following a similar path to that of Frank Dobson.

Saddam should be spared the hangman's noose

Tony Blair says he is "against the death penalty, whether it is Saddam or anybody else." Nevertheless, the Government appears content to allow Iraqi justice to take its inevitable course, and the former Iraqi dictator's days on earth are now surely numbered.

The inconsistencies in the Government's supposedly "ethical" stance have already been well highlighted by Guido Fawkes. As one poster on Guido's blog put it: "If you are against the death penalty, you at least need to be consistent."

My consistent position, for what it's worth, is that I am against the death penalty, whether it be for a guilty man like Saddam Hussain or a wholly innocent one like Mirza Tahir Hussain.

As a Christian I believe that the only way to break the cycle of violence is not vengence, but forgiveness. It may sound idealistic, not of the real world, but in actual fact we see this principle played out again and again in the real world of international politics, and in life generally come to that.

Other interesting, thoughtful contributions from the blogosphere today - both for and against Saddam's execution - have come from:

Skipper
Mars Hill
John Wilkes
David Cox
Rachel from North London

I'm happy to go with this from Rachel: "Personally, I'm not comfortable with the death penalty. Even for crimes against humanity. He should rot in jail, thinking on what he has done. As should others, who cold-bloodedly ordered actions resulting in the deaths of thousands, based on ''policy'', posturing and lies."

November 7 Update: I really ought to add a link to this piece by Adam Boulton whose heroic questioning of the Prime Minister yesterday was broadcast journalism at its best.

Some have accused Adam of "rudeness" but they should remember that the Prime Minister was initially seeking to avoid giving an answer to the question by hiding behind Margaret Beckett's coat-tails. This was pretty shabby behaviour in my view from someone who has always prided himself on strong leadership and leading from the front, not least on the whole issue of Iraq.

It won't be The Sun wot wins it for Dave

Ever since the 1992 election and the claim that "it was The Sun wot won it" for John Major's Tories, a legend has grown up around the Rupert Murdoch-owned red-top and its perceived level of political influence.

In my view, its election day splash on that occasion (pictured left) was probably the single most disgraceful piece of journalism of the last 30 years. So far as I could make out, the only people who had actually said they were going to "leave Britain" if Kinnock won were Andrew Lloyd Webber and Phil Collins, neither of whom would have been any great loss and one of whom later emigrated anyway.

But in what turned out to be a very tight election race that was ultimately decided by a few hundred voters in a dozen or so marginal seats, I would concede that the Sun's relentless rubbishing of Kinnock probably did have an effect.

Now, with another tight race in prospect in 2009/10, there has been much recent comment over the Sun's apparent hostility towards David Cameron, notably from Mike Smithson, whose PoliticalBetting.com is currently the top political blog in my view, and BBC pol ed Nick Robinson.

Both Nick and Mike speculate that the paper has turned decisively against the young Tory leader following his decision to vote for an inquiry into the War in Iraq and his "tough love" speech of last week, citing as evidence this piece in Saturday's paper by Deputy Political Editor Andrew Porter.

But should Cameron be worried? Well, it is certainly the case that, back in the 1970s, The Sun played a big part in bringing its mainly working-class readership on board the Thatcher bandwagon, and as I have already said, its demonisation of Kinnock almost certainly swung a few votes in '92.

I would go further and say that its subsequent decision to back Labour in 1997 - having previously regarded the party as totally unfit to govern - did send out an important subliminal message to the wider electorate about the extent to which the party had changed.

But would a similar decision to back Cameron now send out the same message about the Tories? Probably quite the reverse.

The Sun's recent attacks on Dave have come from the right, lambasting him for failing to support "Our Boys" and for what they see as a "soft" approach to law and order. As everybody in politics knows, this is just exactly where Cameron wants to be attacked from.

It follows, to my mind, that Cameron ultimately has more to gain from not obtaining The Sun's endorsement at the next General Election than from getting Rupert's thumbs-up.

What really made The Sun a great newspaper in its own way was the political culture which spawned it, which gave it ample opportunities for the kind of dragon-slaying that was its forte.

In the 70s it railed against union power, to great and ultimately decisive effect. In the 1980s it was "loony lefties" (including, it should not be forgotten, supporters of gay rights). In the 1990s, it was Europe.

Now, in a political culture in which everyone is falling over eachother in a mad rush for the centre-ground, there is less need or demand for that style of confrontational political journalism.

In short, The Sun has become a newspaper just like any other. Influential, yes - no paper with its number of readers could fail to be. But a maker or breaker of governments and oppositions no longer.