Ten years of my Newcastle Journal column

Okay, so they won't be letting off fireworks over the Tyne Bridge, but today is a celebration of sorts for me as it marks ten years of my Saturday Column in the Newcastle Journal.

I was given the column shortly after starting work as the paper's political editor in 1997, and retained it despite standing down from that role in 2004 to spend more time with my family - yes, that really was the reason in my case!

I will always be grateful to The Journal for giving me this break. I had written light-hearted Diary columns before, but it was The Journal which gave me my first chance to do a serious, big picture commentary on the week's political events and I would like to think I found a bit of a niche there.

You can read this week's column in full on the Companion Blog HERE

Whose sock-puppet is Bill Blanko?

As a former Lobby hack, I had to laugh at the appearance in today's Guardian of this sparkling new column about Lobby life written by someone calling himself "Bill Blanko." I think that's what we in the blogosphere know these days as a sock-puppet.

So which Guardian political hack is it? Is it a Guardian hack at all? Suspicion will undoubtedly fall on veteran former Pol Ed "Sir" Michael White, if only for the fact that whoever it is has obviously been around long enough to remember the infamous Lobby Bad Taste competition which used to be held annually at whichever party conference happened to be in Blackpool.

As "Blanko" points out, the winner was whoever managed to purchase the tackiest souvenir from the resort's many tacky souvenir shops. The last contest I recall was won by Jon Craig (now of Sky News) for an imitation penis which you strapped to your ankle so that it protruded from the bottom of your trouser-leg.

Presenting the award in the Press Room at the end of the conference, the Tory MP Alan Duncan announced: "And first prize goes to Jon Craig for confirming what we always knew about him."

Hain rediscovers his balls. A pity he mislaid them in 2003

There was a time when Peter Hain and the late Robin Cook were close allies, soft-left political soulmates who had essentially reached an accommodation with Blairism without ever really becoming "New" Labour.

By and large, Cook maintained this position throughout his six-year ministerial career, pursuing such non-Blairite enthusiasms as proportional representation and an "ethical foreign policy" before finally deciding that supporting the Iraq War would be an accommodation too far.

Unfortunately, Hain failed to resign with him, at a point where such a joint resignation might have brought down this lying Prime Minister and his pathetic excuse for a Labour Government.

Now, belatedly, Hain has rediscovered his principles, arguing in the New Statesman that the neocon experiment has failed and branding George Bush "the most rightwing American administration in living memory."

Why has Hain waited till now to say this? The answer, as at least one Jon Cruddas-supporting blog has pointed out, is that he is standing for Labour's deputy leadership and is trying to reposition himself as an anti-war critic within the Cabinet.

But in my view, he could have had himself a much bigger prize had he joined Cook in opposing the invasion from the start, putting himself in the frame as a credible, sensible left candidate for the leadership.

As it is, I might still back Hain in the deputy leadership election, as I think his views are probably the closest to my own on a range of issues from Iraq to devolution to personal taxation.

But he will only have himself to blame if people who should have been his natural supporters end up backing Mr Cruddas instead.