Thinking the Unthinkable

Frank Field used to be one of my favourite MPs, a Christian socialist not afraid to speak his mind. But after his contribution to the Labour leadership debate today I am reminded of Clem Attlee's memorable retort to Harold Laski: "A period of silence from you would now be welcome."

Writing in today's Guardian, Field argues that it is time for Labour to skip a generation to David Miliband, arguing that Gordon Brown's position as leader-in-waiting arises merely from a misguided sense of indebtedness to him for not splitting the party last time round rather than any assessment of his ability.

As that astute observer David Herdson has pointed out on Political Betting, Field's article comes over more as a justification for not electing Brown than an argument for electing the Boy David.

Coming in the wake of last Thursday's astonishing gaffe on Question Time last Thursday - which will be used mercilessly against Gordon by the Tories - it also displays the impeccable timing of the consummate political operator - not.

Field urges us to draw from the "lessons" of history, in which natural heirs apparent who take over have ended up making a botch of things (Chamberlain, Eden) while unexpected dark horses who overtook the favourite have gone on to electoral success (Baldwin, Major.)

I would simply urge Field to look at three more recent and pertitent examples of where a decision to pass over the natural successor has badly backfired on the party concerned: Foot over Healey in 1980, Hague over Clarke in 1997, IDS over Portillo and Clarke in 2001.

The sad truth about Frank Field is that he is an embittered man who blames Brown for the failure of his welfare reform green paper in 1998 when he was challenged to "think the unthinkable," and for his subsequent sacking from the Government.

I hate to speak ill of a fellow Christian, but this article ought to ensure that the process of estrangement from the Labour Party, which has been going on ever since that abrupt dismissal, is now complete.

Blog Wars and Think Tanks

I have said little on the so-called Blog Wars between Tim and Guido since my original post on the matter last month in which I predicted, correctly as it has turned out, that the debate would eventually polarise on political lines. Iain Dale has today called for an end to it, but that seems a forlorn hope at present.

As I said at the outset, I'm sitting on the fence on this one, and none of what follows should be construed as taking sides, but I have thought for some time that there is one aspect of this "war" that is deeply misguided, and about which I ought to speak out. This is the apparent attempt to smear Gordon Brown over his links with the Smith Institute, and the resulting revenge attacks on certain Tory bloggers over their links with the Policy Exchange.

The Smith Institute was set up in memory of the late John Smith. Believe it or not, Gordon Brown was very close to John Smith as a politician and still holds very similar ideas to him on a range of issues. Is it therefore a very great surprise that Brown and the Smith Institute have a close relationship? No, any more than it is a surprise that a would-be Conservative MP such as Iain Dale or a would-be Tory Mayor of London such as Nick Boles should be a trustees of a right-wing think tank, the Policy Exchange.

My point is that political think-tanks are a part of the political process, and have been at least since the days of Harold Wilson and Ted Heath. Some of these think-tanks are close to individual politicians. As I said about David Cameron's schoolboy toking earlier today, big fucking deal.

Feb 14 update: That's enough blog wars - Ed. Comments on this thread will remain open, but the main debate is continuing elsewhere and I think I've said what I have to say on the matter for the time being.

I do have some sympathy with Tim Ireland's view that the blogosphere is a community in which people owe eachother some sort of obligation of good behaviour - as a socialist I would make the same argument about society generally - but I also accept that individual bloggers like Guido have a perfect right to run their blogs in the way they choose, and that there is no sense trying to enforce a "code of etiquette" without more widespread consent for that. End of communication.

The Big Idea

Transport secretary Douglas Alexander - and, presumably, Gordon Brown - wants to have a debate about using road charging to reduce congestion by 25pc despite a 1m-signature petition against the idea.

Well, it may or may not surprise Mr Alexander to learn that someone has already thought of a Big Idea for reducing the number of motorists off the road. It's called public transport.

It strikes me that there is potential for some very interesting political cross-dressing on this one if David Cameron wants to defend the cost of motoring as free at the point of delivery while at the same time underlining his environmental credentials by ploughing the proceeds of green taxes into trains and buses.

Could the Tories, the party of Dr Beeching and rail privatisation, really become the party of public transport? Stranger things have happened.