More on road pricing

The ongoing debate on road pricing provides the main subject matter for my latest Week in Politics Podcast which is now live. A text version can be found on the Derby Evening Telegraph'sthis is Derbyshire site, HERE.

Tony Crosland

At the end of the week which marked the 30th anniversary of the death of Tony Crosland at the tragically young age of 58, there is just time for me to pay a short tribute to one of my political heroes and to plug Giles Radice's wonderful book Friends and Rivals, one of my favourite political reads of recent years.

Crosland was Foreign Secretary and at the height of his powers in February 1977 when he was struck down by a brain haemorrhage. Had he lived, it is quite possible that he rather than Michael Foot would have succeeded Jim Callaghan as Labour leader in 1980, and succeeded in preventing the SDP breakaway which wrecked the party's electoral prospects for a decade.

Radice's book is a masterful exploration of the personal rivalry between Crosland and his two close allies, Denis Healey and Roy Jenkins, and how their failure to make common cause as the modernisers of their day ultimately led to Labour's wilderness years.

Happily, the review I wrote for the Newcastle Journal at the time of publication in 2002 is still available on the paper's website, and it can be found HERE.

Forget Meacher and McDonnell - the only credible left challenger is John Denham

So the worst-kept secret in politics is out. Michael Meacher is to challenge Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership, claiming only he can unite the left." The reaction from the John McDonnell camp was suitably pithy. "We have been expecting Michael's announcement for over nine months. It doesn't change things."

Indeed it doesn't. Both men are completely unelectable either as Labour leader or as Prime Ministers and will be trounced by Brown if they ever get on the ballot paper - McDonnell because he is an unreconstructed throwback to the days of the Loony Left, Meacher because he is an ageing Faust who compromised every political ideal he ever held in his long and ultimately fruitless attempts to hang onto ministerial office.

That the election could throw up two such unpromising candidates is symptomatic of the plight of the left at this time. McDonnell seems a perfecly amiable chap, and can at least point to a principled voting record. But Meacher has zero credibility with the left as a result of his decision not to resign over the Iraq War - a decision he now says he bitterly regrets.

If left-leaning MPs are looking for a credible candidate to stand against Brown, as opposed to a token standard-bearer who will simply make Gordon look good, they should look no further than the one man in their midst who did resign over the war - John Denham.

Unlike Meacher or McDonnell, Denham is a sensible leftie who in most respects holds perfectly mainstream Labour Party views, notably on the importance of tackling inequality. He also, of course, has relevant recent high-level ministerial experience as a minister in the Home Office.

John Denham is a man of high principle who in my opinion would make an admirable Prime Minister. Unfortunately he seems to have no intention of standing. Unless he can be persuaded to do so, the left should stop wasting its time - and the Labour Party's money - and get behind Gordon.