End of the peers show

The latest podcast, looking at what happens next with Lords reform in the wake of last week's historic Commons vote, is now available HERE.

Memories of Tony

Interesting to see that the BBC is inviting people to send in their stories of the day I met Tony Blair, doubtless as part of some valedictory package it is currently putting together.

I can't really help them as I have only ever met him in a professional capacity, and that doesn't really count. But for the record, even though I interviewed him five times between 1995 and 2001, I always found him a rather shy individual who found small-talk difficult and was extremely reluctant to give anything of himself away.

Gordon Brown on the other hand, on the sole occasion at which I managed to interact with him at any length, came over as ebullient, witty and not at all afraid to indulge in general chit-chat with a journalist.

What I find interesting about this is that it is in complete contradiction to their public personas, of Brown as dour and charmless and Blair as bright and outgoing. It makes me wonder how much we really know about what our leaders are actually like.

Be afraid...be very afraid

My attention has been drawn to an excellent but extremely disturbing post on Rachel from North London today predicting some potentially shattering forthcoming revelations with regard to the use of intelligence prior to the 7/7 bombings. Apparently this has been known about within media circles for some time but kept secret because the whole thing is sub judice.

Writes Rachel: "There is one hell of a tidal wave coming, as secrets that have been hidden for too long start to emerge."

Obviously I can't add any information of my own at this stage, other than to make the comment that if the contents of her post are even half-way true, then there are going to be such serious questions asked of our political masters that the case for a public inquiry into the bombings will become unanswerable.

Davide Simonetti has taken advantage of the Downing Street e-petition initiative to lodge one in support of an inquiry, and you can sign it HERE.

Update: Sorry to have to impose comment moderation last night but someone took this post as an invitation to openly speculate on the nature of the forthcoming story in a way that specifically linked it to a named ongoing criminal trial. Since I don't especially want to be accused of prejudicing a court case that might result in people who tried to kill hundreds of other people being locked up, I took it down.