Cameron or Davis?

As a bit of a lefty liberal, I'm not sure I'm qualified to pass a judgement on who ought to be Tory leader, but suffice to say I think either candidate would be an improvement on Major, Hague, IDS and Howard. Anyone who is interested in reading my views in greater detail can find them here.

The amount of media interest in the contest seems to me an indication that politics is getting back to normal after the long intermission of the Blair years, and that the next election will see the kind of close contest between the Conservatives and Labour we routinely saw in the 60s and 70s.

English Parliament campaigners put me on the spot!

As readers of this blog will know I support the Campaign for an English Parliament as a means of balancing our topsy-turvy constitution which gives Scottish and Welsh MPs a say over English affairs but no corresponding say for English MPs over Scotland and Wales. Now the CEP's Gareth Young has carried out a wide-ranging interview with me on the issue which can be read on the campaign newsblog.

In return Gareth has kindly admitted me to the Witanagemot Club which is a corner of the blogosphere devoted to exploring the issues around English political identity.

Blair's vanity could wreck Labour

What are we to make of this year's Labour Party Conference? The week began with an apparent consensus between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown over their proposed "orderly handover" but the feeling at the end was that the Prime Minister was set to go "on and on."

Now my old lobby colleague Paddy Hennessy of the Sunday Tel has revealed that the Blairites are talking yet again of putting up Alan Milburn as a rival contender for the leadership, even though he has twice walked away from the political frontline. Read the full story here.

My own view on this is that if Blair does not make way for Brown by 2007 he risks causing a calamitous split in the party that will lose it the next General Election. I explore this further in my post-conference column.

A similar viewpoint came from David Clark - not a journalist by background but increasingly one of the country's most perceptive political commentators - on Guardian Unlimited.