The old politics is back

Is politics returning to normal? Even before the government's pettyfogging decision to boycott Question Time over, of all things, the presence of Bad Al Campbell on the panel, the signs were there. Here's today's Journal column.

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After the unchartered waters of the post-election period and the initial excitement of the Lib-Con coalition deal, the political events of the past week had a reassuringly familiar feel to them.

A Conservative Chancellor unveiled a swingeing package of spending cuts. Labour frontbenchers queued up to attack them.

Meanwhile a Conservative Education Secretary unveiled plans to reduce the role of local authorities in schools – as Labour accused him of trying to recreate a two-tier education system.

So much for the 'new politics.' This was just like old times.

For the North-East, the new political era is already carrying unwelcome echoes of the Thatcher-Major years.

National newspapers have once again started to carry long features on the region's plight, and how its relatively high proportion of public sector jobs will leave it vulnerable to the spending cutbacks. Tell us something we don't know.

The one bright star on the horizon is that ministers have bowed to the demands of this newspaper among others to retain a region-wide economic body.

Communities secretary Eric Pickles moreorless confirmed on Wednesday that this would be the existing job-creation agency One NorthEast, albeit in a radically slimmed-down form.

But though some will doubtless bemoan the loss of Labour's child trust funds, there is a consensus of sorts over the cuts, the only argument being whether they should have happened now or later.

Michael Gove's education proposals - a re-run of the Major government's grant-maintained schools initiative - are however likely to be far more controversial.

By opening the way to thousands of schools to become 'academies,' the Tories' real aim appears to be to further neuter the role of local government.

For all the talk of 'localism,' all this will result in is more and more schools being directly-funded – and thus ultimately controlled – from the centre.

Labour activists, many of whom are teachers and many more of whom work in local government, will hate this measure probably more than any other to emerge from the coalition so far.

In terms of the Labour leadership contest, it ought to play into the hands of the former children's secretary, Ed Balls, who led the attack on it this week in his usual combative style.

Nevertheless Mr Balls remains very much an outsider in the race which thus far looks set to be a contest between the Miliband brothers, David and Ed.

The election of South Shields MP David as Labour leader would, at least, be some compensation for the fact that the North-East is the only region without a single MP in the government.

Of all the many vignettes that have emerged from that strange five-day post-election limbo when no-one quite knew who had won, one of the most intriguing concerns a 3am conversation between Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown.

The former Lib Dem leader was apparently begging his old friend to broker a Lib-Lab coalition and finally realise their dream of a new 'progressive alliance.'

But Mr Blair said no, it was time Labour went into opposition, arguing that if it clung on to power this time round, it would pay a terrible price at the next election.

As the initial euphoria around the coalition subsides, and the harsh reality of its programme starts to bite, it is looking increasingly like the right judgment call.

Wanted: More candidates

I have to confess to being decidedly underwhelmed thus far by the Labour leadership election. Aside from the fact that many of the best candidates have ruled themselves out of the running on the grounds of age - always a depressing state of affairs for those of us who are nearer 50 than 40 - the distinctly monochrome nature of the four leading candidates, all white middle-class males who moved into important positions in government on the back of having once been junior research assistants to Gordon Brown or Tony Blair, leaves little to get excited about.

Of the four - I am discounting Diane Abbott and John McDonnell as no-hopers - the one that has so far talked the most sense is Andy Burnham. He at least seems to have some understanding of the Labour Party's roots, and a coherent story to tell about how it managed to lose touch with its natural supporters over recent years. I have also, in the past two days, been impressed by Ed Balls: the new government's divisive new education reforms, a throwback to the mid-1990s mania for grant-maintained status, will surely give him a platform from which to rally support.

Of the Miliblands, there is much less positive to be said from my point of view. To tell the truth, I would not be unhappy with either of them as leader, and David's so-called 'Blairite' credentials - a fatal drawback if genuine - have always been seriously overplayed in my view. But I wonder whether either of them are quite combative enough for the role at a time when the Con-Lib coalition is threatening to carry all before it.

Certainly Harriet Harman made a good stab at puncturing David Cameron's growing self-confidence this week, and I still don't think it is entirely outside the bounds of possibility that she could come into the race. For one, I don't think she would be entirely happy to see Abbott carrying the torch for Labour's wimmin. For another, I think it's very noticeable that some of the key Brownites who were behind her deputy leadership campaign - the likes of Nick Brown and Kevan Jones - have yet to declare for any of the other candidates.

What this is all leading up to is that, to my mind, the field is currently way too narrow. I am hugely disappointed that Yvette Cooper has decided not to stand - if brother can stand against brother, then why not wife against husband? - but I do understand her reasons. No such considerations apply, however, to the other great absentee from the race - Ben Bradshaw.

He was an experienced and successful minister. He was not clearly associated with either Brown or Blair but was regarded as having been loyal to both men. He has an interesting personal backstory that resonates with 21st century Britain. He is good-looking, articulate and good on TV. Perhaps most importantly of all, he has had a life outside the Westminster goldfish bowl and a successful career in the real world. Why is he not standing?

Going home

For the last couple of years or so, Ashes to Ashes has been the only must-watch programme on TV for me, and last night's final episode certainly lived up to its billing.

DCI Gene Hunt's world, it turned out, was a kind of purgatory for dead cops, with Gene as the guardian angel trying to usher them all into pub heaven while his nemesis Jim Keats, a thinly-disguised Satan, attempts to send them to hell/oblivion/a nightclub where Club Tropicana is playing on endless loop.

Some will no doubt think it's a bit of a cop-out but speaking personally, I find the idea of the afterlife a lot more believable than the idea of time travel. Then again, as a Christian, I suppose I would do.

Heaven is a concept which, like most people, I sometimes struggle to understand. Who can even begin to fathom what it is and what it might consist of? But in my limited human understanding - and at the risk of being slightly subversive - I find the idea of heaven as the inside of a warmly-lit pub as good a metaphor for paradise as anything...