A wider choice, please

Nominations in the Lib Dem leadership contest close on Wednesday, and it seems 99.9pc certain that the party will have a straight choice between Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne. The distinctions between the two candidates have sharpened over the weekend with Huhne coming out against Trident and Clegg making clear his support for the independent nuclear deterrent. Twenty years on from the infamous Steel-Owen wrangle over defence which wrecked the Liberal-SDP's chances in the 1987 election, it seems the differences within the party over this issue are as strong as ever.

Meanwhile, readers of this blog have been making clear their own view that they would have appreciated a wider choice in this leadership election, as indeed I would. My two polls show Huhne narrowly ahead of Clegg in a head-to-head contest, but well behind Charles Kennedy and Julia Goldsworthy in a notional poll involving all the candidates who previously ruled themselves out.

To say how you would cast your vote between Clegg and Huhne, click HERE. To choose between Vincent Cable, Clegg, Ed Davey, Goldsworthy, Simon Hughes, Huhne, Kennedy, Susan Kramer, David Laws and Steve Webb, click HERE. And if you think I'm paying far too much attention to the Lib Dem contest, please say so in the comments!

Brown must be bolder

Reviving the constitutional reform agenda was always going to be a central aspect of Gordon Brown's premiership as he seeks to restore public trust in politics following its near-collapse under Tony Blair. But with Labour now lagging behind in the opinion polls after the non-election debacle, he needs to do more than just rehash a set of proposals - albeit worthy ones - that were first unveiled last July.

In particular, he needs to take a fresh look at proportional representation for Westminster. The first-past-the-post system, by encouraging the parties to target their messages at voters in a hundred or so marginal constituencies, has resulted in the effective disenfranchisement of most of the population and thereby increased the public's alienation from the political process.

In addition, if Mr Brown is going to starting banging the drum for "liberty" as he did in his Westminster University speech this week, he must look again at the ID card scheme. As well as being potentially the biggest infringement of individual liberties in this country since rationing, it will also cost an estimated £15bn to implement which most people think could be better spent elsewhere.

More in this vein in my weekly Saturday round-up of the week's political events, which can be read in the Newcastle Journal and HERE.

A sick society

A society is judged by how it treats its weakest and most vulnerable members. Which is why this story sickened me to the core.

The top 10 acts of political altruism?

Following on from my Top 10 Political Misjudgements, which looked at political bad calls which adversely affected the careers of those who made them, a number of people have asked whether I could compile a list of acts which, while bad for their perpetrators, actually turned out to be good for the country.

My initital, perhaps rather cynical reply was to doubt that there were actually ten politicians who had been prepared to sacrifice their careers in such a way, but I am open to being proved wrong!

Politaholic, writing on Westminster Wisdom, nominated John Hume, saying:

"I can think of one act of political altruism (or at any rate putting public interest ahead of party interest): John Hume's participation in the Hume-Adams talks. Bringing Sinn Fein into the political mainstream was something from which the SDLP could only lose. I don't think this was a misjudgement: Hume knew what he was doing."

I can think of one other example - Roy Jenkins' decision to rebel against the Labour leadership in 1972 and vote with the Tories in favour of joining the EEC. Readers will have different views as to whether this course of action was good or bad for the country, but ultimately it cost him the Deputy Leadership and the inside track in the race to succeed Wilson.

Are there more examples? If readers can find at least ten, I will duly compile the list based on your nominations.