The great Tory transport U-turn

This story has not had a tremendous amount of coverage, but I think it's potentially another very significant step on the road back to electability for the Tories.

In my view, rail privatisation was the single most damaging act of the John Major premiership and thus the single biggest reason why they deserved to be kicked out of office in 1997. It was clearly a scorched-earth policy designed to make things as difficult as possible for their successors, and in that, it more than succeeded as John Prescott and Stephen Byers both found to their cost.

Working-class MPs: A good or bad thing?

Commenting on the death of former miner and Labour MP Kevin Hughes, the former Europe minister Denis MacShane has lamented the decline of working-class representation in Parliament - historically speaking the original raison d'etre for the Labour Party's existence.

Macshane blames it on Margaret Thatcher and her destruction of the coalfield communities, but for my part, I put it more down to the progressive convergence between left and right and the resulting homogenisation of MPs' social backgrounds, as well as the narrowing of the window of social opportunity that existed in the 1960s and 70s for the likes of ambitious working-class boys like John Prescott and Alan Milburn.

Either way, Macshane's comments have provoked what, to say the least, is an interesting reaction on the otherwise excellent Labour Watch site, whose author writes: "It is difficult to argue convincingly in support of the idea of more MPs like Dave Anderson, John Cummings, and Ronnie Campbell in parliament."

Shame on him! Quite apart from the fact that the trio he singles out are all from the North-East - a bit region-ist for a Lib Dem, don't you think? - the constituencies they represent are all themselves heavily working-class.

Is Labour Watch seriously arguing that consittuencies such as Easington and Blyth Valley with large numbers of former mineworkers would be better represented by policy wonks like David Miliband or law lecturers like Stephen Byers as opposed to, er, former mineworkers like Cummings and Campbell?

As MacShane quite rightly says: "We have fewer and fewer working-class Labour MPs like Kevin Hughes now, and parliament is the poorer as a result."

Fattersley joins the list

Former Labour deputy leader Roy Hattersley has become the second most senior Labour figure (after Denis Healey) to join the growing list of MPs, peers, newspapers, political commentators, bloggers and pollsters who have publicly called on Tony Blair to stand down this year.

The list currently stands as follows:

Lord Healey
Lord Hattersley
Andrew Smith
Frank Dobson
Michael Meacher
Ashok Kumar
Glenda Jackson
The Guardian
The Daily Telegraph
The Economist
The New Statesman
Tribune
Polly Toynbee
Matthew Parris
Jonathan Freedland
Stephen Pollard
Paul Linford
Bloggerheads
Skipper
BBC Newsnight poll
Times Populus poll
YouGov poll of Labour members

Back in business

Apologies to all who have visited this site over the past week hoping to find something new...I've been up in the Lakes with Gill and George trying out our new Vango Diablo 900, nicknamed the Millennium Dome by some camping enthusiasts.

Apparently a few things have been happening in my absence....oh well, can't win 'em all! I'm sure I'll have a chance to catch up with the trials and tribulations of Lord Levy and the ongoing debate over the role of political bloggers over the next few days or so....

Meanwhile, here's a picture of the wonderful NT campsite at Great Langdale where we were staying.

Remembering 7/7

Largely thanks to Iain Dale linking to my Prescott post (below) I had a record number of hits on this blog yesterday, as well as getting interviewed by the Guardian for a piece coming out on Monday on the whole Lobby - Blogosphere interface that the Prezza story has highlighted.

All of which is very exciting and encouraging for me at this time. But today is the anniversary of the 7/7 London bombings, and I don't want you to read my blog today.

I want you to go to Rachel from North London and read the moving words and prayers which the Kings Cross victims will today join together in saying, or to Comment is Free where survivor Holly Finch describes her quest to find goodness admist the suffering.

Above all, I want you to sign the petition for a full public inquiry into these bombings, including the issue of why a bookshop assistant who attempted to tip-off West Yorkshire police about the activities of Mohammad Sidique Khan appears to have been written off as a nutter.

It's not just Tory bloggers who think Prescott should go

The last time I wrote anything about John Prescott was four weeks ago in my Saturday column which appears in the Newcastle Journal, Derby Evening Telegraph and Lincolnshire Echo.

On that occasion I wrote:

"Mr Prescott’s sole case for continuance in office rests on the argument that it would be better for the Labour Party to resolve the leadership and deputy leadership issues at the same time.

"True - but that is not an argument for Mr Prescott to cling on till Mr Blair goes. It is, rather, an argument that they should both go now."

So why the reticence since then? Well, it's not that I've been avoiding the subject. It's just that nothing that has happened in the whole Prescott saga in the meantime has caused me to revise this opinion in any way.

The fact that Mr Prescott received hospitality from a millionaire who wants to open a casino in the Millennium Dome, or that Guido Fawkes has named the third Prescott mistress merely confirms me in my view that Labour needs a clean sweep at the top.

Today the story has taken a different turn with claims that "Tory bloggers" are behind a "dirty tricks campaign" designed to force Mr Prescott out of office.

The series of claims was made via Mr Prescott's biographer and unofficial media spokesman Colin Brown in today's Independent.

"Friends of the Deputy Prime Minister claim he has been the target of a "dirty tricks" campaign by "bloggers" with Tory right-wing links. They are furious at the use of two Westminster internet sites to name a third woman with whom the bloggers allege John Prescott has had an affair, and a woman civil servant in Beijing who is said to have rebuffed his advances.

Mr Prescott's allies have privately urged him to take action to remove the smears or close the sites down. His advisers said he was unlikely to do so, to avoid giving them more prominence.

"It is the black arts," said a Prescott ally. "They are running a dirty tricks campaign and they are being used as a conduit by journalists."

The Labour MP was named by a "gunpowder plot" website called Guido Fawkes. Friends of the blogger said it was run by a libertarian conservative, Paul Staines, a former Tory activist. The website yesterday challenged Mr Prescott to sue. The Prescott camp also accused Iain Dale, a past Tory parliamentary candidate, of using his own personal blogsite to recycle the smears."

The BBC's Nick Robinson has also waded in, attempting to play down the Prescott story and accusing bloggers of "attempting to make the political weather."

Naturally Iain and Guido have given their various responses to these claims and these can be read HERE and HERE.

So what to make of it, in particular Prescott's claim that journalists are using blogger as a conduit? Well, knowing how journalism works, I don't doubt that the odd bit of gossip probably does flow back and forth between the blogosphere and the mainstream media.

In the old days, when newspaper hacks had a story they couldn't quite get past the legals, they would pass it on to Private Eye, or to a diary column where less rigorous legal restrictions applied. Nowadays, they just end up on Guido and Iain Dale.

As an aside, it's a pity they can't be shared around a bit as Iain and Guido don't really need the traffic....but does it really amount to "dirty tricks?" by "politically motivated" bloggers?

Okay, so Iain Dale is a former (and future?) Tory candidate, but then again Nick Robinson is a former chairman of Macclesfield Young Conservatives, and he is taking a much softer line on the story.

But just as it is not just Tory MPs who have expressed concern about Prescott's behaviour, neither is it just "Tory" bloggers who have done so.

In fact, there are plenty of us on the centre-left who can see the damage he and Blair are doing to the progressive cause by remaining in office so long past their sell-by-date.

The latest speculation is that the end result of all this will be that Prescott will resign as Deputy Prime Minister but hold on to his (meaningless) role of Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.

If so, it can only serve as a temporary device for getting them through to the party conference in Manchester, when the issue will have to be settled.