Kennedy could still be a contender, says White

I am not sure whether this piece by Mike White is entirely helpful to Charles Kennedy, but it does show there are other, more respectable commentators than me who think he could plausibly lead the Lib Dems again one day.

Is political cross-dressing really here to stay?

"The era of tribal political leadership is over," said Tony Blair in his keynote speech to the Murdoch Corporation on Sunday. Not surprisingly it has already provoked some lively debate, not least on Labour Home.

I can see three very good reasons why he would say such a thing. First, because he believes it, though he is wrong about that. Second, because he would like to be able to claim that ridding the British Left of ideology is part of his precious legacy, though he is wrong about that too.

But the main reason he said it was simply an attempt to guarantee Labour's future relationship with Murdoch, reassuring him that socialism really isn't going to make a comeback under his successors and that the Labour Party is now just as apt to end up to the right of the Tories as to the left.

In his analysis of the Tories, and David Cameron at least, he is correct, as I have previously discussed. Where Blair falls down - not for the first time in his career - is in his understanding of the Labour Party.

For of course, the two beasts are not the same. There are plenty of people out there - as any brief visit to Iain Dale will confirm - who think that David Cameron is destroying the ideological base of the Conservative Party in much the way Blair destroyed Labour's.

They are wrong as it happens, because although belief in a right-wing ideology (low taxation, small government etc) is undoubtedly one of Conservatism's distinguishing characteristics, it has not, historically speaking, been the party's underlying raison d'etre.

At different times in its history, the "clothes" that most would nowadays associate with the Tory Party have regularly been worn by others, notably Gladstone's liberals in the 19th century and Joe Chamberlain's imperialists in the early 20th.

What the Conservative Party is really about - and this is why the Hague-IDS-Howard years were such a surprising aberration - is the pursuit and retention of power, allied to an underlying belief that, in a small-c conservative country, it is invariably the party best qualified to exercise it.

This has never been true of the Labour Party, in that the pursuit of power for its own sake has never been its underlying raison d'etre. As Harold Wilson said: "The Labour Party is a moral crusade, or it is nothing."

Let's face it, even Tony Blair has had to pay lip service to that, although his pre-1997 talk of governing in the interests of "the many not the few" now sound increasingly hollow.

Either way, such is the degree of anger felt by many Labour members at Mr Blair's abandonment of its historic principles that it is inconceivable that, under its next leader, the party will not seek to reconnect with those roots.

Whatever the Tories do, it is my belief that the Labour Party will remain the party of fairness, justice, tolerance, internationalism and all those old ideals - owing much more to Jesus than Marx - with which it has always been associated.

Update: Just spotted an excellent post by Shaphan - one of the most underrated political bloggers around - which highlights another aspect of Mr Blair's attitude to ideology, namely the way he pronounces the word.

In my view, his pronunciation of it to rhyme with idiocy as opposed to idealism has always been quite deliberate.

Ming's Dynasty: Where are you when we need you?

The late, lamented satirical blog Ming's Dynasty, formed in the aftermath of the Lib Dem leadership election earlier this year, would have had a field day with the current goings-on in the party.

Welsh Assembly Member Peter Black kicked it all off last week with a well-argued piece on his blog saying that Ming Campbell needed to shape up by the time of September's party conference - or ship out.

Then the News of the Screws claimed on Sunday that Charles Kennedy planned to challenge Ming in an audacious bid to regain the party leadership, leading to a spate of denial stories in this morning's papers.

Meanwhile, over at Conservative Home, they are once again talking up the leadership chances of their favourite Lib Dem Nick Clegg - the one they hope will split his party by leading the Orange Bookers into a coalition with the Chameleon.

To make matters worse, Lib Dem blogger Jonathan Calder has written a piece in today's Guardian which, while attempting to defend Ming, actually serves to highlight his real problem.

In his piece, Jonathan argues that Lib Dem image-makers should stop trying to turn Ming into something he isn't and just "let Ming be Ming."

Well, I have a fair amount of respect for Jonathan whose blog is by some way the best of the bunch as far as Lib Dem blogs are concerned, but this argument is so manifestly ludicrous that it needs to be countered.

The problem is in fact diametrically the opposite - not that Ming isn't being allowed to be Ming, but that Ming is Ming.

Chris Huhne on the English Question

Thanks to Tom Griffin of the Green Ribbon blog for drawing to my attention some interesting stuff on the English Question in the current edition of Prospect magazine.

It features four differing viewpoints on the Tories' "English votes for English laws" initiative, the most interesting of which from my point of view is from the former - and future? - Lib Dem leadership contender, Chris Huhne.

"If the Tories do decide to campaign to end Scottish votes on English laws, they will be on fertile ground. Scotland receives far more public spending per head than England, and there is a sense of injustice in poorer English regions," he writes.

Quite so. But Huhne does not go on to advocate English votes for English laws, suggesting instead the issue can be dealt with simply by creating a new Parliamentary convention.

"There is another way the problem could be dealt with without creating two classes of MP: a new convention that prevented purely English legislation going forward unless it had not only a majority of the House of Commons voting for it but also a majority of MPs from English constituencies.

"Labour would not like this approach, as it might prevent the party getting legislation through. Too bad. Those who promote devolution must live with its consequences," adds Huhne.

For my part, I would still like to see one or both of the Opposition parties really putting Gordon Brown on the spot over the English Question by backing an English Parliament - or even better, for Brown to outflank his critics in the Anglosphere by coming out in favour of one himself.

But even though he stresses he is writing in a "personal capacity," Huhne's piece in my view shows the kind of innovative thinking we should be looking for in our future political leaders.

Brown v McDonnell: Is there a third way?

I promised last week that I would be having a closer look at the question of whether there is a viable alternative to what, for some on the left, is the increasingly unappetising choice of Gordon Brown or John McDonnell for the Labour leadership when the Great Pretender finally stands down.

I duly made this the main topic of discussion in my weekly Saturday columns and accompanying Podcast this weekend, a copy of which has also been posted on my new Labour Home blog HERE.

In it, I discuss the prospects of Margaret Beckett, Peter Hain and John Denham as potential soft-left candidates, while also arguing that Gordon the Leader will prove to be much more progressive than Gordon the Candidate is allowing himself to be.

One thing of which I am certain is that Gordon could not have made yesterday's speech by Blair to the Murdoch Corporation on political cross-dressing, even if it costs him the support of the Dirty Digger at the next election.

Led Zep is MPs' music of choice

A suitably light-hearted subject on which to end another week's blogging - unlike the indefatigable Iain Dale I tend to avoid computer screens at weekends, at least in summer, so no need to bother coming here again until Monday.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. A poll has revealed that Led Zeppelin II is the most popular British No 1 album of all time with MPs.

Led Zep were a bit before my time, to be honest - I was still listening to Mungo Jerry in those days - but it was good to see nominations for Human League's Dare (Mark Oaten) and Swing Out Sister's It's Better to Travel (Tory MP Mark Field), both of which would be in my Top 30.

My own favourite? It depends which day you ask me, but it would be between Steve McQueen by Prefab Sprout, Screamadelica by Primal Scream, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, by Genesis, and Programmed to Love, by Bent.