Is Quentin Letts taking the piss?

I had a fair amount of time for Quentin Letts in my Lobby days - unlike Michael White I did not regard him as a shifty little cunt - but it has to be remembered that he is (a) a Tory, and (b) someone whose writing is often deliberately tongue-in-cheek.

So when I saw his piece in The First Post about the possibility of Jack Straw becoming Prime Minister, I was immediately somewhat suspicious.

Was the ever-mischievous Mr Letts flying a kite in the hope that someone, somewhere might come up with some interesting reasons why Jack might not be as suitable a candidate as he might appear?

Henry G and Alex commenting on the story today on Political Betting, seem to think so...

Trident debate is Blair's Macdonald Moment

In May 1997 Tony Blair became the second Labour Prime Minister to represent a seat in the North-East of England, following in the footsteps of former Seaham MP and Labour folk villain Ramsay Macdonald. Tonight he will follow in Macdonald's footsteps again by relying on Tory votes to stay in power as up to 80 Labour MPs prepare to rebel on the vote to replace Britain's nuclear deterrent.

Given the Government's majority of 66, a rebellion on that scale would ordinarily mean a Parliamentary defeat on a central issue of government policy - enough in normal circumstances to require the Prime Minister's resignation.

Because the Tories are pledged to support the renewal of Trident, Mr Blair can rest easy on that score, but I think it's a good thing from his point of view that Blair has already promised to go, and that Gordon Brown seems in no rush to hurry him.

If this were not the case, I suspect a lot more would be being made of the fact that the Prime Minister has clearly lost the support of a substantial section of his party.

* Apologies for light bloggage over recent days. Either something is very wrong with my PC or Blogger is going through another of its crap phases. There have been long periods this week when I've not even been able to get on the site.

Ten Questions for Alastair Campbell

So Alastair Campbell is to publish his first volume of diaries, shortly after Tony Blair leaves office this summer. The Guardian's Julian Glover has today published his own top tips of what the great spinmeister should write about, but here's a list of some of the questions I'd like answered, some of them of purely personal interest, others of broader significance to the body politic.

Anyway, here goes:

1. When you held your first briefing as Downing Street press secretary on May 2, 1997 you told us that Tony Blair "felt he had been given a remarkable opportunity to unite the country." Do you genuinely think he has done?

2. When in 1995 you briefed the Lobby that Derek Foster would be given a Cabinet job in return for standing down as Chief Whip, were you aware that he would in fact be offered only a junior ministerial post?

3. Why did one of your deputies tell me in October 1997 that Dr David Clark had "totally lost it" and would be sacked in the next reshuffle, and was it linked to your attempts to undermine the Freedom of Information Bill which he was then drawing up?

4. From whom did Tony Blair first learn about the incident on Clapham Common involving the then Welsh Secretary Ron Davies in September 1998, and why did you refuse to answer this question when I asked it at a Lobby briefing?

5. Do you regret your decision to dispense with most of the heads of the departmental press offices following Labour's first election win, and has the resultant politicisation of Whitehall improved the conduct of government?

6. Why did you brief the Lobby in 1999 that Tony Blair believed the North-South divide to be a "myth," when he never actually said any such thing?

7. A copy of the September 2002 dossier on Iraqi WMD sent in advance to evening papers showed the so-called "45-minute claim" highlighted in flourescent marker-pen. Did you personally authorise that?

8. You said in your diary that it would "fuck Gilligan" if Dr David Kelly were revealed as the source of the BBC report which questioned the 45-minute claim. Do you deny that you had any part in making his name public?

9. When you announced last year that the death of Dr Kelly had almost caused you to have a nervous breakdown, did you think of the impact this might have on the Kelly family?

10. When you left an offensive personal comment on this blog last July, why did you not have the courage to post as yourself as opposed to anonymously?

I think that will do for now....I'm sure other readers will be able to fill in any questions I have missed.

End of the peers show

The latest podcast, looking at what happens next with Lords reform in the wake of last week's historic Commons vote, is now available HERE.

Memories of Tony

Interesting to see that the BBC is inviting people to send in their stories of the day I met Tony Blair, doubtless as part of some valedictory package it is currently putting together.

I can't really help them as I have only ever met him in a professional capacity, and that doesn't really count. But for the record, even though I interviewed him five times between 1995 and 2001, I always found him a rather shy individual who found small-talk difficult and was extremely reluctant to give anything of himself away.

Gordon Brown on the other hand, on the sole occasion at which I managed to interact with him at any length, came over as ebullient, witty and not at all afraid to indulge in general chit-chat with a journalist.

What I find interesting about this is that it is in complete contradiction to their public personas, of Brown as dour and charmless and Blair as bright and outgoing. It makes me wonder how much we really know about what our leaders are actually like.

Be afraid...be very afraid

My attention has been drawn to an excellent but extremely disturbing post on Rachel from North London today predicting some potentially shattering forthcoming revelations with regard to the use of intelligence prior to the 7/7 bombings. Apparently this has been known about within media circles for some time but kept secret because the whole thing is sub judice.

Writes Rachel: "There is one hell of a tidal wave coming, as secrets that have been hidden for too long start to emerge."

Obviously I can't add any information of my own at this stage, other than to make the comment that if the contents of her post are even half-way true, then there are going to be such serious questions asked of our political masters that the case for a public inquiry into the bombings will become unanswerable.

Davide Simonetti has taken advantage of the Downing Street e-petition initiative to lodge one in support of an inquiry, and you can sign it HERE.

Update: Sorry to have to impose comment moderation last night but someone took this post as an invitation to openly speculate on the nature of the forthcoming story in a way that specifically linked it to a named ongoing criminal trial. Since I don't especially want to be accused of prejudicing a court case that might result in people who tried to kill hundreds of other people being locked up, I took it down.