Guido, Sir Michael and the so-called "car crash"

Another thing that happened while I was away was the infamous Newsnight interview involving blogger Guido Fawkes. Guido has himself conceded that it was mistake to break his own rule and agree to be interviewed, while the reaction on blogosphere as a whole has been scathing, the consensus being that he was made mincemeat of by veteran Guardian hack "Sir" Michael White. But having now looked at the film, and the ensuing studio discussion, I am not convinced it was quite as one-sided as has been presented.

White kicked off the studio discussion, chaired by Jeremy Paxman with Guido appearing in "shadow" from Westminster, with a well-made point about how it is not only political journalists who run the risk of getting too close to their sources. In fact it is far more of a problem in entertainment journalism. One-nil to White. But Michael then threw away this early advantage by revealing Guido's real name, which was somewhat cheap, and saying he looked a "prat" for wearing a rugby shirt at a lobby lunch, which came over as simply pompous. One-all.

White then reacted to Guido's oft-made allegation that the Lobby had effectively concealed the truth about John Prescott's private life with the counter-claim that Prescott was being "stitched-up" by bloggers. To which I can only respectfully say: Bollocks, Michael. Prescott fairly adeptly stitched himself up by (i) shagging his secretary, and (ii) infuriating Labour MPs by allowing himself, as the keeper of the cloth cap, to be pictured playing the decadent upper-class sport of croquet at his country retreat. Two-one to Guido.

Sir Michael then compounded even this error by maintaining he did not know John Prescott's age, despite an earlier report that he had attended his 68th birthday party. Well, sorry, but whether he attended the party or not, I find it preposterous that someone who was a national newspaper political editor for 16 years would not actually know the Deputy Prime Minister's age, particularly as it was a point at issue in his decision to retire along with Tony Blair. Three-one Guido.

At this point in the discussion, Guido was well ahead in my view, but threw away his advantage with two silly errors in the closing stages. First, he made a reference to Lord Levy's forthcoming "trial" which presented an absolute gift-horse for White and Paxman to accuse bloggers of being cavalier with the facts. Three-two. Then, in injury time, Guido made the grievous mistake - which a real lobby hack would never make - or naming a source (BBC political editor Nick Robinson) for one his stories. Three-all.

In conclusion, even though Guido managed to break the first rule of journalism - not exactly surprising given he isn't a journalist - he still got away with a score draw. He may not have covered himself with glory, but I don't think White did either and he came over as both pompous and petulant, which oddly is the very opposite of how I remember him from my lobby days.

As it is, the degree of gloating on other blogs about this interview is to me symptomatic of the marked lack of charity that currently characterises the blogosphere. It seems a long time ago that Guido, Iain Dale, Tim Ireland, Justin McKeating and myself were among a large group of bloggers who joined forces to put together the Little Red Book of New Labour Sleaze. It was a great collaborative effort, masterminded by Dale, but at least two of us were not invited to contribute to the second edition, and you probably couldn't get all five of us together in a room these days without fisticuffs.

I don't agree with Guido's politics, or all of his methods, and I do agree with some of Tim's points about the need for some commonly agreed standards of blog etiquette. But even if the blogosphere might be a little more well-mannered without Guido, it would almost certainly not have as a high a profile - and we have all benefited from that.

Time for Miliband to stop the teasing

While I was away sunning myself, it was evident that a head of steam was continuing to build up behind a challenge from David Miliband to Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership. One newspaper, the Observer, even reported that Blair himself was at the heart of the effort to persuade him to stand, and had privately predicted that if he did so, he would win.

Be that as it may, my Poll shows that Miliband is indeed the favoured contender of those who would like to see a Cabinet-level challenge to Gordon Brown - although his support is only marginally higher than those who would like to see Brown challenged by his own campaign manager, Jack Straw.

Miliband has several times appeared to rule himself out of the running, but has yet to do so in unequivocal terms. Writing in this week's Sunday Times, Crackers Cracknell and Isabel Oakeshott reveal that the Brown camp are not impressed by his failure to kill the speculation.

As one ally of the Chancellor put it: "Miliband can’t say it’s not his fault. He knows exactly what he is doing. He could quite easily say specifically, ‘I won’t stand against Gordon’ or that he is far less experienced than Gordon – something he couldn’t go back on. But he doesn’t."

I concur. I happen to believe David Miliband is a cut above most politicians in the honesty stakes and I have no reason to disbelieve his earlier declaration that he was "neither a runner nor a rider for any of the posts that are being speculated about."

If that remains the case, he should say so. But if he has changed his mind, he should make that equally clear. The current wave of speculation - egged on by the Martin Kettles and Mary Ann Siegharts of this world - is doing the Labour Party no favours at all.

Holiday reading

Holidays and Christmas are the only real chance I get these days to settle down with a good book, so I was determined to make the most of this rare opportunity during our recent trip to the peaceful resort of Los Gigantes, on Tenerife.

The first of the two books I took away with me was Le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy which I last read as a student more than 25 years ago.

It's hard to say what it is I love about this book, which is probably the literary equivalent of listening to The Smiths. It is set against the grim backdrop of 1970s Britain in all its drabness, mundanity and loss of influence in the world, and deals with the painful themes of personal and political betrayal.

The re-read was partly inspired by the fact that's being repeated on BBC 4 at the moment - the last episode is tonight but if you've missed the preceding six, don't watch it as it will give way the ending. Read the book instead, and then buy the DVD.

Also on my reading list was God's Politics by Jim Wallis, the American Christian leader. It's a brilliant analysis of how the so-called "religious right" in America has hijacked Christianity for its own political ends and how a truly Biblical understanding of Jesus's teaching would lead one to very different ideological conclusions.

Wallis correctly identifies the current political consensus as socially liberal and economically conservative, whereas a Christian approach would tend to produce something socially conservative and economically liberal. This moreorless summarises my own disillusionment with modern politics, so it was good to find someone else taking a similar view.

Heading for the sun

It's a winter holiday for the Linfords this year, for reasons that will become obvious later in the year, so barring the odd internet cafe excursion blogging will be light over the next week or so.

In the meantime, I leave you in the very capable hands of the following:

Labour leadership speculation - Political Betting
Insightful political analysis - Skipper
English nationalism - Toque
Christian socialism - Mars Hill
Blogging about blogging - Bloggerheads
Interesting minutiae - Dizzy Thinks
Tory gossip - Iain Dale
Labour gossip - Tom Watson
Lib Dem gossip Jonathan Calder
Any old bollocks - UK Daily Pundit

Charles Kennedy - Derby County fan?

A work colleague draws my attention to an interesting snippet on the Derby County FC Rams Forum that former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy has been seen at Pride Park in recent weeks. We could certainly do with the support of a few big names as they have been few and far between since Cap'n Bob went overboard.

Other interesting examples of political fan-dom: Osama bin Laden, reguarly spotted cheering on Arsenal at Highbury in the late 1980s, and Tony Blair, never spotted cheering on Newcastle at St James' Park.

Brown stuffs 2p tax cut up Clarke's backside

Without desisting from anything I wrote earlier - the Blairites and Fleet Street would still find a reason for forcing a contest even if Gordon Brown was revealed as the second Son of God - today's Budget was a stormer. For years, governments of right and left have dreamed of a 20p standard rate of income tax. It is Gordon Brown who has finally delivered that and for that and many other reasons he will go down as the greatest Chancellor since Gladstone, whatever happens next in his career.

It was absolutely typical of Gordon that after presenting eleven Budgets himself he went and stole the next Chancellor's first Budget as well by announcing the 2p standard rate cut. His successor probably won't thank him for that but I can't help but admire his chutzpah.

Charles Clarke and Alan Milburn had been calling on Brown to say more about what he would do as Prime Minister, and today Gordon gave them the perfect answer. He not only said what he would do, he actually did it, by pre-announcing a decision that didn't actually need to be announced for another year.

Indeed, he has gone even further than that and announced another major tax cut to take effect in April 2009 - just before the likely date of the next general election - rsising the threshold for the 40p top rate of tax to £43,000 and so free millions of middle-income earners from the pernicious effects of "fiscal drag."

David Cameron tried to make the best of it by claiming Brown had adopted his agenda of "sharing the proceeds of growth," but Cameron knows that he too has been stuffed, and that any room for manoeuvre for further crowd-pleasing tax cuts has been absolutely closed-off.

I wrote earlier today that although Brown's enemies will deny him a coronation, the crown remains his to lose and a good Budget performance would make it all the more certain he would win a serious contest. On that score, the Chancellor certainly delivered.