The Brown Bounce

My weekly podcast is now on its 75th episode. The current one, which looks at the state of the parties in the wake of last week's by-elections, can be heard HERE.

Another whitewash

Did I believe there was no connection between Alastair Campbell's desire to "fuck Gilligan", the leaking by government officials of Dr David Kelly's name to that end, and the weapons inspector's subsequent suicide? No, I didn't, despite what Lord Hutton told us.

And like Guido, neither do I believe there has never been a connection between donations to the Labour Party and the award of peerages, even if nothing was ever written down on paper about it in a way that would have enabled the Crown Prosecution Service to prove that a specific crime had been committed.

I have one simple question on all this: If no-one at No 10 had anything to hide, why did they seek to obstruct the inquiry at every turn, turning what could have been a routine investigation into one that eventually lasted 16 months and cost £800,000 of taxpayers' money?

I don't think the public will be any more convinced by this than I am. Maybe, as with the case of Lord Archer, we will just have to wait a decade or more for the truth to out.

Gordon scores

The Tories are predictably fuming about the fact that Gordon Brown has succeeded in re-focusing attention on the issue of politicians' drug-taking pasts, first by pledging to look again at the reclassification of cannabis and then by persuading Home Secretary Jackie Smith to fess up to having a toke at university.

Why do they protest so much? Isn't it a perfectly legitimate tactic for a party leader to seek to put his opposite number on ths spot over an issue - particularly when they have brought the problem on themselves by being less than open about it in the past?

But whatever the low politics of the situation, it's the right move by Gordon. Cannabis is evil shit and I have witnessed at first hand the kind of psychosis it can induce in regular users, in my case in a former landlord. An old newspaper colleague of mine, Huw Lewis, had an experience that was, sadly, even closer to home.

And in case anyone's wondering....yes, I did, once or twice, and all it ever gave me was a bloody headache.

British Beatyourselfupaboutit Corporation

Okay, so it's a serious story, and having grown up in local newspapers where awarding competition prizes to your friends can be a sackable offence, I find it frankly beyond belief that such things have been going on at the BBC.

But however justified, there is something in me that hates to see the corporation beating itself up like this. It's still the greatest broadcasting organisation in the world, and British culture would be immeasurably poorer without it. Let's hear it for the Beeb!

From Two Jags to Five Hats

One admittedly rather processological story that caught my eye from earlier in the week concerned Harriet Harman's new self-proclaimed role as the "MPs enforcer."

Harman is quite right to see this as part of the role of a Leader of the House of Commons, but it doesn't sit especially well with her party role, leaving a further question mark against the wisdom of this particular appointment by Gordon.

The Tories have already taken to calling Harman "Four Hats" on account of her superfluity of titles - Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Party Chair, Leader of the House of Commons and Minister for Women.

In fact, she has five hats. They are forgetting Lord Privy Seal, a purely ceremonial role but an additional title nonetheless.

Premature euphoria

Actually I did consider calling this post premature something else but that sort of thing can attract unfortunate search engine rankings. But either way it is clear that the decision by Boris Johnson to enter the race for the London Mayoralty has sent the Conservative blogosphere into paeans of ecstasy not seen since the days when Margaret Thatcher was in No 10.

As a fellow-journalist, I have to say I had a fair amount of respect for Bozza. But as a politician? Well, suffice to say his is a precocious talent that has remained unfulfilled.

As far back in the mid-90s, when he was still on the Daily Telegraph and toying with a Parliamentary career, he was being talked about as the most promising Tory of his generation. Yet he seemed unable to make a clear choice between politics and journalism and was eventually beaten to the Tory leadership by a younger man.

His frontbench career has progressed in fits and starts. Michael Howard took a gamble on him and brought him into a prominent role, but ended up having to sack him after he was less than forthcoming about his affair with Petronella Wyatt.

For what it's worth, I thought Iain Dale was right that Boris would have benefited from the rigour of a tough internal primary against someone of Steve Norris's calibre. But that now looks unlikely to happen, and who can blame Norris for not wanting to play the fall-guy?

The fact that this chaotic and wholly unproven figure has been alighted upon by the capital's Tories as a potential saviour is surely a measure of their desperation.

19 July update: And this great story from the Mirror's Bob Roberts proves the point. I particularly love this quote from a "Labour source" which Bob couldn't possibly have made up:

"It may be safe to go back into the water. It's certainly not safe to go back to the Tories."