I suppose I should have known better. But so, more importantly, should the Board of Newcastle United Football Club.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
The Pundit calls it right again
Credit where credit's due. While I got all excited about the return of King Kev to Tyneside last January, the UK Daily Pundit declared in the comments that he'll be gone by the end of the year.
I suppose I should have known better. But so, more importantly, should the Board of Newcastle United Football Club.
I suppose I should have known better. But so, more importantly, should the Board of Newcastle United Football Club.
Monday, September 01, 2008
The "Where were you when.....?" meme
A week or so ago Bob Piper tagged me with the meme asking what were you doing when Princess Diana died, Thatcher resigned, the planes flew into the twin towers, Lineker scored, and Kennedy was assassinated.
Long-standing readers of this blog will know where to find at least three of the answers, but here for the record are my responses, although I'm not going to tag anyone else as this one has been round the block a bit already.
1. Diana's death.
Visiting my mum's. "I'd gone there for the weekend to help her with the garden, but the news from Paris put paid to that. By 11am the following morning I was at my desk in the Commons helping my paper, the Newcastle Journal, put together its Diana coverage. I ended up writing a piece about how the marriage turned sour, though I'm not sure what qualified me, as political editor, to do that one."
More HERE.
2. 9/11
In my old room in the Press Gallery (now the property of the Daily Mirror, I gather.) "We switched over to Sky News and watched as the plumes of smoke rose from the first tower, convinced we were watching the aftermath of a terrible accident. Then the second plane appeared. "Look, there's another one!" exclaimed a regional newspaper colleague. Almost as he said it, the other plane smashed into the second tower. For a moment, there was silence in the room, then someone said slowly "That was deliberate," and we all hit the phones to our head offices."
More HERE.
3. When Lineker Scored
The Rifleman's Arms, Bridge Street, Belper. "Germany scored a freak goal, an Andy Brehme free-kick that struck Paul Parker and looped over Peter Shilton's head, and we began to resign ourselves to the loss of our improbable World Cup dream. And then...and then...in the 81st minute, Gary Lineker got hold of a long through-ball, held-off the German defence and squeezed the ball into the far corner. The pub went wild. More wild than any place I have ever been in my life."
More HERE.
4. Thatcher's resignation
I was surprised to find I have never blogged on this, but the bizarre truth is that I was stuck on a train on my way to a job interview, so although I was the political reporter of the Derby Evening Telegraph at the time, I never actually covered the story for them! I remember two people getting on the train - possibly at Leicester - and saying that she had resigned. Unlike many lefties I felt no elation at her departure - I had wanted to see Michael Heseltine win as I thought it would mean much more enlightened government, but his chances disappeared the moment she quit.
5. Kennedy's Assassination
I was just over a year old, and don't remember it. I guess I must have been at our old house in Kenton, North London, where I spent the first eight years of my life.
Long-standing readers of this blog will know where to find at least three of the answers, but here for the record are my responses, although I'm not going to tag anyone else as this one has been round the block a bit already.
1. Diana's death.
Visiting my mum's. "I'd gone there for the weekend to help her with the garden, but the news from Paris put paid to that. By 11am the following morning I was at my desk in the Commons helping my paper, the Newcastle Journal, put together its Diana coverage. I ended up writing a piece about how the marriage turned sour, though I'm not sure what qualified me, as political editor, to do that one."
More HERE.
2. 9/11
In my old room in the Press Gallery (now the property of the Daily Mirror, I gather.) "We switched over to Sky News and watched as the plumes of smoke rose from the first tower, convinced we were watching the aftermath of a terrible accident. Then the second plane appeared. "Look, there's another one!" exclaimed a regional newspaper colleague. Almost as he said it, the other plane smashed into the second tower. For a moment, there was silence in the room, then someone said slowly "That was deliberate," and we all hit the phones to our head offices."
More HERE.
3. When Lineker Scored
The Rifleman's Arms, Bridge Street, Belper. "Germany scored a freak goal, an Andy Brehme free-kick that struck Paul Parker and looped over Peter Shilton's head, and we began to resign ourselves to the loss of our improbable World Cup dream. And then...and then...in the 81st minute, Gary Lineker got hold of a long through-ball, held-off the German defence and squeezed the ball into the far corner. The pub went wild. More wild than any place I have ever been in my life."
More HERE.
4. Thatcher's resignation
I was surprised to find I have never blogged on this, but the bizarre truth is that I was stuck on a train on my way to a job interview, so although I was the political reporter of the Derby Evening Telegraph at the time, I never actually covered the story for them! I remember two people getting on the train - possibly at Leicester - and saying that she had resigned. Unlike many lefties I felt no elation at her departure - I had wanted to see Michael Heseltine win as I thought it would mean much more enlightened government, but his chances disappeared the moment she quit.
5. Kennedy's Assassination
I was just over a year old, and don't remember it. I guess I must have been at our old house in Kenton, North London, where I spent the first eight years of my life.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Holidays open thread
In case you're wondering.....I'm currently taking a two-week break from work, blogging, blogging league-tables, email, and anything else that involves sitting in front of a computer screen when I should be spending my time with the kids/in the garden/putting up shelves. Thankfully, there's absolutely nothing happening politically that is worth writing about, so those of you that come here for the incisive political analysis are not missing anything.
For those of you who come here for other reasons...we have once again been making use of the old Vango Diablo 900 (blame the credit crunch) and have so far had two very pleasant camping trips, one here in Derbyshire with some Sheffield friends, another down in Sussex which we combined with a visit to a friend's wedding and my brother-in-law's 40th.
We're now back at home enjoying what is left of the summer and today the weather has finally picked up. The farmer has been haymaking in the fields beyond our garden for the second time this year, and it briefly feels like midsummer again.
Barring a sudden change of Prime Minister, I am unlikely to be updating the blog again before September is upon us, so feel free to use the comments to raise any issues of interest, or even to tell me this blog is not as good as it used to be.
For those of you who come here for other reasons...we have once again been making use of the old Vango Diablo 900 (blame the credit crunch) and have so far had two very pleasant camping trips, one here in Derbyshire with some Sheffield friends, another down in Sussex which we combined with a visit to a friend's wedding and my brother-in-law's 40th.
We're now back at home enjoying what is left of the summer and today the weather has finally picked up. The farmer has been haymaking in the fields beyond our garden for the second time this year, and it briefly feels like midsummer again.
Barring a sudden change of Prime Minister, I am unlikely to be updating the blog again before September is upon us, so feel free to use the comments to raise any issues of interest, or even to tell me this blog is not as good as it used to be.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
To reshuffle, or not to reshuffle
The September reshuffle will be key to determining whether Gordon Brown faces a leadership challenge this autumn. Here's today's column from the Newcastle Journal.
***
This time last year, as I prepared to go off on my summer holidays, I openly speculated on these pages as to whether I would come back in the middle of a general election campaign.
Gordo-mania was then at its height and all the gossip at Westminster was that the Prime Minister was planning to hold an early autumn election.
Well, what a difference a year makes. Twelve months on, I am wondering whether by the time this column resumes on 6 September, we might be in the midst of a Labour leadership battle.
The one thing all Labour MPs seem to agree on at the moment is that the first week of next month will be crucial in determining whether or not the Prime Minister will survive.
Why is this? Well, that’s the week MPs start returning to Westminster for the three-week “mopping up” session that takes place between the summer recess and the conference season.
They will have had a chance to go away and reflect on their party’s plight, and reach some kind of collective judgement about whether or not Mr Brown’s position is recoverable.
At the same time, the Prime Minister will have to use that week to try to regain the initiative and demonstrate that there is
He has two potential weapons in his armoury – the proposed launch of a “new economic plan” to alleviate the worst effects of the credit crunch, and that old staple, a Cabinet reshuffle.
Taking the “new economic plan” first, this could well be a last opportunity for Mr Brown to set out some kind of distinctive agenda for his administration, based around the idea of “fairness.”
A series of over by measures to help the worst-off, possibly paid for by a windfall tax on energy companies, may well help win over rebellious Labour MPs.
But it’s the reshuffle that holds the key to the whole crisis. Mr Brown has to have one – partly as a means of reasserting his authority, and partly because the government is badly in need of refreshing.
But there is a very considerable risk that the whole exercise will backfire, with ministers either refusing to be moved, or even in some cases refusing to continue to serve under him.
Any meaningful reshuffle would almost certainly have to involve changes in the major offices of state, in particular the Treasury where Alistair Darling has endured a torrid 14 months.
But the trouble with Mr Darling is that he knows where too many of the bodies are buried.
He knows, for instance, that the 10p tax debacle was entirely of Mr Brown’s own making, and that the Prime Minister had been warned shortly after taking took over that the policy would need to be changed.
If he went to the backbenches, or was given a job which disagreed with him, there is always the risk that he could go nuclear.
There are those who might argue that Alistair Darling is too obviously nice and mild-mannered a character to do such a thing to poor Mr Brown, whatever the degree of provocation.
But in response to that I would say just three words: Sir Geoffrey Howe.
In 1979, Denis Healey said that being savaged by Sir Geoffrey was “like being savaged by a dead sheep.” Years later, Margaret Thatcher was to discover the inner wolf that lurked beneath.
It follows that Mr Darling is probably unsackable, although he might just decide go of his own volition following what has been a rather unhappy spell at the Treasury.
The biggest danger for Mr Brown, though, is not so much Mr Darling refusing to move as other people simply refusing to continue to serve under him.
One national newspaper reported last month, in the immediate aftermath of the Glasgow East by-election, that up to 15 ministers were prepared to do this.
If that is true, then I am very much afraid that Mr Brown is toast. No Prime Minister, not least one already as weakened as this one, could survive such a rebuff to his authority.
In these circumstances, the wisest option might seem to be not to have a reshuffle at all – except that this too would only serve to highlight his weakness.
But even if he manages to walk this difficult tightrope, Mr Brown faces another excruciating dilemma over when to hold the Glenrothes by-election following Labour MP John MacDougall’s death this week.
The obvious option seems to be to delay it at least until after the conferences, by which time Mr Brown may have had a chance to stabilise his leadership.
But that runs the risk that the by-election will reverse any gains made as a result of the “September relaunch” and deliver a final knockout blow to the Prime Minister.
If he makes the speech of his life at the party conference, carries out the reshuffle to end all reshuffles, unveils a new economic plan, and Labour still can’t win a by-election, then what on earth is there left to do except change the leader?
So, cards on the table time. Will Mr Brown face a leadership challenge this autumn? Probably. Should he face one? Regretfully, I have to say yes.
The past year has been, I don’t mind admitting, a depressing one for those of us who invested such hopes in the Brown premiership.
I had argued for years that his more understated style would put an end to the spin that marred his predecessor’s reign, and that his commitment to social justice would restore Labour’s lost moral compass.
The fact that Mr Brown has done neither of these things is the biggest single reason why he has forfeited the support of so many of those who once championed him.
Historians will argue for years about what went wrong, and why this considerable political figure managed to make such a hash of the premiership he coveted for so long.
The best answer I can give is that, like Anthony Eden, it was his misfortune to come to the top job when his best years were behind him.
The long years of waiting for Number 10 appear to have made Mr Brown old before his time, and worn-out his once legendary political stamina.
I think it will probably take more than a two-week summer break in Suffolk to revive him.
***
This time last year, as I prepared to go off on my summer holidays, I openly speculated on these pages as to whether I would come back in the middle of a general election campaign.
Gordo-mania was then at its height and all the gossip at Westminster was that the Prime Minister was planning to hold an early autumn election.
Well, what a difference a year makes. Twelve months on, I am wondering whether by the time this column resumes on 6 September, we might be in the midst of a Labour leadership battle.
The one thing all Labour MPs seem to agree on at the moment is that the first week of next month will be crucial in determining whether or not the Prime Minister will survive.
Why is this? Well, that’s the week MPs start returning to Westminster for the three-week “mopping up” session that takes place between the summer recess and the conference season.
They will have had a chance to go away and reflect on their party’s plight, and reach some kind of collective judgement about whether or not Mr Brown’s position is recoverable.
At the same time, the Prime Minister will have to use that week to try to regain the initiative and demonstrate that there is
He has two potential weapons in his armoury – the proposed launch of a “new economic plan” to alleviate the worst effects of the credit crunch, and that old staple, a Cabinet reshuffle.
Taking the “new economic plan” first, this could well be a last opportunity for Mr Brown to set out some kind of distinctive agenda for his administration, based around the idea of “fairness.”
A series of over by measures to help the worst-off, possibly paid for by a windfall tax on energy companies, may well help win over rebellious Labour MPs.
But it’s the reshuffle that holds the key to the whole crisis. Mr Brown has to have one – partly as a means of reasserting his authority, and partly because the government is badly in need of refreshing.
But there is a very considerable risk that the whole exercise will backfire, with ministers either refusing to be moved, or even in some cases refusing to continue to serve under him.
Any meaningful reshuffle would almost certainly have to involve changes in the major offices of state, in particular the Treasury where Alistair Darling has endured a torrid 14 months.
But the trouble with Mr Darling is that he knows where too many of the bodies are buried.
He knows, for instance, that the 10p tax debacle was entirely of Mr Brown’s own making, and that the Prime Minister had been warned shortly after taking took over that the policy would need to be changed.
If he went to the backbenches, or was given a job which disagreed with him, there is always the risk that he could go nuclear.
There are those who might argue that Alistair Darling is too obviously nice and mild-mannered a character to do such a thing to poor Mr Brown, whatever the degree of provocation.
But in response to that I would say just three words: Sir Geoffrey Howe.
In 1979, Denis Healey said that being savaged by Sir Geoffrey was “like being savaged by a dead sheep.” Years later, Margaret Thatcher was to discover the inner wolf that lurked beneath.
It follows that Mr Darling is probably unsackable, although he might just decide go of his own volition following what has been a rather unhappy spell at the Treasury.
The biggest danger for Mr Brown, though, is not so much Mr Darling refusing to move as other people simply refusing to continue to serve under him.
One national newspaper reported last month, in the immediate aftermath of the Glasgow East by-election, that up to 15 ministers were prepared to do this.
If that is true, then I am very much afraid that Mr Brown is toast. No Prime Minister, not least one already as weakened as this one, could survive such a rebuff to his authority.
In these circumstances, the wisest option might seem to be not to have a reshuffle at all – except that this too would only serve to highlight his weakness.
But even if he manages to walk this difficult tightrope, Mr Brown faces another excruciating dilemma over when to hold the Glenrothes by-election following Labour MP John MacDougall’s death this week.
The obvious option seems to be to delay it at least until after the conferences, by which time Mr Brown may have had a chance to stabilise his leadership.
But that runs the risk that the by-election will reverse any gains made as a result of the “September relaunch” and deliver a final knockout blow to the Prime Minister.
If he makes the speech of his life at the party conference, carries out the reshuffle to end all reshuffles, unveils a new economic plan, and Labour still can’t win a by-election, then what on earth is there left to do except change the leader?
So, cards on the table time. Will Mr Brown face a leadership challenge this autumn? Probably. Should he face one? Regretfully, I have to say yes.
The past year has been, I don’t mind admitting, a depressing one for those of us who invested such hopes in the Brown premiership.
I had argued for years that his more understated style would put an end to the spin that marred his predecessor’s reign, and that his commitment to social justice would restore Labour’s lost moral compass.
The fact that Mr Brown has done neither of these things is the biggest single reason why he has forfeited the support of so many of those who once championed him.
Historians will argue for years about what went wrong, and why this considerable political figure managed to make such a hash of the premiership he coveted for so long.
The best answer I can give is that, like Anthony Eden, it was his misfortune to come to the top job when his best years were behind him.
The long years of waiting for Number 10 appear to have made Mr Brown old before his time, and worn-out his once legendary political stamina.
I think it will probably take more than a two-week summer break in Suffolk to revive him.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Doctors of nonsense
I'm not going to accuse the Tory Party of being about to abandon the North of England on the back of today's report by the right-leaning think-tank Policy Exchange. David Cameron has, after all, made clear his view that the report is "insane rubbish."
But you have to question the report's basic assumption that people should move out of the North to avoid becoming trapped there by low house prices and finding themselves unable to move to more prosperous areas.
Have the report's authors actually been to Newcastle recently? If so, they would realise that those aspiring to live in the more desirable parts of the city are already paying London prices, and have been for several years.
I may return to this subject shortly, but all in all, this report strikes me as a rather ignorant contribution to the great North-South debate.
But you have to question the report's basic assumption that people should move out of the North to avoid becoming trapped there by low house prices and finding themselves unable to move to more prosperous areas.
Have the report's authors actually been to Newcastle recently? If so, they would realise that those aspiring to live in the more desirable parts of the city are already paying London prices, and have been for several years.
I may return to this subject shortly, but all in all, this report strikes me as a rather ignorant contribution to the great North-South debate.
Olympic memories
I will doubtless be following the Olympics over the next couple of weeks or so, but I doubt I will see anything that will enthrall me so much as the great athletics performances which inspired me as I was growing up. Thankfully, many of these are now available on YouTube, so here are three of my favourites.
1. "And Viren defends his title wonderfully well." Quite simply one of my favourite sporting moments ever, from the Montreal games. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H_JzBVqkuI.
2. "Juantorena opens his legs and shows his class." Okay, so David Coleman didn't really say this, but a great performance nonetheless. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoGaC6KAG1Y.
3. "Akii Bua coming on the inside." Coleman did say this, no fewer than three times as the Ugandan overhauled David Hemery in '72. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBt4_j3BlgE.
1. "And Viren defends his title wonderfully well." Quite simply one of my favourite sporting moments ever, from the Montreal games. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H_JzBVqkuI.
2. "Juantorena opens his legs and shows his class." Okay, so David Coleman didn't really say this, but a great performance nonetheless. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoGaC6KAG1Y.
3. "Akii Bua coming on the inside." Coleman did say this, no fewer than three times as the Ugandan overhauled David Hemery in '72. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBt4_j3BlgE.
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