Brown v Cameron: Let battle commence

"Wednesday showed us a foretaste of how Mr Brown would tackle David Cameron if and when he moves next door to Number 10. I suspect that the public, as well as a growing number of Labour MPs, is now becoming increasingly impatient for that real battle to commence."

That was my overall verdict on the significance of last week's Budget as set out in my newspaper columns and podcast this weekend.

I have also had a bit to say about the proposed police mergers which, in the East Midlands at any rate, seem to me to be an extension of the unwanted regionalisation agenda by another means.

You can hear the whole thing in its podcast form here or alternatively read the (shorter) written version here.

Now Rhodri plunges the knife in

Welsh First Minister Rhodri Morgan has today become the latest senior figure to call on Tony Blair to stand down.

Some will doubtless interpret this as disloyalty but it is surely no less than Blair deserves in the light of his extensive but ultimately fruitless attempts to keep Morgan out of the Welsh Assembly leadership in 1999-2000, as chronicled by Paul Flynn MP in his book Paper Dragons and also by Andrew Rawnsley in Servants of the People.

As Rawnsley says in his book, the lengths to which the party machine went to stop Morgan were out of all proportion to the threat which this engaging maverick represented to New Labour.

Meanwhile old lobby mucker Nick Assinder has produced a thoughtful piece on the BBC website about the shifting balance of power in 10 Downing Street.

"Many believe that Mr Brown has just delivered his last Budget. They claim it would be difficult, if not downright embarrassing, for him to have to deliver a repeat premier-in-waiting performance in a year's time," he writes.

Quite right Nick. The public is fed-up of the phoney war betwen Blair and Cameron and now wants to see the main event. Bring it on.

Blair-must-go watch: the story so far

The general consensus on the political impact of the Budget is that it has rendered Tony Blair even more of an irrelevance as British politics gears up for the Brown v Cameron era. This piece by Jonathan Freedland is typical of many that have appeared in today's papers. I'd include another by the great Peter Oborne if the Mail had bothered to put it online.

Interestingly Mike White took a different tack in a post-Budget discussion with Sky's Jon Craig on College Green yesterday. Together with the Telegraph's Rachel Sylvester and Andrew Pierce of the Times, White said he still expected Blair to go next summer, openly questioning his own paper's editorial stance. "I'm not sure they've got that quite right," he said of Monday's leader calling on the PM to go this year. I suppose when you are Mike White you can get away with that sort of thing....

Anyway, a week after I launched Blair-must-go watch, here's a reminder of what the key opinion formers (!) in both the MSM and the blogosphere have been saying so far:

The Economist kicks things off by arguing that it would be in Blair's own interests to go now rather than get mired in a damaging war with his party.

Guido Fawkes reveals that his money - a lot of it apparently - is on a Labour Conference handover.

Polly Toynbee urges Mr Blair to retire with good grace in the wake of the schools rebellion and the loans-for-peerages affair.

Yours truly finally succumbs to the temptation to fire Cromwell's golden bullet in Blair's direction, telling him: "In the name of God, go!"

Matthew Parris exceeds even my level of vitriol by branding Mr Blair an "out and out rascal" and "pathological confidence trickster."

Iain Dale agrees with Guido that an autumn handover looks increasingly on the cards.

The Guardian publishes its by-now famous editorial saying that nine years is quite long enough.

BBC Newsnight publishes the results of a poll showing more than 50pc of the public now want Blair to go.

Charlie Clarke bravely attempts to hold the line by telling the womens' lobby lunch the PM will go in 2008.

Jonathan Freedland tells Blair his luck has run out, citing Iraq as the major cause of his inevitable downfall.

That's about all for now. By my reckoning the Sun, the Mirror, the Times and the FT are the only national newspapers who haven't yet called on Blair to go in some form or another, so it will be very interesting to see who's next.

And if anyone is wondering why I'm rehashing all this, then let's just say that that New Labour's "repeat messaging" techniques taught me a thing or two...

Budget 2006

Another exhausting Budget Day comes to an end - albeit rather earlier than it used to when I was writing it all up for the Newcastle Journal!

If you're interested, my coverage of today's events can be found here. As well as the main story, there is also a list of key points, a live commentary of the speech as it unfolded, and of course, a political analysis which is also available in podcast form.

There is also a Budget preview so you can see how much I got right - or wrong as the case may be!

I've not touched on the issue of whether the Budget will speed up Mr Blair's departure as some MPs have apparently said this afternoon, but doubtless I will be returning to this issue shortly.

Ken Linford 21.12.27 - 21.3.81

Today is the 25th anniversary of the death of my father, Ken Linford.

He was in the motor trade for most of his life and at the time he died was general manager of a car showroom in Hitchin, Herts where I grew up.

We didn't always have the easiest of relationships but I like to think we'd have got on a lot better once I was older, although he would probably have been horrified that his son ended up in a grubby profession like journalism instead of something fine and upstanding like architecture or the law!

I do know however that he would have been very proud of his little grandson George. Right from the moment he was born in 2004 I have caught glimpses of my dad in him, and I find it very comforting that even though he has been dead such a long time some small part of him has managed to survive.

Of my many memories of dad, the one which I perhaps treasure the most is of an evening about three months before he died when we went out for our first curry together. It was perhaps the first and only time that I felt we were able to relate to eachother as adults, and I suspect there would have many more such times had he lived.

I also pay tribute to his honesty in business, which was legendary in his field of work, and his gift for friendship.

As a mark of respect, there will be no other posts on this blog today even if Blair resigns.

Rest in peace dad.

Blair-must-go watch: Linford beats Guardian to it!

"You have been sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

That was my blunt message to Prime Minister Tony Blair in my columns and accompanying podcast this weekend. After months of toying with the idea of firing Cromwell's Golden Bullet in his direction, I have to confess it gave me immense satisfaction to let him have it at last!

Of course, if it was just me (and Bob Piper!) he'd ignore it - but it isn't just me and a consensus now appears to be developing across the political blogosphere that Blair will be gone by the time of the Labour Conference this autumn.

Most devastatingly of all, the Guardian has now come out and said, in a leader entitled Nine years is enough published this morning, that Blair should go this summer rather than attempt to see out a decade in Number 10.

I don't think the Grauniad has quite the monopoly on progressive/left-of-centre political thought that it thinks it has - it's a fact that this Government is far less concerned about what it thinks than it is about the Sun, for instance - but this editorial will undoubtedly be seen as a further nail in the Prime Minister's political coffin.

I'm just glad I managed to beat them to it...!

March 21 update: A Newsnight poll published last night reveals that
half the population now want Blair to go. This is, surely, the tipping point...