And another one....

The blog memes are coming thick and fast this morning. Hard on the heels of Mr Dale's top 10 challenge comes the Birthday Meme, this time from Mars Hill's Paul Burgin.

The challenge is as follows:

1) Go to Wikipedia
2) In the search box, type your birth month and day but not the year.
3) List three events that happened on your birthday.
4) List two important birthdays and one death.
5) One holiday or observance.

Here are mine, with comments in red italics:

Three things that happened on my birthday

1851 - Herman Melville's Moby Dick is first published as The Whale. Never read it though...

1922 - The British Broadcasting Company (later Corporation) is founded to establish a national broadcasting service. Long may it continue...

1968 - Bob Beamon (pictured) sets a world record of 8.90m in the long jump at the Mexico Olympics. This becomes the longest unbroken track and field record in history, standing for 23 years. I genuinely believe this to be the sporting achievement of the 20th century. He broke the record by the best part of a metre.

Two important birthdays

1919 - Pierre Elliott Trudeau, fifteenth Prime Minister of Canada (d. 2000) Probably the most well-known politician on the list although I could also have had the former Greek Culture Minister, Melina Mercouri.

1956 - Martina Navrátilová. The greatest.

One death

1978 - Ramón Mercader, Assassin of Leon Trotsky (b. 1914) In the immortal words of The Stranglers: "He got an ice-pick that made his ears burn."

One holiday or observance

Feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist. My birthday often coincides with a late warm spell and is known colloquially as St Luke's Summer in parts of rural England.

I'm not going to tag anyone else to do this in case I get another one sent to me, and I need to get on with some work! But anyone who wants to try this out can leave their answers in the comments below.

The Dale challenge: 10 things I would never do

The great blog chieftain himself Iain Dale has issued a challenge to me among other bloggers to name the top ten things I would never do - other than standing as a Tory candidate or posing in front of a Henry Moore statue, of course.

Anyway here goes:

10. Use the cane in order to discipline my son.
9. Take part in Big Brother, the X-Factor, or any show called "I'm an ex-Lobby hack, get me out of here."
8. Get a tattoo.
7. Declare my allegiance to any Head of State other than my Queen and her successors.
6. Support Man Utd or Chelsea.
5. Get divorced, although I guess it might not be solely my choice.
4. Climb Broad Stand, the crag that separates Scafell Pike from Scafell.
3. Take smack.
2. Convert to Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Atheism or any other anti-Christian belief.
1. Top myself.

I'm supposed to tag 10 other bloggers to take part in the challenge, so because I know most of them visit here fairly regularly, I'm nominating: Inamicus, Skipper, Paul Burgin, Adele Reynolds, Stalin's Gran, Femme de Resistance, Little Man in a Toque, James Higham, Lactose and My Own Voice.

November 27 Update: So far, Paul, Skipper and James have compiled their lists on their blogs, while Gran has left his in the comments. Meanwhile Praguetory has provided this amazing analysis of the meme's progress through the blogosphere!

Are elections always won from the centre ground?

Lord Saatchi says not, saying that Margaret Thatcher disproved the "dinner party myth." Iain Dale disagrees, arguing that the 1979 manifesto on which Thatcher won was much more centrist than is generally supposed.

So who's right? Well, I'm going to sit on the fence for the time being and say I have some sympathy with both points of view.

In his pamphlet published yesterday, In Praise of Ideology, Lord Saatchi said people were losing faith in politics because there was so little difference between the parties. In the light of the declining turnout at recent elections, it is very hard to argue against this standpoint.

"The pragmatism of the centre ground turns politics into a commodity market - because pragmatism leads to opportunism, which leads to cynicism. People can spot a left/right 'positioning exercise' a mile off. The motive for these moves is too transparent. Voters always suspected that politicians would 'say anything to get elected'. Now they know it's true."

On the other hand, I do agree with Dale when he says that David Cameron needs to continue his move towards the centre ground, because of the particular electoral circustamces in which his party now finds itself.

"You cannot win purely with the support of your own core voters. Instead you have to appeal to a wider body. This is the lesson of the last 10 years in which the Conservatives have languished in opposition. Continually banging on about the same old message in the same old way is not going to appeal to those who find themselves disillusioned with politics and politicians."

Historically speaking, of course, the truth about elections is much more complex. While it is true to say that elections are not won from extreme positions, as Labour found in 1983 and the Tories in 2001, that is not the same as saying that the party with the most "centrist" position invariably wins.

If it was, I suspect the Liberals and their successor parties might have had a bit more success than they have had over the past 100 years!

My own view is that a political leader needs both the Saatchi approach and the Dale approach if you like, a clear ideology tempered by a willingness to compromise when necessary.

The lack of an ideological compass won't necessarily prevent David Cameron from becoming Prime Minister, as Tony Blair discovered. But it will prevent him from becoming a good one.

The Mars Hill Interview

Paul Burgin's Mars Hill is one of the most thoughtful Labour blogs around and one that I visit most days. So I am delighted to have become the latest blogger to take part in his long-running "Twenty Questions to a Fellow Blogger" series - I think I'm No 21!

Alongside questions about favourite blogs, Bond movies, books, songs and characters from history, Paul also quizzes me on my political views and what I think I learned from my time in the Lobby. You can read the full interview HERE.

My Ashes Prediction

As even a visitor from the Planet Xandon would know by now, The Ashes get under way tomorrow, with Australia seeking to wrest back the urn so dramatically won by England two summers ago.

I don't want to be accused of being negative, but I don't have a particularly good feeling about it if the truth be told. When we won in 2005, we had the benefit of Michael Vaughan's brilliant captaincy, Marcus Trescothick's 430 runs, and Simon Jones's lethal reverse swing. Yet all will be absent when the contest gets under way tomorrow.

At the same time, the Aussies, having had a few poor sessions at key moments in the last series, appear to have regrouped and their ageing yet wonderfully talented team now seems fired up for what will surely be its last hurrah.

So on balance, I think it's Australia to win, probably by 3-1, with one Test drawn. But that said, my cricketing predictions should probably be given even less credence than my political ones!

BlogGems

An occasional series dedicated to bringing the best comments from the blogosphere to a slightly wider audience.
No 2.

"The enemy is not to be found among the Christians, however outlandish their beliefs may appear to the world. The enemy is among those who seek to deny those liberties for which some of us died. Open your eyes."

Cranmer, commenting on a current post on Guido Fawkes.