Is No 10 playing the expectations game?

When dealing with stories emanating from "Senior Ministers," "Downing Street sources", "Friends of the Prime Minister" and the like, it is never particularly advisable to take things at face value. Such, I think, is the case with today's Guardian story asserting that Tony Blair will "go early" if anyone at No 10 is charged over the cash-for-honours affair.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't doubt for a moment that Patrick Wintour's story is accurate, in the sense that (i) someone fairly senior said this to him, and (ii) that Blair would indeed quit if one of his key aides faced charges. He could hardly do otherwise.

But what I am questioning is why someone close to Blair - and Wintour's contacts are pretty good in that sort of area - would want this information out in the open now, and specifically why a story speculating about the circumstances in which he could be forced to quit would be considered helpful.

It's just a thought - but I wonder if No 10 is playing the expectations game, deliberately setting the bar at "charges" so that, for instance, any further "arrests" involving his inner circle can be brushed aside.

My reason for asking this is that while I suspect that the cash-for-honours probe will eventually result in charges - the claims on Guido and elsewhere that they've found the smoking gun ring true to me - I also suspect that no charges will actually be brought until Blair has left No 10.

Why do I think that? Well, for no reason other than that if the Police and the CPS can somehow avoid embroiling themselves in the unedifying spectacle of unseating a democratically-elected leader, with all the inevitable constitutional flak that will entail, then what have they really got to lose by a few months' delay?

But let's just say for the sake of argument that Blair's people actually know, rather than just suspect, that this is the case. Well, if so, they know they can pretty safely promise that Blair will go early if charges are brought, without any fear of being made to deliver on the pledge.

As I said, it's just a thought....

This post was featured on "Best of the Web" on Comment is Free.

State of the Union podcast

The Union between England and Scotland was 300 years old last Tuesday - but how much longer can it last in the face of the growing demands for independence north of the border and growing resentment south of it at the lack of an equivalent English voice?

Plenty of subject-matter there for my latest Week in Politics podcast which can now be heard HERE

Ten years of my Newcastle Journal column

Okay, so they won't be letting off fireworks over the Tyne Bridge, but today is a celebration of sorts for me as it marks ten years of my Saturday Column in the Newcastle Journal.

I was given the column shortly after starting work as the paper's political editor in 1997, and retained it despite standing down from that role in 2004 to spend more time with my family - yes, that really was the reason in my case!

I will always be grateful to The Journal for giving me this break. I had written light-hearted Diary columns before, but it was The Journal which gave me my first chance to do a serious, big picture commentary on the week's political events and I would like to think I found a bit of a niche there.

You can read this week's column in full on the Companion Blog HERE

Whose sock-puppet is Bill Blanko?

As a former Lobby hack, I had to laugh at the appearance in today's Guardian of this sparkling new column about Lobby life written by someone calling himself "Bill Blanko." I think that's what we in the blogosphere know these days as a sock-puppet.

So which Guardian political hack is it? Is it a Guardian hack at all? Suspicion will undoubtedly fall on veteran former Pol Ed "Sir" Michael White, if only for the fact that whoever it is has obviously been around long enough to remember the infamous Lobby Bad Taste competition which used to be held annually at whichever party conference happened to be in Blackpool.

As "Blanko" points out, the winner was whoever managed to purchase the tackiest souvenir from the resort's many tacky souvenir shops. The last contest I recall was won by Jon Craig (now of Sky News) for an imitation penis which you strapped to your ankle so that it protruded from the bottom of your trouser-leg.

Presenting the award in the Press Room at the end of the conference, the Tory MP Alan Duncan announced: "And first prize goes to Jon Craig for confirming what we always knew about him."

Hain rediscovers his balls. A pity he mislaid them in 2003

There was a time when Peter Hain and the late Robin Cook were close allies, soft-left political soulmates who had essentially reached an accommodation with Blairism without ever really becoming "New" Labour.

By and large, Cook maintained this position throughout his six-year ministerial career, pursuing such non-Blairite enthusiasms as proportional representation and an "ethical foreign policy" before finally deciding that supporting the Iraq War would be an accommodation too far.

Unfortunately, Hain failed to resign with him, at a point where such a joint resignation might have brought down this lying Prime Minister and his pathetic excuse for a Labour Government.

Now, belatedly, Hain has rediscovered his principles, arguing in the New Statesman that the neocon experiment has failed and branding George Bush "the most rightwing American administration in living memory."

Why has Hain waited till now to say this? The answer, as at least one Jon Cruddas-supporting blog has pointed out, is that he is standing for Labour's deputy leadership and is trying to reposition himself as an anti-war critic within the Cabinet.

But in my view, he could have had himself a much bigger prize had he joined Cook in opposing the invasion from the start, putting himself in the frame as a credible, sensible left candidate for the leadership.

As it is, I might still back Hain in the deputy leadership election, as I think his views are probably the closest to my own on a range of issues from Iraq to devolution to personal taxation.

But he will only have himself to blame if people who should have been his natural supporters end up backing Mr Cruddas instead.

The lone voice

I expect most bloggers will disagree or even laugh at this, but there is a certain, magnificent stubbornness about John Prescott which I can't help but admire. While the New Labour project as a whole has been all about shifting with the political wind, that is one thing you can't lay at Big John's door.

Two years and three months ago, the people of the North-East dealt a death-blow to the prospects for English regional government by voting 4-1 against plans for an elected North-East Assembly. It immediately became clear that the idea was dead in the water as far as other regions were concerned and it swiftly disappeared off the political agenda.

Those of us, amongst whom I include myself, who initially supported the idea as a way of rebalancing our lopsided constitution, were forced to reappraise our position. I eventually concluded that an English Parliament represented a more promising way forward for English devolution, and recent polls seem to have borne that out.

Yet, to listen to his speech to the New Local Government Network yesterday, none of it seems to have made the slightest dent in Mr Prescott's belief in the inevitability of his regionalist dream.

"A regional level of administration is necessary alongside the need for the new localism. Regional planning is an essential part of the accountability that is needed from elected representatives rather than appointed regional civil servants," he said.

"I'm sad that regional government was rejected in the North East, but I believe that England will eventually move to elected regional government - just as Scotland and Wales originally rejected devolution and then voted for it."

Some might call it contempt for the electorate. Others might call it losing touch with reality. Both would be justifiable accusations, but for me there is still something admirable about a politician who is prepared to say what he thinks in defiance of the conventional wisdom.

He may be wrong, he may even be stupid - but at least he's genuine.