Is that all Dave? Why Cameron should have come clean

So the big secret's out at last. David Cameron enjoyed a few spliffs while a schoolboy at Eton, and went on to enjoy a few more while a student at Oxford. Well big fucking deal.

The response of the media and political opponents alike has been predictably underwhelming, although admittedly it's hard for Home Secretary John Reid to make too much of an issue of it

For me, it all begs the question why Cameron didn't come clean about this much earlier, instead of allowing the view to take root that he must be trying to cover up a much more serious drug problem. At one point, practically the entire journalistic profession thought Cameron's family trust fund had disappeared up his nose.

Really, it's a bit like a man suspected of marital infedility refusing to answer questions about his sex life when all he has actually done is pull himself off in the shower.

Giles Radice knew the score

Giles Radice was the kindest and most courteous of the North-East MPs I regularly dealt with in my old job as Political Editor of the Newcastle Journal. After I left the Lobby he stayed in touch for a while and sent me a copy of his Diaries which were published towards the end of 2004. Thumbing through them earlier this evening, I came across this remarkable paragraph, written on General Election Day 2001.

"Lisanne and I work in Newark for Fiona Jones. It is an uphill task, because despite being a sitting Labour MP, Fiona is the victim of a horrendous whispering campaign. Sad to say, she has been a lame duck MP, ever since she was wrongly convicted of "fiddling" her election expenses. Although she was immediately and totally exonerated on appeal, the mud stuck and the Tories have been conducting a vicious doorstep attack on her personal character. We meet hostility to her as we knock up, including schoolboys who say she is "corrupt." Poor Fiona!"

This needs little further comment from me, as it already says so much: about Giles Radice and his dedication to the Labour Party; about the awfulness of Fiona Jones' plight; but also about the Labour Party's desertion of her, that she was left to try to get the vote out on election day with the help, not of the party's "stars," but of only a veteran backbencher on his way, that very day, into retirement.

Poor Fiona, indeed....

Has Miliband blown it?

As regular readers of this blog will know I have long tipped Environment Secretary David Miliband for great things under Gordon Brown, including possibly a 50-50 shot at the Chancellorship. But I can't imagine that the PM-in-waiting will have been too chuffed by the Boy Wonder's remarks on BBC Question Time last night.

"I predict that when I come back on this programme in six months or a year’s time, people will be saying ‘wouldn’t it be great to have that Blair back because we can’t stand that Gordon Brown’."

Miliband tried to explain it away by saying he was merely making the point that people always complain about the sitting Prime Minister, but the Brownites will view the comment as, at best, inept and, at worst, indicative of the mindset in the "Blair Bunker."

I don't think Gordon will forget this, and it may well take him a fairly long time to forgive. I may have to revise my predictions as to the make up of Brown's future Cabinet.

A real vote-winner, Charlie

Writing in today's Daily Telegraph, Toby Helm reports that Charlie "No Trousers" Clarke is advocating the abandonment of Labour's historic commitment to providing free education and health care and the introduction of "some level of charging" for public services.

Fair enough, you might think. Such issues have to be debated after all, and Clarke is a backbencher with complete freedom to speak out. Except that in the very next sentence, Helm goes on to write that Clarke's comments "will be seen as a pitch for the Labour leadership against Gordon Brown."

I've always rather rated Toby Helm, but what planet was he on when he wrote this? Can anyone, seriously, think of anything less likely to attract votes in a Labour leadership election than arguing that the National Health Service should no longer be free at the point of delivery?

Answers on a postcard, please....

My Top 10 weirdest Google search referrals

People are always asking me for more Top 10s.....so here, courtesy of MyBlogLog are the 10 strangest Google searches that have led people here in the past three months. Enjoy!


1. Fiona Jones Jack Straw. Actually, not at all weird, but topical.

2. Top Kenyan Orators

3. Cross Dressing 19th Century Doctor

4. David Cameron Man Boobs

5. Badger Watching in England

6. Public Executions in Newcastle

7. Paul Linford The Guardian

8. Paul Linford Lib Dem

9. Well Written Political Commentary

10. How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink

Thanks for the last one Stephen R!

A lame duck government cannot reform the Lords

...but Gordon's Government maybe can.

It is a savage indictment of the Blair Government's loss of reforming nerve that it has taken them 10 years to come up with a plan for a 50pc elected Second Chamber. But such is its shortage of political capital that even implementing this timid proposal is likely to prove beyond it.

The next Government, though, will have much more of such capital to expend, and if he becomes Prime Minister, Gordon Brown should make it clear from the start that he intends to go the whole hog and bring in a fuly democratically-elected upper House, and that this will be a Labour manifesto commitment at the next election.

There is no place in a modern legislature for hereditary peers who owe their titles to some past royal service or liaison. No place for bishops who no longer even believe in the God they purport to worship. No place for appointed party placemen and timeserver ex-MPs. And no place either for so-called "representatives" of ethnic communities who are often those with the loudest voices rather than the broadest level of support.

There is, I grant you, a case for involving "experts" from the world of science and academia, of which Lord (Robert) Winston is a good example. But there is no reason why any of those people should not be co-opted as non-voting advisers onto Lords Committees scrutinising legislation without actually making them voting members of the upper House.

But a fully-elected Second Chamber would not only be right in principle, it would also make good politics. By coming out for a 100pc elected Chamber, and making this a manfesto commitment, Brown will accomplish three things.

First, it will give him the necessary authority, under the Salsibury Convention, to push through a fully-elected Second Chamber after the next election irrespective of the inevitable opposition from the peers themselves. Second, it will prevent David Cameron outflanking him on the left by himself coming out in favour of 100pc election.

But thirdly, and best of all, it will enable Brown to draw a line under the sleazy Blair years at a stroke by removing the right of future Prime Ministers to abuse the Parliamentary process by awarding peerages to their political cronies in the way Blair has done.

Indeed, since everyone except John "fucking" Hutton and Charlie "no trousers" Clarke now accept he is going to be the next PM, there is surely nothing to stop Brown coming out and saying all this right away.