Be afraid...be very afraid

My attention has been drawn to an excellent but extremely disturbing post on Rachel from North London today predicting some potentially shattering forthcoming revelations with regard to the use of intelligence prior to the 7/7 bombings. Apparently this has been known about within media circles for some time but kept secret because the whole thing is sub judice.

Writes Rachel: "There is one hell of a tidal wave coming, as secrets that have been hidden for too long start to emerge."

Obviously I can't add any information of my own at this stage, other than to make the comment that if the contents of her post are even half-way true, then there are going to be such serious questions asked of our political masters that the case for a public inquiry into the bombings will become unanswerable.

Davide Simonetti has taken advantage of the Downing Street e-petition initiative to lodge one in support of an inquiry, and you can sign it HERE.

Update: Sorry to have to impose comment moderation last night but someone took this post as an invitation to openly speculate on the nature of the forthcoming story in a way that specifically linked it to a named ongoing criminal trial. Since I don't especially want to be accused of prejudicing a court case that might result in people who tried to kill hundreds of other people being locked up, I took it down.

Top referrers in 2007 so far

Quite a few bloggers publish monthly League Tables showing their top referral links - ie where the people who visited your site came from. Thanks to MyBlogLog I am also now in a position to do this but my list has a slight twist - it's a running total for the whole of 2007 which I will update every couple of months.

No huge surprises about the big names on the list but it's heartening to see a good spectrum of blogs represented across the right, left and centre of the 'sphere. Every one of these sites referred at least 50 visitors here during January and February.

1. Iain Dale's Diary
2. Political Betting
3. Guido Fawkes
4. Jane's the One
5. Comment is Free
6. Turbulent Cleric
7. Bloggerheads
8. Mars Hill
9. The Daily
10. UK Daily Pundit
11. Little Man in a Toque
12. Stephen Pollard
13. Labour Watch
14. Comment Central
15. Croydonian
16. Liberal England
17. Tom Watson
18. PragueTory
19. Rachel North
20. Adam Smith

Welcome back...

Gifted writer Liam Murray is back in blogging action, but this time as himself rather than as Casillis.

A history lesson from PB.com

So far as I know, David Herdson does not have his own blog but he is one of the most regular posters on PoliticalBetting.com. His posts are always well worth a read but this comment published earlier today is the kind of thing I wish I had written myself. It is one of the best explanations I have read as to why Gordon Brown will be the next Prime Minister, and I will quote it in full.

A quick(ish) word on the form of picking replacement leaders. Parties in opposition behave differently from parties in government because they can afford to take more of a risk in the hope that their man or woman will come good before the election in a few years’ time; PM’s have to come good from day 1.

Going through the leaders of the opposition chosen since 1945 we have: Gaitskell (former chancellor - briefly), Wilson (former middle ranking cabinet minister but very prominent by 1963), Heath (former middle ranking cabinet minister), Thatcher (same), Foot (likewise, though more experienced), Kinnock (backbencher on a mission), Smith (former junior cabinet minister but a prominent member of the shadow cabinet by 1992), Blair (rising member of the shadow cabinet; no experience in government), Hague (ex-junior member of the cabinet), IDS (backbencher in during the Tory government), Howard (former Home Secretary) and Cameron (young man on a mission, short time in the shadow cabinet). Most have cabinet experience, few have spent any time in a senior government position; the average age on election is in their 40s.

People who become PM other than through leading the opposition come almost exclusively from the highest cabinet positions. As it occurs less frequently I’ve taken the whole of the 20th century for examples: Balfour (leader of the House, but de facto deputy prime minister), Asquith (chancellor), Lloyd-George (ex-chancellor but by 1916, minister for doing the things the PM should have been doing were he not drunk), Baldwin (1923 - chancellor), Baldwin (1935 - leader of the house and de facto deputy/joint prime minister), Chamberlain (chancellor), Churchill (an exception, but still a vastly experienced member of cabinet and unquestionably the stand out leader in waiting), Eden (foreign secretary), Macmillan (chancellor), Douglas-Home (foreign secretary), Callaghan (foreign secretary), Major (chancellor).

Nearly all PM’s chosen in office come from the Treasury or Foreign office and those that don’t tend to be the dominant figure of their day other than the PM - and in some cases, including the PM. As Brown obviously fits both categories, it would be a major break with the pattern were he to be overlooked. The people who became PM rarely got there because their office gave them seniority in the party; it was their seniority and ability that got them the office. The dynamics have been the same over a century and more and I for one wouldn’t back against such strong form.