Good luck Bob

Sincere congratulations to my old Lobby colleague Bob Roberts on his promotion to Mirror political editor. Although one of the nicest guys in the Press Gallery, Bob is well-used to coming first, having once won an Alan Shearer lookalike competition at his local boozer in Sarf London.

Julia G 4 Us!

I have noticed over recent weeks that there seems to be much less interest in the current Lib Dem leadership contest among readers of this blog than there was last time round in February 2006. Perhaps this is because people are simply not inspired by the two candidates.

If the results of my recent poll are anything to go by, what most of you really wanted to see was a generational/gender contest between Julia Goldsworthy and Charles Kennedy. I certainly agree that those two would have made it a much more interesting battle.

Question: Who would you have voted for in the Lib Dem leadership contest had all these candidates been standing?

Julia Goldsworthy 28%
Charles Kennedy 24%
Nick Clegg 8%
David Laws 8%
Vincent Cable 7%
Steve Webb 7%
Simon Hughes 6%
Chris Huhne 6%
Susan Kramer 4%
Ed Davey 1%

Still waiting for that Big Vision

When Gordon Brown decided not to hold a General Election this autumn, he said it was because he wanted to set out his "vision" to the country first. That phrase has haunted him ever since as candid friends such as Compass, the Fabians and myself urged him to set out that vision, while opponents such as Michael Gove concluded that he had none, that his sole remaining political objective was to remain in power as long as possible.

Sad to say, I think today's Queen's Speech lends some further credence to the Gove analysis. If this is the full extent of Gordon's Big Vision, then heaven help us.

In my Saturday Column a few weeks' back, I wrote: "If [Mr Brown] is regain the political initiative, he will need to set out an agenda which people will see as authentically and distinctively his own - one based on fairness and social justice."

While there is some stuff in today's package that might merit that description - for instance the initiatives on housing, hospital cleanliness, flexible working and the school leaving-age - in terms of the overall message they will be completely drowned-out by the renewed focus on anti-terrorism measures, and the pledge, from a self-proclaimed champion of "liberty," to extend the detention-without-charge period to 56 days.

Furthermore some of the more "progressive" aspects of the package are themselves problematical, for instance the pledge to build 3m new homes, which will involve some difficult trade-offs with the environmental lobby, and the requirement to keep all under-18s in some form of education, which some will see as another infringement of individual liberties.

I will probably have a bit more to say about this on Liberal Conspiracy tomorrow and in my next Saturday column at the weekend. But take out the stuff about housing - a notorious blind spot of the last Prime Minister's - and what we have here is a Queen's Speech which Tony Blair could have delivered.