The Top 10 Labour Twits

A week or so ago, Tara Hamilton-Miller in the New Statesman put together a list of the Top 10 Tory Twits. It was entertaining reading, though she unaccountably omitted both Sir Nicholas Fairbairn, who was once cut off mid-flight by Mr Deputy Speaker when attempting a graphic description of the homosexual act during a Commons debate, and Alan Clark who famously got his penis out in the hallway of his mistress's flat after feeling neglected during a party.

Surprisingly, no-one has yet put together a list of the Top 10 Labour twits, so I thought I would ask for nominations.

As Monty Python noted, it is hard to define what makes a really first-class twit. Political twittishness is essentially about more than mere rank bad judgement. Its essential ingredient is frivolity, not just in the sense of lack of seriousness but in the sense of failure to think about the consequences of one's actions.

To help kick start the debate, I have put together the following shortlist of ten, although all other suggestions will be gratefully received.

Anthony Wedgwood Benn, as he was then, for nearly wrecking the party for good during the 70s and 80s.

Clive Jenkins, for his continual meddling in leadership elections which invariably produced the wrong result.

Lord Longford, for his silly campaign in support of child killer Myra Hindley.

Chris Bryant, for practically every public utterance since he swapped vicarhood for politics.

Robert Kilroy-Silk, for declaring in the mid-80s that he would be Labour leader and PM within 10 years.

John Spellar, for saying "these cunts must be stopped" when he meant to say "cuts."

Tom Driberg, for numerous indiscreet sexual adventures from the 1930s to the 1970s.

David Winnick, for failing to acquire the slightest degree of gravitas despite nearly 40 years in the Commons.

George Brown, for throwing his toys out of his pram in 1968 and resigning while pissed.

Martin Salter, for thinking what a great idea it would be to get rid of his neighbouring Labour MP.

Question Time: Huhne shades it

Nick Clegg has based his campaign for the leadership of the Lib Dems on the fact that he is seen as a "great communicator," so he ought to be worried by the fact that his rival Chris Huhne is widely seen to have shaded last night's head-to-head debate on Question Time in Buxton. This thread on Lib Dem Voice gives a good flavour of the reactions from party members who watched the programme, while there's also a useful round-up of blogospheric reactions so far from Paul Walter.

For my part, I agree that Huhne came over as the more impressive candidate. He seemed both more assured than Clegg and noticeably more passionate, particularly on the issue of Trident which will go down well with many party members.

Clegg seemed in difficulty from the first question, which incidentally came from my friend Gill Reade, of Belper, on whether the party had been damaged by the way it had despatched its last two leaders. When David Dimbleby picked up the "nasty party" theme to challenge Clegg over an attack he made on Huhne last year, the frontrunner seemed flummoxed and unsure of how to respond.

Huhne also dealt more intelligently with the second question, on who the Lib Dems should form a coalition with. He made the very valid point that, in the current climate of political cross-dressing, a coalition between Labour and the Conservatives would make rather more political sense than a coalition between either main party and the Lib Dems.

It was only when they got to the third question, on Trident, that it threatened to get nasty. Clegg accused Huhne, by a rather roundabout argument, of being a unilateral re-armer, not a disarmer. Huhne said that anyone who imagined Trident would be any use against Afterdinnerjazz was "living in cloud cuckoo land."

"Chris for now, Nick for the future" seemed to be the general verdict on Lib Dem Voice. It is one that I would endorse.

Tunisia to join the EU?

Foreign Secetary David Miliband is renowned for his original thinking, but his latest wheeze to expand the European Union to take in not only the rest of the old Soviet bloc but also parts of North Africa and the Middle East is surely a piece of blue-sky thinking too far.

The argument over whether Turkey should be part of the EU has been hotly contested but there is at least some historical basis for regarding that country as part of Europe.

But while there is always a good case for closer international co-operation, there surely comes a point beyond which the concept of Europeanism becomes meaningless. Kirghiztan, Uzbekistan, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia are not part of Europe and never will be.

To quote Margaret Thatcher in a not-altogether-different context: "No. No. No."

Update: A nice line in outrage here from Letters from a Tory.

Thames Gateway "is potential catastrophe"

I can't say I'm that surprised by this assessment of the Thames Gateway scheme, but if it does turn out to be the disaster MPs predict it won't necessarily be because of bad planning, or even the fact that it originated with John Prescott, but because it's a fucking awful place to live.

No substitute for experience

I am not, in principle, opposed to the idea of governments of all the talents, but the idea that you can take people who have been successful in one milieu and expect them to be able to repeat that success in the political arena has always seemed a dubious one to me.

So it doesn't greatly surprise me that Alan West has become the latest of Gordon's fresh talents to find himself in political difficulties, following on from the controversies that have surrounded Mark Malloch Brown, Digby Jones and Ara Darzi in the months since their original appointments.

A conspiracy theorist might see it all as evidence of a dark plot by Labour MPs to get rid of a bunch of outsiders they never wanted in the government in the first place, in the hope that next time round, the jobs might actually be handed out within the PLP.

Tempting though that theory undoubtedly is, I think it just shows there really is no substitute for political experience.

Scrapping ID cards tops your wish-list

Last week I asked readers of this blog to vote on what they thought should have been in the Queen's Speech that wasn't, listing ten policy ideas which I personally favour. The fairly unambiguous result is that the single policy which would you would most like to see is the scrapping of ID cards.

There now seems to be a growing consensus on this across the political spectrum. Gordon Brown still has the chance to ditch the scheme as an unwanted hangover of the Blair years, and given their own stance on it the Tories would be unable to criticise him for doing so, as they undoubtedly would if he attempted to reverse other aspects of the Blair legacy.

The full results of the poll, listing the ideas in order of popularity, were as follows:

• Scrapping ID card scheme 79pc
• Four-year fixed-term Parliaments 53pc
• Abolition of the Barnett Formula 52pc
• Referendum on EU Reform Treaty 51pc
• Fully-elected House of Lords 49pc
• Proportional representation 48pc
• Cap on party funding 35pc
• More action to combat inequality 34pc
• Full year's maternity pay 14pc
• Immediate end to airport expansion 14pc

The level of support for abolishing the Barnett Formula is scarcely surprising, given who the author of this blog is, but the degree of backing for other enthusiasms of mine such as fixed-term Parliaments and PR is encouraging.