Wanted: A proven international track record

Having watched last night's Wembley debacle amid the inevitable chaos of removal day +1, I can't say I'm too surprised at today's decision regarding Steve McClaren. All I think that can possibly be said in his defence is that he was very unlucky with injuries, losing his entire first-choice back four and regular striking partnership prior to last night's game.

Against that, bringing back Frank Lampard when it has been proved time and time again that he and Steven Gerrard cannot play alongside eachother, and using Gareth Barry in an unfamiliar holding role in preference to Owen Hargreaves, were the kind of suicidal selectorial blunders which suggest the manager had a death wish.

What now? Inevitably given his media profile and success with Chelsea, the talk will turn to Jose "the special one" Mourinho, and I think that if he were to indicate that he wants the job, a deal could probably be tied up very quickly. For my part, though, I think the FA would be better off at this juncture going for someone with a proven track record of success in management at international level, and that means either Phil Scolari or Guus Hiddink.

The latter in particular has demonstrated with South Korea, Australia and Russia what can be achieved with a fairly average bunch of players. In my view, as the laughably-termed "Golden Generation" prepares to head into the sunset, that is precisely what England need now.

Moving on

Yesterday was the end of an era in the Linford household. We finally moved on from the little terraced house in Belper I have owned since 1989 which was my home both before and after my move down to London and the Lobby in the mid-90s.

When I first bought the place as an impoverished local news reporter, it was a disused shop that was one of only two properties in the town inside my price range. But over the course of about ten arduous but enjoyable years I slowly converted it, first into a bachelor pad, later into the comfortable family home it now is.

The needs of our growing family meant it was time to move on, but although it was inevitably hard to say goodbye, I left this place for the last time shortly before 4pm yesterday afternoon with only happy memories.

For those who appreciate this sort of personal stuff - and I know it's a relatively small minority of you - there's a full pictorial memoir of the house on my companion blog, Behind the Lines.

Is this what Blair v Brown would have been like?

As regular readers of this blog will know, I both like and admire Chris Huhne while having always been rather sceptical about his rival Nick Clegg, but I can't help but feel that it is the 53-year-old environment spokesman who will end up being the most damaged by yesterday's unedifying spat on the BBC Politics Show.

The nuclear option of attacking Clegg personally and portraying him as Cameron-lite was always open to Huhne, but I only expected him to deploy that option had it reached the point where he had nothing to lose. What I cannot understand is why he opted to deploy it at this stage, after a strong Question Time performance last week which would have persuaded many undecided party members to vote for him.

For what it's worth, my view is that they will now be less likely to do so. However its MPs might behave, the Liberal Democrat grassroots are emphatically not the nasty party, and its membership will take a dim view of anyone who so openly attacks a colleague.

Whichever of the two candidates ends up as leader, they are both major assets to the party, and for one of them to attack the other in that way diminishes that asset as well as dividing the party. In the words of one opposition commentator today, "anyone who was thinking of voting LibDem will have been profundly put off by the whole episode."

One person who knows this all too well is Gordon Brown. In 1994, he could have deployed the nuclear option against Tony Blair, portraying him as SDP Mark II (if only...!) and highlighting his policy flip-flops in much the same way Huhne did to Clegg.

I still believe Brown could have beaten Blair by employing such a strategy, but he knew that the party would have ended up so divided that victory would not have been worth the candle. I fear that this is now the fate awaiting Huhne should he go on to defy the odds and win.

Eurostar launch highlights transport divide

For this weekend's column, I returned to an old hobby-horse - regional transport funding. The launch of the new Eurostar terminal at St Pancras is a reminder that, when the Channel Tunnel was first built, the whole of the country was meant to benefit from the project, not just the South. Yet if the North is to gain anything from the new improved link to the continent, it will require the construction of a new high-speed route linking into the St Pancras terminal, a project which the Brown government has put off for at least a decade. More for those who are interested in this sort of thing on the companion blog HERE.

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.