Could Milburn come back

Some interesting speculation today from Peter Diapre, writing on Boulton and Co, about the possible return of Alan Milburn to a governmental role in 2008.

"With his impeccable working class background and rags to riches story (single mum, council estate etc), he has the right credentials to look at issues such as social mobility. It wouldn't surprise me to see him leading a review of some kind in 2008, or how about a return to government? Watch this space."

For the record, this was what I wrote about the prospect of a Milburn comeback in my Newcastle Journal column a week ago today. I was writing in the context of the damning report published ten days ago which found that social mobility in Britain had ground to a halt.

"The upside for Labour is that there is a challenge here for Gordon Brown which, if he can grasp it, might just give his government the moral purpose it currently lacks, and a way out of its current political malaise.

There is also, if Mr Brown’s pride will permit, an old adversary who could help in that task – Darlington MP Alan Milburn, Labour’s Mr Upward Social Mobility himself in more ways than one.

The former health secretary famously grew up, the child of a single mother, on a council estate in a remote ex-mining town in County Durham.

Yet he himself has stated that he could not now imagine anyone from such a background as his reaching the Cabinet.

He is also, as far as this issue is concerned, Labour’s prophetic voice crying in the wilderness, having first warned about the looming problem as long ago as 2003.

Back then he wrote: “We should aim to reverse the slowing down of social mobility of recent decades. If these trends continue, Britain will be in danger of grinding socially to a halt.

"Getting Britain socially moving demands a new front in the battle for equal life chances. The most substantial inequalities are not simply between income groups but between those who own shares, pensions and housing and those who rely solely on wages or benefits.”

When Mr Milburn wrote those words, it was designed as a possible prospectus for the third term, a call to arms for Labour to be more, not less radical in its thinking

It didn’t work out that way. Although he did come back briefly to help run the election campaign, Mr Milburn along with most of his ideas ended up being marginalised.

Would Mr Brown now pick up the phone and ask Mr Milburn to join his Cabinet line-up? I don’t know, but it would certainly strengthen what is commonly seen as a rather lacklustre team.

Would Mr Milburn, for that matter, ever want to work again with Mr Brown? I don’t know the answer to that either.

I do know, however, that the last time I spoke to Mr Milburn, he was reading Giles Radice’s “Friends and Rivals,” a cautionary tale about three men whose rivalry prevented them working effectively together.

And as the Tories used to say in the days when they regularly won elections, surely now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party?"

Political blogger of the year: Sunny Hundal

Tory blogfather Iain Dale is running a comprehensive set of End of Year Political Awards, with categories from Politician of the Year, to Political Journalist of the Year, to Sexiest Politician of the Year (what?) and Political Blogger of the Year. The results should be entertaining.

But rather bizarrely, his shortlist for Political Blogger of the Year includes neither himself nor his left-of-centre counterpart, Sunny Hundal. This is odd as the pair of them are by far the two most influential figures in the blogosphere at present.

Sunny is the man who, in setting up Liberal Conspiracy has brought some sort of order to the disparate left blogosphere this year. The site is still in its early days, but to get 15-20 left-of-centre bloggers working together at all represents a huge achievement in my view.

The political blogosphere, initially a rather liberal-left fragment of cyberspace, has been dominated by the right for the past couple of years. Next year, thanks in no small part to Sunny's efforts, we will hopefully see some balance restored.

* To spare Sunny's blushes, I have NOT cross-posted this at Liberal Conspiracy.

Birthday memories

My dad, Ken Linford, would have been 80 years old today. It's weird to think of what life might have been like over the past 27 years if he had lived, and what kind of life he and mum would be living if he was alive now. Would they still be living at our old house in Hitchin, Herts? Would they have moved down to Devon to run a garage as they had often spoken about? Would he even have enjoyed being old? Almost certainly not.

I still dream about him quite regularly as if he is still alive, that he didn't really die but went off to start a new life somewhere, but I guess this kind of thing is normal when you lose someone so important at a young age. Wherever he is, I hope it's somewhere peaceful.

The importance of faith

By way of reply to Ourman, Davide Simonetti and others who have questioned my previous post about Nick Clegg, and an earlier one about whether Tony Blair should have discussed his faith, the first thing I want to say is no, I don't believe non-Christians are lesser people, no, I don't believe Christians have a monopoly on morality, and yes, I do agree with Archbishop Rowan that, while I would prefer it if Clegg was a Christian, it is his integrity that matters most.

But I do nevertheless believe that having a personal faith does on the whole make you a better politician, although as I will also make clear, there are always exceptions. So why do I believe this?

There are two main reasons. Firstly, I believe that faith can and usually does give politicians a stronger ethical framework for their actions. I am not saying here that atheists will invariably lack a moral compass, just that having an outside point of reference for one's political beliefs and decisions is helpful.

Canon David Sharp puts it thus: "The Protestant tradition particularly requires a careful examination of the conscience; what will be popular with the public or the party comes far lower down. [His] belief creates another criterion to be passed before he can act. Surely such extra moral tests, over and above strictly political considerations, are likely to make for more responsible decisions."

Secondly, and more fundamentally, I think that because faith in a higher being gives people an awareness of their own limitations and imperfections (the Biblical word "sin" is probably not helpful here) it generally tends to incline them towards humility, and this for me is an essential personal quality for anyone seeking to exercise power over people's lives.

This was why I found Tony Blair's particular brand of Christianity so perplexing. I don't doubt he is a Christian, as indeed is Margaret Thatcher, but his apparent Messiah complex and belief that he could singlehandedly save first the Labour Party, then Britain, then the World, often struck me as evidence of a rather anti-Christian state of mind.

Gordon Brown is a much more genuinely humble man in this regard. His Christianity is much more about applying Jesus's ethical teachings to present-day social problems than rescuing the planet from an axis of evil, and in this sense he seems to me to be a much better example of a Christian politician.

I realise that in the current climate, citing Gordon as a good example of anything is unlikely to convince many to change their point of view, but it is nevertheless as sincere an explanation as I can give of why I believe faith to be important in a political context.

Clegg says no to English Parliament (and God)

BBC coverage of this morning's radio Q&A with Nick Clegg has thus far focused on the revelation that he doesn't believe in God. While that is certainly concerning for me as a Christian, equally so is the fact that the new Liberal Democrat leader used his first day in office to deliver a clear snub to those of us campaigning for symmetrical devolution across the UK - ie giving English voters the same democratic rights and representation as their Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish counterparts.

"Do you believe there should be a Parliament for England similar to what Scotland and Wales has?" was the clear question posed. Clegg replied: "No, but we should devolve power to regions and communities," apparently contradicting his own policy announcement of April this year in which he ended decades of Lib Dem support for elected regional government.

I don't think this is going to play at all well with English voters alienated by New Labour's half-finished devolution project and disillusioned by David Cameron's failure to properly address the issue. Maybe Clegg feels he doesn't need them, but the desire for proper representation for England is part of a much broader revolt against current political structures with which the Lib Dems should be aligning themselves.

English Parliament campaign guru Toque is somewhat pithier as you would expect. "The Clegg family motto is “Let him take what he is able to take”. In Nick Clegg’s case he feels able to take the piss, and so he does."

The challenge for Clegg

So Nick Clegg it is. I made no secret of the fact that I supported Chris Huhne, but although I still have my doubts over whether Clegg is quite the gifted communicator his supporters have always made him out to be, I wish him well.

Britain needs a successful Liberal Democrat party for the simple reason that New Labour has never really been that serious about implementing the constitutional changes needed to introduce genuine democracy to this country. It abandoned any meaningful look at a fair voting system within 18 months of the first term, and has had to be dragged kicking and screaming to an acceptance of the very basic democratic principle that members of the second chamber of Parliament should be elected.

Labour's conversion to greenery has also been rather dilatory and skin-deep in my view. On these and other issues the Lib Dems and their predecessor parties have been setting the agenda in British politics for most of my adult life.

So the first challenge for Clegg in my view is to re-establish the Lib Dems as the party of the environment at the very point it has become the touchstone issue for many voters, and the party of political reform at a time when trust in the established order has never been lower. If he can do this, then I and others will forgive him any amount of cliche-ridden vacuity of the kind we heard in his acceptance speech.

It is clear from both post-declaration speeches that the two candidates have now put the Calamity Clegg episode behind them and are now preparing to work closely together. Huhne has to be Shadow Foreign Secretary in my view, possibly also retaining the climate change brief - it is global warming we are talking about after all.

As a further unifying gesture, I hope Clegg can find room in his team for Huhne's campaign manager, the excellent Lynne Featherstone.

He would of course be mad to move Vince Cable from the Treasury brief, and I don't think for a minute that he will do, but the now-vacant Home Office brief offers the chance for a bold appointment, with Julia Goldsworthy, Ed Davey and David Laws all potential candidates.

Meanwhile, expect Clegg to be the subject of a sustained love-bombing campaign from the Tory bloggers as they seek to persuade Clegg to join Sham Cam's so-called "progressive alliance." Indeed, some would say this has already begun.