Senior Moments

The footage of Ming mistakenly claiming that the Lib Dems won the Bromley and Chislehurst shown on Newsnight tonight was absolutely priceless, a seemingly unintentional masterclass in comic writing. The hubris and self-aggrandisement of the preparatory remarks on Lib Dem "principles" and by-election prowess combined with Ming's grandfatherly witterings on Eric Forth (colourful character, fellow Glaswegian) gave the audience just long enough to guess the punchline. And when it came, Ming was wonderfully, delighfully oblivious - his experience as a QC has immured him to ramming home his point, which made things all the better: "We won because [...]. We won because [...]. We won because [...]."

You should be able to view it from a link here, at about 25 mins in.

Media Studies

Eddie Mair had it completely right on today's PM when he asked Charlie Falconer whether he looked back fondly on the time when the news was full of stories abour "Labour policies" and "Labour ideas", often several days before Blair (then Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition) was due to make a speech on them. As Mair said, it is testament to the power and efficiency of the CCHQ PR machine that we heard so much about Cameron's proposed Bill of Rights in the lead up to today's speech.

More importantly, it is also testament to:

• the shift in media opinion: newspaper editors and writers now rightly believe the Tories have a genuine chance of being elected, regardless of what that man in the Question Time audience with the scarily overbearing laugh thinks.


• the lack of an overall direction in new policy ideas from Labour top brass/wonks. This, of course, is not really a problem for the Conservatives, as they are the opposition.

Consequently, many Labour announcements are treated with a greater or lesser degree of contempt and/or suspicion by the media and the public as almost desperate attempts by a tiring administration to remain relevant. Meanwhile, the Tories manage to come across as fresh and vital.

If this trend is not reversed, Labour, especially under Gordon Brown, will find it extremely hard to win the next general election.

(Incidentally, regarding the proposed Bill of Rights, I was amused to come across this BBC story, dated 2 November 2005, which contained the following: "Other proposals put forward by [David] Davis include a new British Bill of Rights with priority over European human rights laws.")

Mills and Hoon

Guido complains that Brains has "twisted" "his" (Guido's) story on Bill Cash's amendment that would reinstate British primacy over EU regulation into a full blown article in today's Guardian. Guido conveniently overlooks the fact that Miliband and Hoon (who co-wrote the piece) are, in fact, Cabinet Ministers, and were probably able to deduce the full implications of Cash's amendment without his help.

Also overlooked is this stinging criticism of Cameron's EU policy:

By negotiating as one block, the EU is a powerful force for change - without it, the Kyoto protocol would not have survived. The EU's emission-trading scheme is the most innovative and efficient method yet invented for reducing carbon emissions to manageable levels. Its emerging partnerships with India and China are helping to spread clean energy to the developing world. European nations could never have taken these steps by themselves. [...]
By pulling out of the mainstream Conservative group in the European Parliament, Mr Cameron is putting his party's obsessive anti-Europeanism before Britain's national interest, and before effective action on the environment.

Indeed. If Cameron's Conservatives find themselves in power following the next election—which is sadly looking increasingly likely—they would also find themselves practically ostracised in Europe should they pull out of the EPP and/or try to assert the sovereignty of Britain's legislators over the EU's. This is what Mills and Hoon are getting at when they say that Cash's amendment "means withdrawal".

Gordon goes nuclear

Well, not exactly. The "news" from Brown's annual Mansion House address that he intends to retain Trident should he eventually becomme PM is less than surprising—to do anything less would give the Tories real ammunition (pardon the pun) and be true electoral suicide.

The speech wasn't all predictable, however: Reuters reports this superb snippet:

"Joe Cole should now be pushed up from number 11 for a striking role for England," he told the black tie dinner.

Cole, who wears the number 11 shirt, was the star performer from midfield in England's draw with Sweden at the World Cup on Tuesday.

Michael Owen, who wears number 10 and was one of only four strikers in the squad, injured himself at the start of the match and is now out of the tournament. (Source)

Blimey. That's what stymied ambition sounds like.