September 2009 Archives

As even Trevor Kavanagh will admit, it's never been a case that it was "The Sun wot won it."

So why the fuss about The Sun switching sides then? Gordon Brown was quick to point out people determine elections, not newspapers. As was David Cameron.

Yes, The Sun still shifts three million copies a day, but do those 10 million readers a day really care what The Sun says? Probably not. But they will be exposed to a drip-drip-drip of negative Labour stories running up to the election.

Will they see each story and think to themselves "But this is only being written because Rupert Murdoch wants a Tory government?" Probably not - and there's the problem for Labour.

A rather random throw-away line from Nick Griffin during an interview with Radio 1's Newsbeat today.

He said that he deserves some credit for changing the BNP so it is no longer a menace to people around it.

On one hand, it's good to see him admitting that the BNP was a menace, but on the other hand, a huge shame he refuses to accept it still is.

You only have to look at the comments and stories being posted on the BNP website to realise that many of its supporters are true to the party's traditional beliefs.

ON Monday night at 10pm, a slightly hassled Nick Robinson "revealed" that his sources were telling him that Gordon Brown would announce, in his speech, that he was happy to have a leaders' debate - and probably not just the one debate either.

By Tuesday morning, sources were telling other political reporters that they weren't so sure it was going to be in Brown's speech.

The result, on the BBC at least, was that political reporters were being asked if this was another case of Brown dithering?

I would argue the answer is no. Just because "sources" (and despite Andrew Marr using just one blog-based source to ask Brown about pill-popping, lets assume Nick Robinson did have more than one source) say something is going to happen, doesn't mean it will.

So, was Andrew Marr wrong to ask if prime minister Gordon Brown was taking prescription drugs to see him through the role as Britain's first citizen?

Believe the Press, particularly the BBC-hating and Labour-loathing Telegraph, and you'll believe the corporation and Labour are on collision course over this.

To me, Andrew Marr is always in a difficult position. As he is the first to admit, his conference is normally over before it's begun for the rest of delegates. That said, his conference interview with a party leader can often set the tone for the week.

If gives a politician an easy ride, and he's accused of cosying up to them - an accusation Adam Boulton over on Sky News also has to deal with.

Top marks to Jack Straw for agreeing to appear on the same platform as the BNP in the much- talked about appearance by Nick Griffin on Question Time in the near future.

It had been mooted for a couple of weeks that Gordon Brown wanted the Blackburn MP and justice secretary to appear on the TV programme, and by all accounts he's agreed.

This is good news - as I discussed recently, Straw's hometown Labour party learnt the hard way that ignoring the BNP or just shrieking "racist" at them achieves very little.

If proof was needed of the way Twitter is reinventing the communication within politics, then a quick look at Twitter search for #lab09

One of the unlikely upsides of this is that conference jokes, which can normally take a while to spread among conference, get passed around at much greater speed, such as this gem from @majestic_whines@

Baroness Scotland won't be attending #lab09 in Brighton. Apparently one f***ed pier is enough

More of the same please!

IF you believe the manufactured image, David Cameron is the tough guy with the soft exterior - here to put an arm around those who need help, but determined to sort out the country's ills.

Struggling for work? He'll help you out. Enjoying a cheap salad at the House of Commons? Expect to pay more.

You get the picture. In other words, it should be a million miles away from the Conservative Party of the 1980s and the images of the Thatcherite era. You know, making the rich richer, killing public services, hurting the poor and so on.

Someone at Conservative Party HQ in charge of organising the conference programme clearly hasn't got the message. Surely hosting a roller disco with "80s cheesy music" during conference week can only be a bad thing. Compared to the memories of the Tories in the 80s, cheesy music is one of the more pleasant hangovers from that decade.

And that's before we even deal with the danger of an MP on the dancefloor.....

About three weeks ago, David Cameron was busy telling us how, by cutting the cost of salad in the House of Commons (copyright: Lib Dem Conference 09), and he was busy spelling out how open he was about it on his blog.

He was quite irate by the idea that people thought it was a stunt - after all, what's £120million in the face of billions of pounds of debt? To that end, he's right, and the old saying goes that if you look after the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves.

But as his critics rightly point out, talking about £120million really isn't even looking after the pennies - and despite what's he has promised, Cameron isn't explaining how he will go on to save the billions needed. He is, however, promising to be open, and continually bangs on about being up for an open debate with voters.

title="Wordle: Nick Clegg's Lib Dem Speech"> src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/1160294/Nick_Clegg%27s_Lib_Dem_Speech"
alt="Wordle: Nick Clegg's Lib Dem Speech"
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The above graphic is generated by wordle.com and, if you take it at face value, it reminds me a bit of a scene in The Simpsons.

Remember the one when the Navy was using subliminal advertising to try and get youngsters to sign up? The words "Join the Navy" were used again and again, in a way so you wouldn't notice, but they stuck in your brain?

Maybe that was one of the more forgettable episodes of The Simpsons, then. But what about Clegg's speech? The words Liberal, democrats and change pop up again and again, sometimes not together, but used often enough to be clear: they see themselves as the party of change.

Interestingly, the Lib Dems appear to have written off Labour, instead choosing to set out the stall against the Tories. Clegg is right, his party has been more open and honest than the others so far in saying what they'll do. He also played a clever game remembering the 1980s under the Tories, but he was also aware of the challenge he faces to get people to vote Lib Dem.

IT really should be quite simple. If, as Gordon Brown and co promised during the expenses scandal, that they are determined parliament should reflect better the real world outside, then there shouldn't be a debate about Baroness Scotland.

If any of us worked as employers and we employed people who legally weren't allowed to be in this country and were subsequently prosecuted by the UK Borders Agency for breaking the law, then we'd, in all probability, be sacked.

But not if you're the attorney general, it seems.