No greater love hath no man than this, than to lay down his brother for his own advancement

If I were David Miliband, I'd have made the same decision he has today. Not from any sense of pride, but for other reasons.

The way David was knifed in the back by his brother, particularly in the way Iraq was dredged up over and over by the Ed Miliband team to attack his brother David was a low tactic. Anyone who believes Ed miliband would have acted any differently from David had Ed been in parliament in 2003 is surely living on a different planet. For Ed Miliband too to decry the last government, a government he was a minister in and one in which his brother was a leading light, stunk too.

To rip off a quote made about MacMillan, "No greater love hath no man than this, than to lay down his brother for his own advancement"

Whilst I don't think it wrong that Ed stood against David, for Ed's team to attack David's decisions and record seems reprehensible.

Whilst we might all feel happy in our casual clothes ...

I like a pair of jeans and a football top. I admit it. It's a fair cop. To me there is nothing more comfortable than jeans, my Adidas Samba trainers and a football shirt in which to potter around the house or, as I did for three years at University, to go out in or attend lectures. In short, I think most people feel more comfortable in their casual clothes.

What's this got to do with politics ? Stick with it and you'll find out.

In direct contrast to the football top, trainers and jeans, I sometimes have to wear a suit for important council meetings, very occasionally for work, or for a wedding. When I am putting it on, I don't feel that comfortable. I feel a bit awkward, in short, I prefer my jeans and football shirt. But when I've got it on, and pass a mirror, I take a sideways look and think to myself, hey, I'd but a car from that man !

Now call me vain, but I don't think I am much different to anyone else. Looking smart is less comfortable, but actually pays dividends in terms of the image you give, and the way you feel about yourself.

So what has this to do with politics ?

Looking at the Labour leadership, Labour appear to have gone for the jeans and football shirt. Ed Miliband is comfortable. He re-assures the Labour party that they still might be left wing. He allows them to forget Tony Blair and New Labour, he is in many ways, despite starting from some way back, the easy option.

David Miliband is, however, the smart suit. It feels less comfortable initially, but when you've got it on, people look at you and listen. Yes, it might feel a bit less relaxed, but it's impressive and people will nod at you in appreciated for the effort you've made. That is exactly what David Miliband is. He is the smart suit.

Watching the Milibands on TV today, one oozed class and sophisticated, one sounded nasal and looked like his clothes didn't fit.

Yes, it's a long analogy, but at the end of the day, the electorate don't want to vote for the jeans and football shirt. They want a suit, and the sharper and more made to measure the suit, the better. This was show in the period up to election day this May when Cameron, the sharp suit, was for some years taking the "sharp suit" vote until people suddenly saw Nick Clegg, the new sharp suit in town, and suddenly, irrespective of what he was actually saying, people were impressed. Yes, the Nick Clegg effect wore off to some extent, but it save the Lib Dems from a mauling and got Nick Clegg in to government.

Look too at Brown compared to Blair. Was Brown any worse ? No. Was he any less of an ego than Blair ? No. But his suits appeared not to fit, and he was the easy option for Labour, the only option for Labour. Brown was the pair of jeans and the football top.

I think Labour have made a dreadful mistake. Despite my natural antipathy to Labour, David Miliband, the smart suit, impresses me and other I know. Ed Miliband, the jeans, does not.

It doesn't matter how much money you spend on jeans, they are still jeans.

If you read all this, thanks for sticking with me.

How the BBC could save a small fortune without compromising programme quality

I am a big fan of the BBC. Yes, it is hopelessly biased politically with the two years before the general election consisting of any story involving David Cameron instantly being the number one story of the day, but in general terms, the BBC raises the standard of TV programming and sets a benchmark by which we compare others. However, it is clear in the current climate that the BBC needs to cut its cloth according to the difficult economic times, and I have an idea where they can save a small fortune.

Trailers.

Take a look at these two recent trailers that have been aired on the BBC.



Each of them look like they have been created in order to enter the BAFTA Short Film prize at the BAFTA Television awards, but in each case, I can see no justification for the cost involved in creating these trailers.



This trailer for BBC weather, that's right, BBC weather, is a masterpiece in itself. Very stylised drawings, beautifully executed in every way, but it's clearly not been made on the cheap. Now if this was being used to promote a major new series, there might be some justification, but in order to make people watch a weather forecast ? Ridiculous.

There were others that I was not able to get on YouTube. Most notably the special effects laden trailer for the BBC Schools season, which features a boy in a spacesuit floating out of his house in to space to the sound of David Bowie. However, the biggest waste of time and money at the moment has to be the ludicrous trailer/advert for the BBC iplayer.



If you already know what the iPlayer is, this trailer will not make you use it. If you don't know what iPlayer is, then this advert does nothing to explain it. The trailer is self indulgent rubbish.

I don't object to trailers being made. The BBC trailer involving flying penguins made a couple of years ago was clever and provoked a good deal of discussion. But to make trailers that are this expensive in order to promote things that really do not need promotion is a waste of money.

Dubious Lib Dem blogs

Whilst looking through the Lib Dem blogs aggregator today, I came across THIS rather unusual blog.

I am totally confused how a blog that is run by someone who voted for and canvassed for Ed Miliband can qualify as a Lib Dem blogger.

I note in particular the comment on one story which said

"I will still remain, for now, with Labour until it seems clear that there is another party that is more firmly rooted in the labour movement. I see it as the continuing story of enfranchisement of the dispossessed. Will there ever be a time when I sign up wholeheartedly for the Liberal Democrats? Perhaps, time will tell."

I have my issues with the coalition, but remain an active party member, campaigning for the party and staying true to the manifesto the party fought on. Yet somehow this blog now qualifies as Lib Dem

Answers on a postcard please ...

If the answer is Lembit Opik ...

Its a much used phrase, but as a party we would have to ask ourselves if Lembit Opik is the answer, what is the question ?

If the question is who should be our London Mayoral candidate then the answer cannot be Lembit Opik.

It is important for any politician to be more famous for their work as a politician than their outside of work activities. As Iain Dale points out in THIS article, Boris Johnson has just about managed to do this. Whilst Boris has a shady private life and seems to find it difficult to remain faithful to his wife, he is more famous as a politician. He makes the headlines for the occasional gaffe, but they are political gaffes in the main.

Compare this to Lembit.

Lembit Opik was selected before the 1997 General Election for the relatively safe seat of Montgomeryshire with a reputation as a fearsome campaigner, a vibrant and sharp debater, and was seen as a future star within the party. But over the course of the next 13 years, he became a pantomime character, drawn, almost magnetically attracted to various celebrity partners, seemingly willing to appear in any old Z list celebrity TV show, in short, most Lib Dems I knew winced with embarrassment every time he appeared on TV.

And what of Lembit's parliamentary seat ?

Since ditching his weathergirl girlfriend, getting engaged to and then splitting from a Cheeky Girl, getting pictured in with various other models, appearing regularly on Ant and Dec with various other minor celebs who we'd long thought had left out screens for good, a majority of over 7000 votes was destroyed with the Tories winning by over a thousand votes.

This was one of the biggest turnaround in votes from Lib Dems to Tories in the whole country in 2010. Given that this result was massively different from other constituencies, it says that the main factor why people didn't vote Lib Dem was because of Lembit.

As I say, if Lembit Opik is the answer, the question is probably "Which Lib Dem MP appears to have spent too much time trying to be a a celebrity and being on TV whilst seeing his majority go up in smoke ?"

Don't criticise Tory policies you don't agree with ? Oh do shut up !

Apparently we should show "responsibility" and not criticise Tory policies we do not agree with. Presumably turning the party in to liars who say nothing on issues they fundamentally disagree with and campaigned against just months ago is the price Nick Clegg is willing to pay in order for him to be David Cameron's best mate.

The preamble to the Lib Dem party constitution states

The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.

Obviously conformity is not an issue any more ?

If the party leadership's advice is to be followed the Lib Dems are consigned to political stagnancy, left only to trumpet policies our MPs and our leadership abandoned (STV, reforming prisons, mansion tax, etc) whilst being left impotent to attack the Tories in Tory seats. Ridiculous.

Let's stop trying to kid ourselves about what the Lib Dems have achieved as part of the coaltion

If you are reading a Lib Dem press release, Lib Dem Voice or any number of Lib Dem MPs writing articles for the press this week ahead of the party conference, you could easily be fooled in to believing that the Lib Dems are responsible for the majority of what the new government has pledged to introduce. But the truth of the matter is that the Lib Dem influence is limited and strictly confined to areas of the government that do not affect the ordinary person on a day to day level.

Let's get one of the lies out of the way straight away. The "Pupil Premium" is not a "Real Lib Dem achievement", as Sarah Teather claims in this week's edition of Local Government First. It is a coalition achievement, but it is just as much a Tory achievement as it is well known and was widely published that the Tories supported the Pupil Premium. This policy would have happened with or without the Lib Dems being involved. It undermines the Lib Dems whole argument about the coalition to imply that the Pupil Premium wouldn't have happened without the Lib Dems.

I was interested to see a policy diagram that the Daily Telegraph produced before the General Election.

If you break it down in to what the Lib Dems have actually achieved from the yellow part of the diagram, the party has achieved just one of its policies. This being a partial move to a £10,000 income tax threshold.

If you look at the Orange area, the Lib Dems have achieved just one of these goals, with a fixed term for the next parliament. But in a major reversal, one of these goals, to continue spending until 2011, has seen a total about turn and this policy being abandoned. Nick Clegg likes to tell us that he knew that spending had to be cut earlier 10 days before the General Election, but it didn't stop the party putting out leaflets from Cowley Street warning that early cuts would lead to a double dip recession. This was the issue that made me feel back in May that we had been turned in to liars and fools by the way Nick Clegg had acted.

So in terms of what we have "added" to the coalition, it seems clear that we've achieved two things of note.

Some would argue that we've achieved much more because we are going to have a referendum on AV. Of course anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows AV is usually less proportional and was derided by Nick Clegg before the General Election. In AV the Lib Dems got a system them neither liked, supported or wanted. Much like the last prize in a raffle, its better than nothing, but only just.

The other policy trumpeted by Lib Dem bloggers as a Lib Dem success and reason to put out the flags and party is the ending of the detention of the children of Asylum seekers. However, the Lib Dems influence over this decisions was called in to question just a week ago with the announcement from Tory Minister Damien Green that the government would "minimise" child detention, not end it. Clearly when even our successes are reversed by the Tories, our influence on this government has been minimal.

We were told by the Lib Dem leadership that the Lib Dems would be a moderating influence on the Tory party, but a closer look at the Telegraph diagram of Tory policies shows very much the opposite.

In the blue and Purple areas of policy, those areas highlighted as being Tory policy not supported by the Lib Dems, the Tories have managed to introduce or announce
- A cap on non EU migrants
- Deep cuts in the first year
- Elected police commissioners
- Free schools
- Local referendums
- Toughen teaching qualifications
- Keep voting at 18
- National Youth Volunteer Service to be rolled out
- No cancellation of Trident.


What is galling for Lib Dems is that these policies are bitterly opposed by Lib Dems, but they are the sorts of policies affecting the police, schools and employment that affect people on a daily basis. They are to do with social policy and are visible policy areas, yet the Lib Dems are the ones saddled with voting and taxation. Where is the Lib Dems "voice of reason" toning down the Tories in coalition ?

The truth of the matter is that the Lib Dems have achieved very VERY little in government so far. A referendum on a voting system we don't really want and our one saving grace, a move towards a fairer tax system. But with the likes of Vince Cable already this week highlighting that the Tories policies are not working, where can the party go accept further down in the polls except down.

If people are to be convinced that the Lib Dems are making a difference as part of the coalition then the party and its leadership need to stop claiming credit for things the Tories would have done anyway and show what is happening that would never have happened under a Tory government. If it transpires that we are having no influence, then we should all ask the question, why are we in coalition at all !

Was the senior Catholic attacking the UK or multiculturalism ?

I was a little surprised to see that a senior aide to the Pope has described Britain as "third world", with the Catholic Church trying to justify his comment as being about the UK's "multicultural society".

Either way, it is hardly the sort of comment we want to hear from the Catholic Church. When you imagine all the names that decent law abiding people who enjoy our multicultural society might want to say about the Catholic Church, it is probably as well that this aide to the Pope has suddenly developed severe gout that will keep him from our shores.

I am sure the Pope, a famously reserved and more circumspect man,  will be much more polite and diplomatic and that his visit is a great success.

Ofsted seeking to please the government and offer cuts on a plate

Ofsted did their usual today, producing another report which seeks to slam the teaching profession rather than point out all the good work that is being done. As a teacher I know that getting a child with genuine Special Education Needs to be registered as SEN and get a statement is like trying to jump through flaming hoops, it requires much work and effort, and is not the easy option. However, Ofsted instead chose to simply blame teachers and claim a quarter (a gross distortion) or pupils are registered as SEN incorrectly.

There are those that will jump on this straight away and use it as another stick to beat the teaching profession, but those people nearly all reside within the ranks of the Tory Party, and thus the whole Ofsted strategy is laid bare.

The fact is that when the government are asking for suggestions about where cuts can be made, the massively under performing Ofsted are prime candidates for a budget cut. With their tick box approach to grading schools criticised, an obsession with grading lunch boxes over learning, their lack of judgement in giving Haringey Council a clean bill of health just months before the Baby Peter scandal, backing poor teachers and numerous other examples, it is clear Ofsted is an organisation in need of reform. So a return to the Chris Woodhead style of Ofsted, attacking the teaching profession, blaming teachers, pandering to the right wing, is just the deal that might save them, and provide the ammunition the government are looking for.

Today's Ofsted report is just the sort of news the Tories want (forget what the Lib Dems want, those in government will toe the Tory line). It now gives the Conservatives an excuse to make it harder for children to be registered as SEN. It gives them a chance to impose cuts with Ofsted as their justification. In short, Ofsted has offered up SEN children as the sacrificial lambs to save their own necks.

Note - My own personal experience of Ofsted has been positive, but I am graded a "good" teacher, and  my school is progressive and moving forward. I do, however, tire of Ofsted's "press release" culture, where they lecture the teaching profession through the pages of the Daily Mail instead rather than abandoning their tick lists and engaging with those who work in education.

Let Norwich serve as a warning to Nick Clegg

The deferred elections in Norwich yesterday were clearly a great success for the Labour Party, and an unmitigated disaster for the Lib Dems.


It would be easy to put this down to poor campaigns, poor leaflets or a lack of organisation, but none of these things are true. I know that Norwich has a young, energetic, enthusiastic and well organised campaign team who know how to win (after all, they gained the parliamentary seat in May of this year), and these deferred elections saw in some wards our best campaigns for many years. Yet despite this, our share of the vote was down across the city. We missed out on winning in Lakenham, a ward we had won in for the last two years, and failed to hold on to second place in the ward we last to the Greens. But most worrying was the party slipping to 4th place in wards where the party had previously been the main challenger.
   
Just take a look at the results in Norwich compared to last year.


Norwich North Constituency


   Catton Grove 

  2009 CC result - Con 724 Lab 606 UKIP 449 Gre 416 LD 257
  2010 City result - Labour 835  Conservative 650 Green Party 208 Liberal Democrats 135  UKIP 123


Analysis - Lib Dem vote almost halved. This was a Tory target (they hold all the other seats in the ward) and the candidate is also the county councillor for the ward (and also a district councillor in another borough).

  Crome 
  
  2009 CC result - Lab 811 Con 712 Gre 518 LD 381
  2010 City result - Labour 1,085  Conservative 543 Green Party 199 Liberal Democrats 137 UKIP 100


 Mile Cross 

  2009 CC result - Gre 620 Lab 614 Con 547 LD 318
  2010 City result - Labour 797  Liberal Democrats 455  Conservative 266   Green Party 238  UKIP 90


Analysis - Lib Dem vote up on the back of a through campaign which in any other year would have seen this become a Lib Dem gain. Lots of Lib Dem posters up,  lots of leaflets, canvassing, letters, etc. Disappointing for the Lib Dems given the campaign.


The funniest thing about this campaign is that the Greens slipped from 1st last year to 4th this year.

  Sewell 
  
  2009 CC result - Gre 826 Lab 676 Con 553 LD 477

  2010 City result - Labour 792  Green Party 604  Conservative 333  Liberal Democrat 168   UKIP 103

Analysis - A better Lib Dem campaign here this year than last, but the Lib Dem vote more than halved. A disappointment though for the Greens who failed to win this seat by some margin.

So the analysis of the Norwich North results shows Lib Dems down and actually polling less votes despite better campaigns.




Norwich South Constituency

  Bowthorpe

  2009 CC result - Con 926 Lab 670 LD 626 Gre 379
  2010 City result - Labour 862  Conservative 816 Green 225 Liberal Democrats 184  

Analysis - An absolute crash in the Lib Dem vote. There was a by-election here just before the 2009 elections which saw the Lib Dems almost take second place, which accounts for the good Lib Dem showing here, but this result speaks volumes.

  Eaton 
 
  2009 CC result - LD 1688 Con 1501 Gre 527 Lab 351
  2010 City result - Liberal Democrats 1,356  Conservative 937  Labour 549 Green Party 431


Analysis - The only ward in Norwich where the Lib Dems run a proper local Focus on a regular basis. Regular leaflets, full canvass and local candidates do make a difference.

  Lakenham 
 
  2009 CC result - LD 877 Lab 743 UKIP 437 Con 361 Gre 353
  2010 City result - Labour 899  Liberal Democrats 652  Green Party 608  Conservative 243  UKIP 113


Analysis - Lib Dems have gained this seat for the last two elections but fell some way short.

  Mancroft 
 
  2009 CC result Gre 1123 LD 525 Lab 510 Con 315
  2010 City result Green Party 813  Labour 673   Liberal Democrats 371  Conservative 305


Analysis - This used to be a Lib Dem ward until 4 years ago. Lib Dem vote down significantly again. 
  Nelson 
 
  2009 CC result - Gre 2103 Lab 421 LD 420 Con 355
  2010 City result - Green Party 1,297    Labour 535   Liberal Democrats 198    Conservatives 186


Analysis - Lib Dem vote down, even on a lower turnout. This was a Lib Dem ward last held in 2002.  
  Town Close 
  
  2009 CC result - Gre 1528 LD 859 Con 716 Lab 476
  2010 City result - Green Party 983 Labour 560 Liberal Democrats 550  Conservatives 479


Analysis - Taking in to account the turnout was down by one third, the Lib Dem vote still fell. This ward had a really good Lib Dem campaign and a great candidate. But we slipped to third !


  Thorpe Hamlet 
 
  2009 CC result - Gre 1371 LD 620 Con 573 Lab 406
  2010 City result - Green Party 859  Labour 412  Liberal Democrat 409  Conservative 401


Analysis -Taking in to account that turnout was down by one third, Lib Dem support was broadland unchanged, but this seat was a Green gain from the Lib Dems.
  University 
  
  2009 CC result - Lab 1047 Gre 914 Con 342 LD 271 
  2010 City result - Labour 1,164  Green Party 409  Liberal Democrats 123  Conservative 140


Analysis - This seat was a Lab/LD marginal from 1990 to 2005. The Lib Dems won this seat in 2002 with more than 1500 votes ! 
  Wensum 
 
  2009 CC result - Gre 1260 Lab 561 Con 442 LD 285
  2010 City result - Green Party 887  Labour 743  Conservative 233 Liberal Democrats 172


Analysis - Lib Dem vote slightly down.


We can no longer blame the Greens for our decline in Norwich. They have "topped out" in Norwich, failing to win seats they won last year, and seeing formerly safe seats like Wensum now look very vulnerable.


The Lib Dem vote was down in almost every ward, despite some really good campaigns and an effective local MP who is already building a reputation as a good constituency representative.


Anyone who visited the Norwich campaign HQ during the campaign would have known that the Lib Dems did not fight a losing campaign, but what is clear is that local campaigns will count for little in the face of people seeing us a betraying our election promises in order to get a taste of power as the Tories sidekicks.


Yes, I know that this is not a sign that Labour will automatically win Norwich South next time as they did well yesterday on a low turnout. But it is a sign to Lib Dems, particularly in areas where Labour are the main opposition, that people are deeply unhappy with the Lib Dems and we can expect to see our council representation decimated next May in the local elections.

The problem with English Football is ...

With the England versus Bulgaria match tonight, and the possibility of more bad headlines for English football should England fail to win the game, it was slightly shocking to recently find out that the way players are selected as youths to be coached at local academies is not what you would expect.

A friend of mine has a close friend whose son recently got in to the under 10s academy at an established Premier League club in the north of England. This sounds as if it is some great achievement, and of course, he must be proud. However, the methods used to select him really do leave a big question mark about the way footballers are developed in this country.

Apparently, the guys sone was barely watched when he turned up to the evaluations. Instead, the football club spent most of their times measuring his height, his feet, and asking questions about how tall his parents are. He later found out that players are filtered out as young as 8 years old if they believe they will be shorter than 5 ft 10 inches, and if they are likely to have big feet, which is considered a hindrance to footballers.

In short, they were more concerned about the physical build of the player than they were about the mental attributes or skills the player has.

Doesn't it tell you everything you need to know about English football that skill is not considered the first and most important reason for choosing a player who could be developed in to a professional footballer.

A worrying development

According to the vote-match website, if I were a Labour voter, they think I should vote for Diane Abbott. I guess it shows just how poor some of these online questionnaires are as I would rather eat my own trousers than vote for Diana Abbott.

How can this story get so much coverage when other things are not being reported ?

Quite why THIS STORY has got so much coverage on the TV and radio today is a mystery to me given what is not being reported.

I am as big a football fan as you will find, but this sort of rubbish denigrates real news.

Cameron's judgement and Coulson

If the broadcast media start reporting what is being reported worldwide, that there are serious questions to be answered by Cameron's top political aide, former News of the World Editor Andy Coulson, it would place David Cameron in something of a predicament.

As can be seen from the depth this story is being written about in the USA, this is no story without substance, yet the BBC, ITV and Sky seem scared to touch it. This does beg the question as to why this is being ignored by our broadcast media. The BBC may be rather scared of the response they might get from Downing Street whilst we know why Sky News won't report on this story with it being very difficult for News International to report on a scandal involving News International.

If this story does get "legs", and there is any truth in the widely reported allegations against Mr Coulson (which he denies), that he knew of the attempts to hack in to the Royal Family's phones, then it will say a lot about the judgement of David Cameron.

We await the result of any court case that might happen in the future.

Stunning hypocrisy from William Hague ?

Craig Murray writes on his blog about attempts to smear the man behind Wikileaks, but finishes his article with a comment about how he himself has tried to clear his name of accusations and smears put across by the Foreign Office.

To quote Craig

Yet, even to this day, the FCO has refused to acknowledge in public that I was in fact cleared of all charges. This is even true of the new government. A letter I wrote for my MP to pass to William Hague, complaining that the FCO was obscuring the fact that I was cleared on all charges, received a reply from a junior Conservative minister stating that the allegations were serious and had needed to be properly investigated - but still failing to acknowledge the result of the process. Nor has there been any official revelation of who originated these "serious allegations".

 Now today William Hague has released a statement making clear that false allegations made against him are untrue and have no basis in fact. This must be very upsetting for William Hague. So why won't William Hague or his department do the same for Craig Murray and clear his name ?

Isn't this a case of absolutely stunning hypocrisy ?

The problem with one man blogs as highlighted by ...

Blogging is, in general a good thing. It gives people a voice, it bypasses the mainstream media, and in many cases it gets news out in to the open which in other cases would not be heard, for example, after the attempts by Trafigura to muzzle the mainstream press with injunctions or the case of Oligarchs trying to stop criticism of them. But today, the shortcomings of the one man blog was highlighted  for all to see, in my opinion, today.

One advantage that the main stream media has over bloggers is that there are sub-editors, lawyers, and people who stand aloof from a story, who can act as a critical friend or a knowledgeable expert, who can stop things being published.

The one man blogger does not do this. It relies on one person making all the decisions and one person making all the judgement calls. As Iain Dale says on his blog today, rather well in my opinion, what has been published elsewhere today does nobody who blogs about politics any great credit.