The beginning of the end? (For Tony Blair)

Reid runs out of time as prisons run out of space
Sunday January 28, 2007
The Observer

The Home Secretary pledged to make his department fit for purpose. But last week its multiple problems threatened to engulf him

The overall impression is of Reid fighting a losing battle. And last Friday, the scale of the fight became all too apparent. Figures slipped out quietly by the Home Office showed the prison population had jumped by a record 627 in just one week. Even seasoned prison experts were taken aback.

'To put it into context, the prison ship Weare held fewer than 400 people,' said William Higham, head of policy at the Prison Reform Trust. 'John Reid could buy one ship a week at this rate and moor a whole armada of them around the coast without solving the crisis.'

Mobbed before the demob

Thursday February 1, 2007
The Guardian

It's fascinating to watch power dribble away like an Arabian wadi in summer. [..] Mr Blair had to stand there as if he were in the stocks and the village idiot had arrived with a basket of rotten fruit. David Cameron asked him if he didn't realise that it was all over. David Haworth, a Lib Dem, wanted to know if he had "taken the fifth" on the cash for honours scandal, to avoid incriminating himself. Alex Salmond of the SNP compared him to Richard Nixon.

What must really have hurt was the parade of Labour MPs who also wanted to mock and revile him. Tony Wright, usually the least smart-alecky of all, asked silkily "can it be true that we had to pay GPs a lot more money to do a lot less work, and now we have to pay them a lot more money to do the work that we paid them to stop doing?"

All sides collapsed at this carefully crafted jibe. It was the equivalent of the small boy saying that the emperor was not only naked, but pot-bellied, flabby and criss-crossed with varicose veins.

Bad forward planning, I'd say, nothing much stronger than that.

But why do we lock up more people than any other comparable country?

Brown v Cameron - exclusive poll puts Labour 13 points adrift

Tuesday February 20, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Gordon Brown is failing to persuade the public that he would make a better prime minister than David Cameron, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today which suggests the Conservatives could win a working majority at the next general election.
Voters give the Tories a clear 13-point lead when asked which party they would back in a likely contest between Mr Brown, Mr Cameron and Sir Menzies Campbell.

The result would give the party 42% of the vote against Labour on 29%, similar to its performance under Michael Foot in 1983. The Liberal Democrats would drop to 17%. The result is the highest that the Conservatives have scored in any ICM poll since July 1992, just after their last general election victory.

The question, which names all three major party leaders, asks voters to think about politics in a different way from the standard ICM question about voting intentions, which only names parties. As such, it is a greater test of the personality of each party leader, or potential leader. [..]

A month ago, the same question put Conservative support on 39%, Labour on 31% and the Liberal Democrats on 19%. There is already concern among some Labour MPs about the impact of a Brown leadership, especially if it happens without a contest that could allow Mr Brown to set out a fresh programme and identity. Writing in the Guardian last week, the former minister Frank Field asked: "What new directions can be offered when the architect of current policies has merely moved up one place?" [..]

The findings underline the difficulty facing Mr Brown as he waits for the prime minister, Tony Blair, to announce his departure from office.

He needs to stay loyal to Mr Blair and has been limited in what he can say about policy areas that are beyond his Treasury brief. But the silence has given opponents such as Mr Cameron, as well as Labour MPs running for the deputy leadership, a clear run to make their mark. It is widely expected that Mr Brown's likely arrival in office will give Labour a bounce in the polls, not least because attention will shift on to the government. Mr Brown has already mapped out an agenda for his first months in office.

But he cannot break with significant policies he endorsed as chancellor, such as the Iraq war. The risk is that expectations of a dramatic plan for his first 100 days are running well ahead of what it is actually possible to offer.

Much will depend on what he can announce in the budget later this spring, and the comprehensive spending review that will follow in the summer. [..]

In the regular state-of-the-parties survey, the Conservatives rise three points on last month to 40%, Labour are unchanged on 31% and the Lib Dems drop 4 points to 19%. Since the question naming likely leaders is worded differently from the regular ICM survey of voting intention, direct comparisons can be misleading. But the mention of Mr Brown's name appears to reduce Labour support by 2 points.

Falling Lib Dem support is part of the reason that the Conservatives have climbed in both sets of results. The fact that the party's support drops further when Sir Menzies' name is mentioned suggests that, as with Mr Brown, he is not attracting support to his party.

The poll also shows voters remain interested in smaller parties, which climb one point overall to 10% and reach 12% in the question naming likely party leaders.

But there is no evidence that the UK Independence party is eroding Conservative support from the right. The newly-rebranded Independence party scores 1%, against 2% for the Green party and 4% for the combined SNP and Plaid Cymru vote in Scotland and Wales.

Poll findings cannot be translated easily into seats at Westminster [..]. But two informal calculators, the UK Polling Report and Electoral Calculus, estimate that with Mr Brown in charge voters might give the Conservatives a lead that could give them a majority of more than 50.

The standard state-of-the-parties figures suggest that the Conservatives could hope to become the largest party at Westminster, but short of a majority. [..]

Tony Blair has admitted for the first time that he regrets the way his lengthy departure has created 'uncertainty' for a government now racked by a divisive battle over who will succeed him.

In a wide-ranging interview with Mary Riddell in today's Observer, the Prime Minister spoke frankly of his doubts over whether he had done the right thing by pre-announcing that he would not fight a fourth election. But he suggested the upheaval could have been worse if he had not been open about his intentions, and said he hoped his departure would finally draw the sting over the war in Iraq. Blair also quashed speculation about a snap election to give Gordon Brown a mandate as leader, suggesting it would be a 'significant time' before Britain next goes to the polls.

One has to have a certain sympathy for our tony

he could nto have said I go on and on a la Thatcher

SNP gain strong lead over Labour

Politics.co.uk
Wednesday, 28 Mar 2007

The Scottish National Party has achieved a ten point lead over Labour in the polls ahead of the upcoming Scottish elections. If it wins them, SNP leader Alex Salmond could be appointed first minister of the Scottish parliament in May. The SNP could risk governing as a minority executive or form a coalition with the Lib Dems. But with support for Scottish independence significantly lower, the results could mostly mark a protest vote against Tony Blair and the British Labour government.

Independence ... whenever

The Guardian: Comment is Free
March 28

The latest poll shows the SNP surging ahead in Scotland - perhaps because it's no longer a nationalist party in the conventional sense.

It has announced the intended date of its independence referendum would be in 2010, after the nationalists have had time to "prove themselves in government", and that the question would be carefully worded so that independence would still only happen if the Scottish Parliament votes for it. And SNP leader Salmond has pledged to retain the Queen as head of state and keep the pound sterling, at least for the time being.

Moreover, Scottish voters are now familiar with the proportional voting system, and realise that the SNP would have to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats if it wants to enter government. With the SNP's promised referendum on independence, this places a "double lock" on the constitution. The Scots needn't fear becoming independent by accident.

This is one reason why the voters have refused to respond to Labour's recent scare tactics, with Labour ministers warning that an independent Scotland would lose UK subsidies of £11bn a year.

SNP leader Salmond has pledged to retain the Queen as head of state