Conference Round Up

Didn't have time to watch the Labour party conference? Here is a short blagger's guide to the week in Manchester.

The whole conference was dominated by the leadership issue. Tony was forced into admitting that this will be his last conference as party leader earlier this month. Gay MP Chris Bryant was a leading conspirator, which is odd as he is top mates with Cherie. Anyway as everyone knew it was Tony's last turn, it meant this conference was an opportunity for all those people who think they should be in charge to show off.

The week started with a very good speech by Gordon Brown, which was totally a bid for the leadership. Pretty much everyone knows that Big Gordon is going to succeed, but the talk is of a Blairite cabinet minister to challenge him. Activists want this for two reasons - some think it is vital that Labour have a proper contest and not a coronation. This also means the party gets to properly debate its future policy and direction.

Others think Gordon is a grumpy old Scottish accountant that the voters don't like. Anyway. Good speech by Gordon. Immediately over-shadowed by the story that Cherie had an outburst during the speech calling Gordon a liar.

To make matters worse, Peter Mandelson, the Merlin to Blair's King Arthur, vomited all over Gordon as well by saying that he is, well, a bit grumpy and Scottish and the voters won't love him like they love Tony.

Then, to make matters even worse, Tony got up and made just about the best speech of his life, saying all sorts of odd things like "I love this party" and getting everyone all emotional. Tessa Jowell, proving what a total poppet she is, brought a box of Kleenex in with her and the whole box got used. It was that good.

Tony spoke about his two quite-dishy sons, Euan and Nicholas, and the boys got lots of close-ups, so we can expect to see one or both of them turn up on reality TV very soon. And possibly in parliament.

So everyone said 'Isn't Tony wonderful?' and then Bill Clinton turned up. Bill said Tony was like the best PM ever and that Labour should be thanking God for letting him be their leader.

Then Bill said that Gordon was stunning, well his vision for Britain is at any rate. Then Bill like totally flirted with the whole conference at once and they LOVED IT! He charmed the pants off the entire room, and luckily everyone forgot about how great Tony's speech was AND how great Gordon's speech was.

Bob Geldof turned up but stupidly forgot to bring teen-of-the-moment, his daughter Peaches. So Bob on his own really was no match for Bill Clinton and no-one paid much attention to the Irish moaner.

Anyway, so basically every cabinet minister, apart from John 'taxi for Prescott' Prescott, got a chance to show off how totally wonderful they are and hopefully put them in the running for the job of leader or deputy.

Early money was on Alan Johnson, the urbane former postman and now education secretary, as the stop Gordon! candidate. But his speech was a bit rubbish.

John Reid, the man who plays the role of Home Secretary as if he has confused it with a gangster off Taggart, made a much better speech. So now everyone is talking about him as the stop Gordon! candidate. He might do ok.

The thing to remember is no-one can beat Gordon. The leader of the Labour party is elected by an electoral college with three constituent parts. The unions, the MPs and MEPs and the Constituency Labour Parties all have an equal vote. Millions of people will take part in the election. They are all going to vote for Gordon. The unions aren't going to vote for a Blairite candidate. They want Gordon. The Constituency Labour Parties want Gordon.

So all this smart talk about stopping Gordon is all just nonsense. All they will achieve is to weaken him, he will be walking into Downing St no matter what they say or do.

Even though Tony Blair refuses to say who he will back, and might be a total total bastard and back someone else against Gordon, the Chancellor will still win. Anytime anyone tries to tell you different, show off about how you know all about the electoral college system. Then call them thick.

In the conference week Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, Deputy PM John Prescott and future leader and Blair pin-up boy David Miliband all said publicly that they are backing Gordon.

At the end of the conference, John Prescott made his traditional shouting speech to conference. This year he started by saying sorry for letting the party and himself down. He did not apologise for banging his diary secretary. Or even for getting caught. Or for cheating on his scary-looking wife. But for causing embarassment to the Labour party.

Anyway he had a good shout about the Tories and everyone went home happy. The latest talk is about who will take his job when Blair goes. The field has been narrowed down to everyone in the cabinet. And now a left-wing backbench MP has announced he will run.

If you are planning to bet, put your money on Harriet Harman or Jack Straw.

Oh and at the very very end of conference, they sang The Red Flag and Jerusalem and Cherie belted them out like a secretary in a karaoke winebar with ten Baileys inside her! Well done! No matter who leads the Labour party next, I doubt we will get as much entertainment or value for money as we get from Cherie.

Contrite Prescott and singing Cherie end conference

The Labour party conference has closed with a series of singing extravaganzas from Cherie Blair.

John Prescott made his last speech as deputy leader, in which he lifted the spirits of delegates with a robust defence of his time in office and of Tony Blair.

Prescott began with an apology. "Tony started his speech by saying thank you. I want to start by saying sorry. I let myself down and I let you down."

His wife Pauline sat in the front row beside Cherie Blair, and it cannot have been an easy moment for this very shy woman to have BBC cameras in her face while her husband apologised for his all-too public affair.

Prescott recalled his first job as a commis chef (you know what joke he told here) and said that British chefs these days, such as Jamie Oliver, were among the best in the world. Referring to his own frame, he claimed "some people even say I am fat for purpose."

The speech was vintage Prescott, and considerably less mystifying than usual. Conference speaking seems to suit the Deputy PM much better than the House of Commons, and he delighted delegates with a series of attacks on David Cameron.

"We do not have the luxury of three years until the next election. It is seven months until the next election, in Scotland, Wales and in local government ... 36 million people will make a decision about Labour in the next seven months."

He called for unity during the leadership campaign, and urged party members to "remember the real enemies are the Tories, the Liberals and the nationalists."

Although he did not explicitly say it was his last speech, it is almost certain that Prescott will leave with Tony Blair.

"I will be swapping my government Jag for this bus pass to campaign for Labour ... I suppose they will call me two buses."

It was a warm, positive speech, and as conference rose to their feet, and Pauline joined her husband on stage, "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen seared through the PA system.

What? Who is picking the music at this conference? Capital Gold?

It got more surreal. In the old days, at the close of Labour conference delegates, or comrades as they were then known, used to sing socialist anthem The Red Flag with all the aplomb of a rugby club on a pub crawl.

This was deemed not new Labour enough, and dropped completely. Since 2003 a verse of the old song was sung, followed by all of Jerusalem, by William Blake, which is a hymn that asks us to imagine that Jesus came to England when he was on earth, and found it more green and pleasant than the Middle East.

Added to these two incongruous singalongs, the organisers had added a youth choir and a flame-haired diva, whose microphone malfunctioned during The Red Flag, but mysteriously worked again during the English nationalist hymn.

Cherie Blair sang her head off throughout everything, as did her husband and the Chancellor. Gordon Brown was all smiles, especially during Jerusalem, while both Prescotts resolutely refused to sing a note. It was good to see that Tony Blair actually knows the words to The Red Flag, and did not do a John Redwood and attempt to mime.

The truly surreal moment came before The Red Flag, when the youth choir followed Mr Prescott's speech with a spirited rendition of Oklahoma!

Prezza did not look amused, as every journalist in the room had visions of Prescott in cowboy gear, down on the ranch, chewing tobacco on the front porch with casino billionaire Philip Anschutz.

Cherie loved it - she knows every word of Oklahoma! too, and isn't afraid to show it. I can't see Sarah Brown or Carine Adler, John Reid's Brazilian film director wife, enjoying themselves this much at future party conferences.

Reid vs Johnson

John Reid has made a wide-ranging address to conference, setting out his stall as an alternative leader to Gordon Brown.


He made an impassioned defence of the government's terrorism policy, and appealed to Muslims, men and women, to tackle extremism in their community. He pledged to stand shoulder to shoulder with Muslims against those who attempt to shout down the voices of reason.


"If we in this movement are going to ask the decent, silent majority of Muslim men - and women - to have the encourage to face down the extremist bullies, then we need to have the courage and character to stand shoulder to shoulder with them doing it.


"We will go where we please, we will discuss what we like," he said. Last week Mr Reid was heckled by Muslims when he spoke at an Islamic centre in east London.

Earlier in the week, Tony Blair said that Reid's new national security legislation to be introduced during the next session of parliament will be one of the most important policy initiatives of recent years.


Commmentators have focused on the theme of leadership running through the Home Secretary's conference speech. Reid is seen as one of the favourites to stand against Gordon Brown for the leadership of the party.


If Reid was appealing to the head, the yesterday's speech by Education Secretary Alan Johnson appealed to the party's heart.


The former trade union boss is seen as another favourite of the stop Gordon campaign, and in his address to delegates he played heavily on the importance of education to the Labour movement.


He paid tribute to the efforts of unions to improve basic skills in literacy and numeracy amongst the workforce, with over a million adults receiving help. He described this skills gap as the legacy of 18 years of Tory neglect of education, and went on to list the achievements of Labour in government.


In a policy announcement that received strong applause from the delegates, he acknowledged that the education system has systematically failed children in care.


As conference closes, it seems that John Reid and Alan Johnson have emerged as the favourites to take on Gordon Brown for the leadership.

New Labour, New Word

On Sunday, many viewers were puzzled by the way in which Tony Blair answered a question during his BBC interview. Asked if he still supported GB for the leadership, the PM said "I do not resile from any of the things I have said about Gordon in the past."

Even with a degree in English, I was confused. Did that mean he WAS taking it all back? What was this strange new word that Mr Blair had chosen? What was the significance of the PM, often cited as one of the great communicators, choosing to wilfully obscure his intentions by using arcane language?

It is a seriously bizarre word to choose. Here are some of its meanings:

1. pull out from an agreement, contract, statement, etc.; "The landlord cannot resile from the lease"

2. bounce: spring back; spring away from an impact; "The rubber ball bounced"; "These particles do not resile but they unite after they collide"

3. abjure: formally reject or disavow a formerly held belief, usually under pressure; "He retracted his earlier statements about his religion"; "She abjured her beliefs"

4. return to the original position or state after being stretched or compressed; "The rubber tubes resile"

Any way you look at it, hardly a ringing endorsement.

The interesting phenomenon is how the word itself has been absorbed into New Labour-speak. It is remarkable that so on-message are cabinet members that not only do they parrot the policies of the PM, they even start to mimic his language.

On Monday one might have safely assumed that 'resile' would not be a word one would hear again for a while.

Yet man-of-the-people Alan Johnson, the housewives choice, the postie's postie, deployed it during an interview only yesterday. Then David Miliband used it yesterday too.

It seems New Labour have taken a liking to the word. Perhaps they think it is strong and mysterious, and the voters will be impressed by their wide vocabulary, without actually understanding if the politician in question is for something or against it.

Perhaps this could be the start of a new communications strategy from New Labour, and we should brace ourselves for a barrage of words like liminal or discombobulate, all the better to confuse the voters with.

Mr Clinton Goes To Manchester

Bill Clinton made an outstanding address to the Labour party conference today.

The former US president praised Tony Blair as a true progressive who had delivered change to the UK while overseeing economic prosperity and increased employment.

He also singled out Gordon Brown for his work in Africa and said the Chancellor has a "stunning vision for Britain."

The conference were entranced by the 40-minute oration by Mr Clinton, which ranged across many of the problems facing the world today. He also spoke candidly about the state of America, warning delegates that their good work could be swept away if the electorate change "the faces in the driving seat."

He listed the achievements of the Labour goverment under Tony Blair, repeating the message that none of it came by accident.

"I think one of the biggest problems right now is that people take your achievements and your ideas for the future for granted.

"The reason is we have produced prosperity and social progress for so long it's easy for people to believe its just part of the landscape," he told delegates.

Mr Clinton also thanked, in the name of all Americans, the "nameless, faceless" members of the British security services who recently prevented a terrorist plot to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic.

In an emotional tribute to the Prime Minister, President Clinton thanked Tony Blair for his personal friendship through troubled times, and thanked Cherie and the Blair children for "their many kindnesses to Hilary and me, and Chelsea, throughout the years."

"I want to thank Tony Blair for his leadership, for his preservation of our old trans-Atlantic alliance through quite a lot of storm as well as occasional sunshine.

"I want to thank him for his personal friendship to me through storm and sunshine."

He had more praise for Cherie for putting up with the tribulations of being in public life, and told the audience with Hilary in the Senate, he now finds himself much more angry when the press say nasty things about her than he ever was when they attacked him.

Mr Clinton was upbeat about the future, saying that as a progressive party, Labour can always offer more to the voters than a status quo Conservative party.

"It's always time for change in a great and dynamic nation. Do not let anyone ever present to your citizens any future choice... as change versus more of the same.

"You are the change agents in this great nation. You have been and you will be."

On the subject of the state of the world, President Clinton made an impassioned case for a more intelligent approach.

"Since we can't kill, jail or occupy all of our enemies... we also have to spend some time and money making more and more partners and fewer enemies."

Mr Clinton said in retrospect he wished he had thought more about the root causes of terrorism while he was in office, when he gave hundreds of millions of dollars in defence aid to countries such as Pakistan without even considering whether cash to build schools or pay for teachers might have had more effect.

"It is so much cheaper to alleviate poverty, put kids in school, fight disease, build government capacity and economic capacity in a poor country than it is to fight a war."

Follow the link - I know it is 39 minutes long but really it is worth it. At times I thought I was watching a Jimmy Stewart film.

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/email/news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_5380000/newsid_5385600/bb_wm_5385638.stm

Blair's farewell speech to conference

If Gordon Brown's speech yesterday showed he is fit to lead the Labour party, then Tony Blair's address to conference today showed beyond any doubt why he has led the country for nearly 10 years.

There was a mood of celebration before Tony Blair's valedictory address. Delegates held up signs saying "Things Got Better" and "Thank U Tony" as the Prime Minister entered the hall, accompanied by his wife Cherie.

This was always going to be an emotional occassion, but even hard-bitten hacks such as politicsjunkie were moved and impressed by the scope of Blair's hour-long address, as he reminded Labour activists of just how much they had achieved in the last ten years.

Mr Blair was greeted by a 50 second ovation before he said a word. The party wanted to show its love and he reciprocated by thanking the party, its workers and supporters for, "giving me the extraordinary privilege of leading you these past 12 years."

He praised his outgoing deputy John Prescott, and thanked his family, Cherie and the children, and made light of yesterday's alleged outburst by Mrs Blair that Gordon Brown was a liar.

"At least I don't have to worry about her running off with the bloke next door," he said. The Prime Minister also paid tribute to his constituency agent and the people of Sedgfield, and launched into an examination of why Labour had been successful.

Politics starts with people, he told delegates, and being a fully paid up member of the human race should come before being a member of a party.

Mr Blair harked back to his first speech as leader in 1994, and commented on how dated it seemed now, dated because of the progress made under the Labour government. He cited the three million children living in poverty, gay people denied equal rights, workers on slave wages without a minimum legal protection, crumbling schools and hospitals.

"This was a country aching for change and ... we must dwell on what has been achieved" he told conference. Civil partnerships for gay people, a minimum wage, virtually no long-term unemployed, a London mayor "thankfully Labour again!" and self rule for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

It was a powerful affirmation of a country changed.

Blair painted a picture of the Labour party in 2006, whose core vote was not any group of society but the country itself, and mocked the Tories for "having to pretend they love it all, they fall over themselves to tell us how much they agree with us."

The Prime Minister urged his party to learn the lessons of his leadership, that values unrelated to modern reality are devalued.

"Government takes its toll, that is the nature of the beast. Gossip and controversy are so much more newsworthy than real news.

"You can't go on forever. It is hard to let go but it is right to let go for you and for the country," he told conference, adding that the only legacy he cares about is a fourth election victory.

Mr Blair said he wanted to heal the party, and to that end he paid a fulsome tribute to the Chancellor, his most likely successor, saying "I know that New Labour would never have happened or three election victories secured, without Gordon Brown. He is a remarkable servant to this country and that is the truth."

The Prime Minister went on to give some advice to the party after he has left the stage. He told delegates that the challenges facing Britain in 2007 dwarfed those of 1997. The nature of the problems we face are global, on all fronts - the economy, energy, climate change and education.

He said that in 1997 he would have opposed environmental obligations on businesses, a ban on junk food advertising aimed at children and more nuclear power stations. Now he supports them all, and he urged the party to renew policy in line with the new challenges the country faces.

He announced a radical energy and economic review to meet those new challenges, but also made clear there is opportunity in this new world. He referred to 'the Google generation' and how the internet will continue to transform our working lives.

Blair reminded delegates of the investment in public services and the change in culture in the NHS, state education and the welfare state. He told the party that if they continue his blueprint, "we will have earned the right to be the custodians of our public services for the next generation."

He then talked about the threat of terrorism, saying "nothing we strive for can be achieved without America or without Europe."

He told conference that action in Africa and peace in Lebanon would be defeats for terrorism, and rejected the idea that foreign policy had caused the July 7th attacks on London.

The Prime Minister committed himself in his remaining time in office to advancing the peace process in the Middle East. He also said that action must be taken in Darfur, "showing that an African life is worth as much as a Western one will defeat terrorism too."

"We will not win until we shake ourselves free of the propaganda of the enemy that we are somehow responsible" he said. "This is not our war against Islam but against the extremists who pervert the faith of Islam."

"If we retreat now we will not be safer, we will be committing a craven act of surrender," he said, adding that not an hour passes without him relfecting on British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Mr Blair dismissed the argument that ID cards are an attack on human rights in the UK, telling conference that the victim of an unsolved crime has his or her human rights violated and that a community suffering from anti-social behaviour has its rights breached.

"Let liberty stand up for the law abiding in this country," he said, "we can only protect liberty by making it relevant to the modern world."

He added that his controversial DNA database, whereby anyone arrested must give a sample to police, had already helped apprehend hundreds of murderers and thousands of rapists.

Mr Blair then gave some advice about how to deal with the resurgent Conservative party. "Get after them!" he told conference, to enthusiastic applause.

He lampooned David Cameron's views on the economy, foreign affairs, tax and human rights. A granny being harassed by an anti-social youth must merely give the teenager a nice big hug, he mocked.

"If we can't take this lot apart in the next few years we shouldn't be in business of politics at all," he told cheering delegates.

In a unique moment in his premiership, Mr Blair told a story about his children, 'my boys' as he called them. Mr Blair never talks about his children, and has made a point of trying to protect them from the media.

Nicholas and Euan, out canvassing for their father at the last election, were greeted with abuse by one householder, forthright in his opinion that Tony Blair is a hateful man. When Euan pointed out that Tony Blair is his father, the man immediately apologised and asked him in for a cup of tea. The PM used this anecdote to make the point that British people are fundamentally decent, and understand that leading the country is difficult.

In his final remarks, Mr Blair spoke of his love for the Labour party.

"They say I hate the Labour party and its traditions. I don't. I love this party - and the only tradition I hated was losing.

"I don't want to be THE leader who won three successive elections, I want to be the FIRST Labour leader to win three successive elections."

He told the party that he will always be with them, always wanting them to win, and they responded with an emotional standing ovation for the man who gave them everything they ever dreamed of, and more.

"You are the future now, so make the most of it."

Cherie fits her foot in her mouth!

Seems that the Blairs have found a way to steal Gordon Brown's thunder. She is reported to have publicly said that Brown is a 'liar' for saying he has enjoyed working for her husband.

She was watching the Brown speech on a monitor outside the conference hall, and witnesses, including a Bloomberg journalist, are clear she said "well, that is a lie" when Brown mentioned his joy at working under Blair.

It was made worse when her father, apparently drunk, unleashed a flurry of invective on the head of Brown, saying that while the Blairs were on holiday the Chancellor was ordering new curtains for the Downing St flat. No it didn't make much sense to me either.


Downing St said that the story is untrue, but it would not be the first time Cherie has said the wrong thing.

More news from the front - John Reid has said on the record that the loss of Blair as leader would make it more likely that Labour would lose the next election.

"I think he was stupid to himself and to our future prospects in saying he was going but he said it," Mr Reid said at a fringe event.

Aaah unity. It's a wonderful thing.

Brown shines in speech to conference

Gordon Brown has staked his claim on the premiership with an outstanding speech to the Labour party conference in Manchester.

His address was overshadowed by Blairites telling anyone who would listen that Brown cannot win the next election. In his speech the Chancellor showed delegates why he is the only real successor to Tony Blair.

He directly acknowledged that there had been differences with the Prime Minister throughout the nine years of the Labour government, and for the first time expressed regret for those clashes.

Mr Brown praised Blair saying "it has been a privilege to work with and for the most successful Labour Prime Minister, building new Labour and winning three elections."

Blair, sitting on the podium, seemed genuinely impressed by the Chancellor's speech and had a broad grin on his face throughout. For those expecting Brown to return to old Labour policies the speech brought only disappointment.

Brown said the politics of the last century were not fit for purpose now, and set out the main theme of the future of politics as one of moving power from central government to local communities and individuals, "a Britain of we the people working together."

Building on the success of giving the Bank of England control over interest rates, the Chancellor told conference of the need to seperate the decisions that government must take from the day to day administration of those decisions.

The most significant change will come in the NHS. Over the weekend the Chancellor revealed plans to have a management board take control of the health service out of the hands of ministers.

The speech contained many new policy commitments, in what can only be seen as Brown's blueprint for the future of Labour. Many will be welcomed by rank and file members. The PM-in-waiting pledged that parliament would in future have a vote on whether or not to go to war, as many MPs have called for.

Mr Brown praised the PM's firm stance on terrorism, and said the world was changed forever on September 11th 2001.

"No-one can be neutral in the war against terrorism," he told delegates, and pledged himself and the party to continue the fight, while urging action on Darfur, and reminding the party of their responsibility to bring liberty and democracy to the poorest in the world.

Mr Brown made a point of naming other cabinet members and singling them out for praise, in a naked attempt to appear inclusive. But the bulk of his appreciation took the form of a farewell to Blair, citing his "immense national and international contribution."

Brown spoke at length about his own upbringing, saying that his parents were his inspiration, inculcating into the young Gordon and his brothers the importance of duty, responsibility and respect, honesty and hard work.

"The wasted talent of millions, that is why I joined the Labour party. More than a programme, we must have a soul."

He mourned the waste of talent in Britain, not just as a moral failure, but an economic one too. He acknowledged the contributions of voluntary organisations in helping young people, but criticised Conservative plans to hand over services to them.

Brown said that the "third sector" must be a partner of the state and not a cheap replacement, but also pointed to the "limits of the private sector and the limits of the state."

He gave strong backing to plans for youth community national service, and pointed out that in a competitive global economy we cannot afford to waste the talent of any child. Since 1997 eductation has been expanded for the under 5s and the over 16s.

Brown also repeated his pledge to raise the investment in every child in state secondary education to eight thousand pounds a year, in line with private schools, and called on all parties to make a similar pledge.

He pushed some old Labour buttons with a pledge to not just raise the minimum wage but effectively enforce it, and pledged to create a million more shared equity homes to allow ordinary people to achieve the dream of owning their own home.

Brown also pledged to double the investment in social housing.

The Chancellor attempted to take the initiative on climate change, calling for global co-operation and telling delegates that 100,000 new jobs could be created in new environmental industries in the UK. He spoke about collective and personal responsibility, and announced an eye-catching $20bn initiative to help the poorest countries go green.

Perhaps the most controversial section of the speech dealt with British identity. The Chancellor stated bluntly that the UK needs a common language and that all immigrants must learn English. He built on this theme, saying that only an understanding of British culture would lead to true integration among all groups in the country.

"Let us expose and banish the the race-based exclusivity that is the message of the BNP," he told delegates, in what was also a direct attack on the concept of multi-culturalism.

Brown reminded conference that he had fought "narrow nationalism" in Scotland his whole life, and declared he is proud to be Scottish and British, calling for a shared national purpose in the face of factional ideals that could lead to the end of the union.

The most striking passage of the speech came when Brown spoke about his own personality. Describing himself as a "quite private person," he spoke about the cult of celebrity in politics. He spoke directly to those critics who describe him as not charasmatic enough to lead the party, saying that if the future of politics is just about personality then there is no place for him in it.

In the best line of the speech, he said: "I am more interested in the future of the Arctic Circle, not the Arctic Monkeys.

"I would relish the opportunity to take on David Cameron and the Conservative party."

Judging by the standing ovation he received from the delegates, it is almost certain he will be given that opportunity. The camera panned along his putative opponents applauding from the conference floor, and it was hard to see how any of them could present such a wide-ranging vision for the party and the country.

This was described as a make-or-break speech for the Chancellor, and he rose to the occasion with the required intelligence, articulacy and just a touch of emotion. He is definitely the one to beat, as next party leader and as next Prime Minister.

Conference - Labour highlights

So it begins.

The Labour conference has been officially started by rival TV interviews from Blair and Brown.

Gordon came over all statemanlike and talked about his desire to devolve power from Whitehall. Nice steal of a LibDem theme. He also said that Blair was a great PM and that he should stay as long as he likes.

Meanwhile Tony Blair was left with the call for unity, repeating his new mantra that the public are not interested in who succeeds him.

He refused to back any of the candidates for his job, though many fear he might be ready to back a stop-Gordon candidate in private when the time comes.

The actual conference started this afternoon with a speech by Hazel Blears and reports from Scotland and Wales. Lovely.

The fireworks should start tomorrow. Gordon Brown is due to give a speech to conference after Alastair Darling, probably just afer noon.

As this will be his last speech as chancellor, we can expect to see a robust defence of his economic management alongside a naked bid for the leadership. Knowing Gordon there will probably be quite a lot of socialist-lite language. He is normally well received at conference, his old Labour style always appeals to delegates, and this could well be the official launch pad for the premiership.

And I am sure Alastair Darling will have some nice things to say as well.

Later on Monday, John Hutton will bore delegates into submission over something, just to ensure the conference is too tired to notice a report on party funding. No one mention the bungs.

Tuesday morning could see some impassioned debate over "Britain and the World" where Margaret Beckett and Des Browne will be held to account over Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then there is what TV producers call a bit of Polly, as in pollyfilla. We have Hilary Armstrong talking to conference about social exclusion (she is against it), followed by Ruth Kelly and Baroness Amos having a nice chat about the future for Britain's communities (very rosy under this government).

You will have noticed by now the main difference with the LibDem conference. Instead of policy documents that will form the manifesto being put to conference, debated and then voted on, we have policy 'themes' generated by the leadership and then presented to delegates by cabinet ministers.

There will be no actual debate, and any impassioned voices will be truncated or intimidated. A sad reflection of what used to be the greatest party of public speakers. I admit being old enough to remember unreconstructed trade unionists giving barnstorming speeches to conference on matters of national importance. The last time we saw such a speech was when John Prescott urged the 1993 conference to back one member one vote. Ever since then it has been one member no voice.

All this leads us neatly to the highlight of Tuesday's conference - the Prime Minister.

An hour and a half is set aside for this address, which we now know for certain will be the last time Tony Blair will speak to conference as party leader. We can expect to see an almost mirror image of Gordon Brown's address. A robust defence of his leadership. A call for the party to carry on his reforms into the next government.

There will probably also be some emotion. Blair is very good at emotion. If I were a betting politicsjunkie, I would put money on there being tears.

For all the sound and fury of the past few months, Tony Blair has delivered his party three election victories and massive majorities. Britain is genuinely a fairer and more just country under his leadership. There will be a huge standing ovation and it will be a moment in the history of this government that will be remembered so please watch.

And so to Wednesday, where yet again there is little to excite the delegates. A Q&A about world poverty. That nice David Miliband, leader-in-waiting and the anionted one, will appear before a live conference audience so he can be assessed. He will be followed by his closest rival for leader after next, Douglas Alexander, Gordon Brown with added personality, but fatally Scottish. They will be talking about sustainable communities (they believe in them).

Improving health and education is the afternoon session. See how neither of these vital issues gets its own session? Very clever, they keep bunching things together so the ministers can be schematic rather than specific.

People tell me socialists are control freaks, and as new Labour goes on I find myself agreeing. Anyway, Hewitt and Alan Johnson will be the show ponies on Wednesday afternoon. It will be interesting to see what reaction Johnson gets from delegates, as he is now a serious contender as the stop-Gordon candidate.

Thursday morning sees another candidate, Peter Hain, present a report on Northern Ireland. Conference seem to like him, and its hardly controversial subject matter, so he should get a good reception.

Tessa Jowell is followed in quick succession by John Reid, yet another contender for PM.

Finally, conference will be brought to an end by one of the few members of the cabinet definitely not in the running for any new job - John Prescott.

We can expect a very emotional address from the deputy PM, his last to conference. For all his faults, Prescott is an iconic figure in the Labour party, and we can expect to see his ovation outdo even Brown and Blair as he gives a final turn to an adoring audience.

LibDem Conference - a blagger's guide

Couldn't be bothered to watch the LibDem conference last week? Shame on you. Anyway here is what you need to know to get through a dinner party conversation.

Ming made a balls of a Q&A with members, he came across as an old man, he even said the Arctic Monkeys have sold more records than The Beatles!

Which proves he was as out of touch in 1964 as he is now. The LibDems promised more money for constituency parties that pick women or ethnic minority parties as they only have seven women MPs and no black or asian ones.

But there will be no extra money for picking gay or lesbian candidates, which annoyed Stonewall. They only have one official gay MP but after the last year you never know with these people. Charlie Kennedy made a lovely, confident speech to the conference and everyone started talking about how he might come back to the front bench or even the leadership.

Some people said he would and others said he would not. Charlie did refuse to shake Ming's hand but he said it was no big deal but I think its because Ming stabbed him in the back and stole his job but then again Charlie was too drunk to talk half the time. So make up your own mind about that one.

The party had actual debate, unlike the other parties, and decided to drop their 50p higher rate of tax policy in favour of more green taxes that target pollution, and they said aviation tax would have to go up. Lots of people made quite boring speeches, except Nick Clegg who made a great speech and is probably going to be the next leader after Ming.

At the end Ming made his big leader speech and although it started off a bit shaky, and he did look a bit old, he made some good points about Blair being an idiot and how torture and wars are bad and in the end it all turned out quite well and everyone went home happy.

Blears bleats for unity

It is a tragic legacy of the Blair years that Britain's role as an honest international broker has been lost. We are now linked irrevocably to the US position, and can no longer present ourselves as unbiased.

Bit like Hazel Blears. Although technically Chairman of the Labour Party, or Chairwoman, she is in no way a representative figure. She is a Blair Quisling.

Like something from dystopial novel, she parrots the same empty phrases over and over, each one more meaningless than the last.

When she was apppointed to 'direct and unify' the party machine earlier this year, there were audible gasps of astonishment. Her predecessor, Ian McCartney, had made an excellent chairman and proved to be a shrewd choice. Respected by party members, unions and MPs alike, McCartney was also conspiciously loyal in a way only a former trade unionist could be.

Just at a time when the party most needs a unifying figure, Blair appoints the most annoying woman in the government to chair the party. Yet more evidence if how out of touch he is with his own people.

And so to this morning's Times, where la Blears is speaking directly to the rank and file of the Labour party, who of course all read The Times.

Like a cut-price Nanny McPhee, the tiny Blairite manages, with Hewitt-like multi-tasking, to both talk down to and belittle her own activists. Yea, she doesn't just want a show of unity, she wants actual unity.

Talk me through that again Hazel? You want to impose ACTUAL unity on a party more divided than it has ever been? You want no debate and no dissent?

While she is busy talking bollocks to the Murdoch press about unity, she seems to have failed to notice the 15m plus debt the party is in. Or the fact that they are being massacred in the opinion polls by a Tory party yet to mention a policy.

She has noticed that Labour are headed for meltdown at the local, Scottish and Welsh elections next year - but used that as another reason for automatic unity.

As one Labour activist said, let's hope this is the conference where the party finally get some balls, stand up for themselves and throw the Blears of this world out on their arse.

The voters would appreciate NOT having ministers like her swanning round implying that Labour are now the natural party of government. Nothing is more likely to alienate the voters than giving the impression you think you deserve to be in power.

Ming makes Ming-like speech to conference

Ming Campbell has made an assured leader's speech at the close of the Liberal Democrat conference. Moving through the crowd towards the podium, reminiscent of Rocky, but after the fight, he looked like the recipient of a suprise birthday party, but he made it to the stage without falling over, which many judged a good start.

In an allusion to Charles Kennedy, Campbell said he had been enjoying this conference, "in particular since Tuesday afternoon."

He didn't mention his predecessor again in the entire speech.

In his first appearance at a national gathering as leader, Campbell focused his fire on David Cameron, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Initially slow and obviously reading, the 65-year-old warmed to his theme when he accused the Tories of posturing over the environment and Labour of failing to help the poorest working families.

He contrasted this with new LibDem tax proposals that would lift the 2 million lowest earners out of income tax, "money back in the pockets of the poorest working families," lift the tax burden on 28m people and change the tax regime to target pollution.

In a bizarre interlude at the start of his remarks, Campbell alluded to Tony Blair's leaked 'victory tour' of the UK just before retirement, and the inclusion of Songs of Praise on the list of programmes the PM might make a valedictory appearance on.

Campbell then went on to list an 'amusing' list of hymns that might accompany the PM. Hymns? For a moment it looked like he might go headlong into another of his 'Jo Grimmond, don't run in the Olympic games without committment, John Smith" riffs.

But he recovered, and he made it to the end without mentioning his upbringing. And he remembered the LibDems did not in fact win the Bromley & Chislehurst by-election.

Declaring the LibDems to be "a party of substance and not spin," Campbell railed against the government's foreign policy disasters, its craven attitude to the US and the way they have tarnished the reputation of the UK, calling the present policy, "neither ethical nor effective."

"How we act abroad is as important as how we act at home," he said, pledging the LibDems opposition to any form of torture or to 90 days detention without trial.

Campbell described himself as entering "youthful middle age" he spoke several times of the sense of hope voter felt in 1997, and how Labour have failed to deliver on those dreams."

He told conference we must all act now to try to stop climate change, and mocked the photo-opportunity politics that Cameron has stolen from Blair. Presenting the Liberal Democrats as the only party to tell voters the truth, he admitted that aviation would be more heavily taxed.

"All of us should pay tax on the pollution we cause," he told delegates.

Although the speech did not contain much in the way of jokes, it was a dignified and principled speech. Ming spoke about everything from Darfur to wind turbines, and while the hall was not exactly electified, the delegates were certainly pleased. As he was joined onstage by his wife and party MPs, it was all smiles. Kennedy was nowhere to be seen. The delegates gave Ming a very middle-class standing ovation.

The LibDems leave Brighton with a clear policy direction and general contentment with the leader. It seems unlikely the Tories or Labour will go home with either of those.

Ashdown query

What colour are Paddy Ashdown's eyes? He has just been on TV squinting at Andrew Neil. His lids are so low now i can't see anything!

Chatshow Charlie's European Tour

Shirley Williams has confirmed that Charles Kennedy will be taking up an 'ambassadorial' role for the Liberal Democrats in the next few months.

Speaking on the BBC2's Daily Politics programme, Baroness Williams praised the deposed leader's speech to the party conference yesterday and brushed aside rumours that Kennedy had refused to shake new leader Ming Campbell's hand or have him onstage during the address.

Kennedy received two standing ovations during his address yesterday, which Williams described as having "none of the spiteful undertones" of other political leaders towards their successors.

"It wasn't sycophantic to Ming ... it was a speech of someone committed to the party."

Former leader Paddy Ashdown and many newspapers this morning attempted to portray the speech as a 'farewell performance' from Kennedy, which Williams, a close friend of his, firmly dismissed.

She revealed that Kennedy will be taking up a role as an ambassador to European liberals. In his speech to conference Kennedy referred to the struggle for liberalism in Russia, and reminded delegates that they have a much larger role in promoting their values throughout the EU and beyond.

Williams conceded that Kennedy needs "time to put the alcohol problem behind him," but significantly described the ambassadorial role as an interim one until he is well enough to return to front line politics.

Ming Campbell has indicated that he would welcome Kennedy back into the shadow cabinet. Given Kennedy's successful attempts to stage manage his conference appearance yesterday, it is clear that his leadership ambitions may not yet be drowned.

However, she gave her full support to Ming, defending him against criticism about his performance at this conference and blaming the media: "It is because he is not the TV charasmatic figure we have become used to." She predicted that Ming will lead the party into the next election.

Baroness Williams, famous for the introduction of comprehensive education during her term as education secretary, bashed the Tories and Labour, saying the had both "made education into a joyless steeplechase."

She said that sucking all the fun out of education was a major factor in rising levels of childhood mental illness.

Kennedy wows party faithful

copyright: The Guardian

Charles Kennedy's much anticipated return to the public stage took place at the Liberal Democrat conference yesterday.

The former leader gave an assured and confident speech, speaking for the most without notes and wandering the platform in the manner of an inspirational speaker.

And, boy, was he inspirational. The party faithful were delighted by this star turn from Kennedy, looking relaxed, healthy and sober, and he was treated to two standing ovations from the packed conference hall.

The content of Kennedy's speech was a wide-ranging lament for the government's misguided foreign policy, and a call for more international co-operation.

He started by admitting that the past 12 months had been the 'best of times and worst of times' for the Lib Dems.

Quashing rumours he might be standing down, Kennedy told the delegates he had refused many offers of TV appearances so that his conference address would be his first public engagement since he was forced to resign in January.

"Politics is where I want to be and it's our politics I want to stay in," he told the conference. His message to the party was positive. He predicted they would see historic victories in next year's elections for the Scottish parliament, and reiterated the message that only the Liberal Democrats have a truly radical agenda:

"We are a force for change in British politics, but we can change the circumstances and the context for the better around about us without, in any sense whatsoever, surrendering that we are Liberal Democrats, we are staying Liberal Democrats and my God we are proud to be Liberal Democrats."

Mr Kennedy went on to mock the last 10 years of Blair, claiming the government have been consistently timid in their approach. Instead of seizing the opportunity afforded by massive public support and huge Commons majorities to deliver root and branch reform, the Labour party had wasted their opportunity and are now a spend force.

The former leader's most passionate words were about the current war, and the damage the government have done to the UK's image internationally: "I am saddened by the legacy of Iraq, and it gives me no pleasure that our position has been vindicated. The tragedy of Iraq is that the standing and integrity of our country has been damaged."

Mr Kennedy also warned against the "crude, cheap, self-defeating slide into anti-Americanism," saying one of the happiest times of his life was studying in the US in the early 1980's, a time when Margaret Thatcher was riding high. He urged his audience to see that only four in ten Americans support Bush and the neo-cons, in exactly the same way that only four in ten British voters supported Thatcher.

He also spoke passionately about the need for immediate action on climate change.

Former leader Paddy Ashdown told the BBC that he thought it was a farewell speech - no-one else did.

Current leader Ming Campbell reiterated his comments that Kennedy would be welcome back on the front bench at any time. Others went further.

Baroness Shirley Williams told the BBC:

"I thought it was a speech saying I am dedicated to the cause. I am not coming back right away but I still want to be involved."

"I just thought what an extraordinarily gifted man and what a great pity it was that he fell prey to this illness, alcoholism."

Williams said it was "unlikely but not impossible" that Kennedy could one day return as leader.

Ming the Clueless

Aaah, the question and answer session with the party faithful. Always seems like a good idea at the time. Get a well-known yet friendly journalist to host it.

What about that nice Michael White from The Guardian? Yes, he won't scare the horses. Some nice soft questions from the conference floor.

A chance for Ming to show he is man of the people. What a disaster. He came across even more like his Dead Ringers alter-ego than usual, reminiscing about his seemingly-Edwardian childhood and upbringing.

He spoke at length about learning Latin at school, about how he was beaten by spinster schoolmistresses if he didn't get his homework right.

He talked about how his father insisted his children polish their shoes everytime they left the house. I doubt anyone under 30 knows what shoe polish is, or how one would go about applying it to shoes.

He mentioned two of his close friends from university, two Labour politicians - Donald Dewar and John Smith.

There is no question about the standing of these two men. But was I the only one to comment internally on the fact that they are both dead?

When Ming talked about competing in the 1964 Olympics, was I the only one to muse on the fact that almost no-one in his shadow cabinet was old enough to remember that triumph?

When he talked about it taking him 11 years to get seat in parliament, was I the only one to muse on the fact that he got took the seat in 1983 - at the same time as former leader Charles Kennedy and party president Simon Hughes. And for that matter Tony Blair and Gordon Brown? And that he is older than all of them.

His 'major gaffes' as reported by the press were actually pretty minor. Ok, so the LibDems did not win Bromley and Chislehurst in the recent by-election, but they may as well have. He was in full flow, in the middle of a point about LibDem success.

And as for his assertion that the Arctic Monkeys sold more records than The Beatles?

Well that was in the context of Ming mocking Gordon Brown for claiming he listens to the Arctic Monkeys!

At least Ming was admitting he would never make such a laughable and desperate claim to try to appear cool. The fact he thinks the Arctic Monkeys have sold more records than The Beatles is almost touching.

It conveys the message that even in the 1960s, while everyone else was tuning in and dropping out, upstanding Ming was spending his days running endlessly around a muddy Scottish field, muttering to himself about John Stuart Mill and the values of Liberalism. Literally like something out of Chariots of Fire.

No, the real mistake of this question and answer session was to allow Ming to do it at all. He appeared to be not just from a different age, but a different century.

What must Jo Swinson and Julia Goldsworthy, both name-checked by Ming and both under 30, made of his assertion that in his time women were regarded as an evil temptation?

This is not to imply that anyone over 50 is unwelcome in politics. Quite the opposite. One of the unique things about the House of Lords is that it has within it the experiences of the last 80 years.

I am just still unsure how the voters are going to react to a man who comes across not like their grandad, but like HIS grandad.

Interview with Nick Clegg

Nick Clegg
Sheffield Hallam

“The LibDems are the only party of radical and far-reaching reform. I like the fact that we are a party free of dominance from any particular interest group, whether it’s the unions or big business.”

Charismatic. Articulate. Passionate. Crowd-pleasing. Funny. Not the usual qualities one expects in Liberal Democrats.

They are more usually thought of as nice, unconfrontational, consensus building dreamers.
The appeal of Nick Clegg, who burst onto the Westminster scene a mere 17 months ago, is that he appears to combine all these qualities and more.

Since winning Sheffield Hallam in the 2005 general election, the39-year-old has made a major impression on the Liberal Democrats in parliament and across the country.

He was initially appointed as a Foreign Affairs spokesman by Charles Kennedy, a sensible appointment for a former MEP who speaks five languages. He represented the East Midlands from 1999 to 2004.

He rejects the assertion that the Brussels parliament is boring: “I look back on my time in the European Parliament with enormous nostalgia and regard it as pleasurable and formative time.
“The thing that people in the Westminster village forget is that the European Parliament has become an extremely important legislative body.

“You could argue now that the average MEP has considerably more influence over the shape of laws in this land than the vast bulk of MPs.

“It’s very much a law making body which contrasts with the political pyrotechnics of Westminster which is more of a politically dramatic place.

“If you are interested in how law is made, scrutinised and improved, or at times rejected, there are few more interesting places than the European Parliament.”

Clegg was no stranger to Europe. He was educated at the highly regarded private Westminster School, and went on to Robinson College, Cambridge.

He took post-graduate degrees at the University of Minnesota and the College of Europe in Brussels. After training as a journalist in New York, he joined the European Commission in 1994.

The high-flyer then became senior adviser to Sir Leon Brittan, the Thatcher-appointed Vice President of the European Commission.

Despite this pedigree, Clegg was a latecomer to party politics. He says student politics left him cold: “I only developed, if you like, in a partisan fashion, a lot later than many of the colleagues I know in the LibDems.

“It was a switch I guess in my professional life, when I just felt that I had strong opinions on a number of things and that maybe it was time for me to put my money where my mouth is and not continually hurl abuse at the television set, but try to make my own views known in the public realm.

“I had always voted for the LibDems, I was a member as soon as I became interested in party politics, for a number of reasons. I am a passionate internationalist, extremely interested in civil liberties and human rights, in the way in which this country is governed.

“The LibDems are the only party of radical and far-reaching reform, I like the sincerity with which we talk about devolution and decentralisation, I like the fact that we are a party free of dominance from any particular interest group, whether it’s the unions or big business.”

It is a mark of his extraordinary talent that by January this year, when Charles Kennedy stood down, MPs and party activists were approaching Clegg to stand as leader. He cannily refused, just as he refuses to discuss whether or not he will succeed Ming Campbell, or when.

He was appointed to the high-profile Home Affairs brief by Ming, to replace the disgraced Mark Oaten, and has proved his mettle in the job.

In parliament, the LibDems can often be a marginal voice, barracked by Labour and the Tories alike.

Clegg has been an effective Commons performer, holding Charles Clarke and John Reid to account over the multiple failures of the Home Office on everything from asylum to terrorism legislation.

Surely even a seasoned MEP would find standing up in the House of Commons as a frontbench spokesman a little scary?

“I think the sheer intensity of the House in full flight is pretty difficult to prepare yourself for. It has its pros and its cons.

“It is not always the place that is most conducive to balanced considered argument, but it does show up weak or strong arguments for what they are in a fairly brutal fashion.”

The material he had to work with certainly helped:

“It was pretty intimidating the first couple of occasions. The first few times I was against David Davis and Charles Clarke I was lucky in the sense that I was on very secure territory, as the spokesman of the only party to maintain our principled objection to ID cards.

“Remember the Conservatives inexplicably at the last minute supported the legislation. I was lucky that I was able to find my feet on an issue that I felt very strongly about, it was an issue I had been following for some time.”

Perhaps his finest hour in the last parliamentary session came with the debate he secured on the UK/US extradition treaty. MPs from all sides listened to his principled comments about the unfair nature of that treaty, and many praised his efforts to raise the issue in the House.

Let us be clear about just how charismatic Nick Clegg is. Not since the days of Paddy Ashdown has there been a Liberal Democrat with such an electrifying effect on his own party.

The start of our conversation was delayed by over ten minutes. Just trying to get through the café at Portcullis House and into a seat, it seemed everyone wanted a word with Nick, to introduce him to their visiting constituents or have a word about policy.

Just as we were about to start, LibDem party president and 23-year veteran of the House of Commons Simon Hughes interrupted to go over the wording of a press release on sentencing with him. The boy has star written all over him.

Clegg continues to be a loyal supporter of the party’s current leader, who has faced sustained press attention because of his age and slightly stiff manner.

Like many Liberal Democrats, he sees Campbell’s difference as an asset: “Ming’s appeal to the electorate at a time when everyone’s heads are being turned by the somewhat cosmetic charms of David Cameron will prove even more overwhelming by the time of the general election than it does now. He will be able to bring a degree of credibility and gravitas to his job that I think will escape Cameron.”

Clegg is the same age as Cameron, and in his keynote speech he took time to mock the new Tory leader as small-c Conservative.

Yet the Cameron message of ‘hug-a-hoodie’ could provide the third party with a rare opportunity to out-manoeuvre the Tories on one of their core strengths, law and order.

“Intellectually, I refute the idea that because we are the leading proponents of civil liberties and human rights in British politics that that somehow neuters us as a party speaking out about crime, anti-social behaviour, the rights of victims.

"Ming surprised many people in the party by saying very bluntly and very boldly that we will continue to champion human rights but we will also be champions of a criminal justice system that works, and that doesn’t let criminals off.”

Clegg is also talking tough on the Home Office, which he feels has become too big to be handled effectively by one cabinet minister: “I think the Home Office now needs to be broken up.

“There is an overwhelming case to look at the model used in other European countries, and in North America as well, where you have a justice ministry dealing with judicial issues, you have another ministry dealing with security issues.

“You make sure that quasi-judicial functions such as the processing of asylum applications are hived off altogether into a separate agency such as you have in Canada, in other words you de-politicise those areas.”

Clegg also thinks that the government’s proposals for ID cards will be an issue for voters once the cards start to be introduced. Many of the voters have failed to grasp what biometric identification actually means.

“The sheer scope and power of an ID database which will be capable of storing a level of information which no ID card I know of anywhere in the world has so far required.

“The government has grotesquely underestimated the cost of ID cards and the complexity of the IT systems.

“They are dangerously underestimating how much resistance there will be amongst the British people when they are asked to go down to some office somewhere and give their fingerprints, give their iris scans, give up a lot of information that is going to be held on a database.

“And then pay through the nose for the privilege of having that intrusion in their private lives. I think there is a long way to go before we can say that ID cards are here to stay.”

So there are some of the key battlegrounds that Nick Clegg will be fighting on up until the next election.

When teased about being exactly the same age as the still-wet behind the ears Tory leader, he responds: “I don’t get up every morning and compare myself to David Cameron, I promise you!”

Clegg recently conceded even he is bored of constantly being talked up as a successor to Ming Campbell.

After his outstanding speech to the Liberal Democrat conference this week, it is a question he will have reconcile himself to being asked in every interview.

When asked, he gave politicsjunkie the standard response:

“I have so much to get on with as a Home Affairs spokesman, I am forever being asked to speculate about our party and the future, for me it is just essential that we do what I think we do best, which is to provide a liberal alternative to the electorate.

“Come the next general election I think with Cameron peddling his slightly insincere wares and Brown not really resiling from the authoritarian instinct in the Labour party, the role for the Liberal Democrats will be even more pressing than it has been in the last few elections.”

Finally, politicsjunkie asked about which MPs have impressed Clegg since he came to the House in 2005:
“I am enormously impressed by Michael Gove’s presence in the chamber. I have to confess that at his best I am impressed by Tony Blair’s capacity to, in the teeth of terrible headlines and vicious opposition, even from his own benches, to speak with a self-confidence that probably comes with experience but is impressive to watch.”

Baroness Shirley Williams - amazing interview part 1

In April, one of my political heroes, Baroness Shirley Williams of Crosby, gave an interview for my website www.politicsjunkie.co.uk

With the LibDem conference in full swing, I have decided to republish that interview here on the blog. As you would expect, Shirl the Girl talks sense from beginning to end.

Part 1

Shirley Williams has been in Parliament, on and off, for over 40 years, first as a Labour MP, then briefly for the SDP and finally as a leading LibDem peer.

She clearly still loves the job - her interview with politicsjunkie was delayed when she realised she wanted to make a point about Iraq in the Lords.

Despite not being in a visible role since she stood down as LibDem leader in the Lords, she is still a well known figure in Britain:

"Comprehensive education and the creation of the SDP - those are the two things people remember about me – oddly enough most people remember one or the other but not both."

When she returns from the chamber we settle down in her box-strewn office and politicsjunkie asks how a political animal like Williams adjusted to the pace of life in the Lords:

"I enjoy politics very much so I enjoyed the Commons – I found the House of Lords a bit quiet at first, but when we got to the situation where there was no overall majority, when the great bulk of the hereditary peers went in 1998, that changed the House of Lords into a much more interesting place than the Commons.

"I don’t miss the Commons. Most of the time I was there I was an opposition MP and the government of the day had huge majorities - that frankly makes the House of Commons a dull place.

"The outcome of almost every vote is known. It's only if you get a substantial rebellion on the part of the governing party that you actually have an interesting Commons where things are fluid. Basically it becomes a rubber stamp."

The recent history of the party she helped to found has not exactly been tranquil. As a senior party figure she was privy to the growing problem at the heart of the LibDems:

"I was aware that Charles had an alcohol problem. I spoke to him about it well before it became publicly known. What I am aware of is that if you have an alcohol problem then you have to give it up totally – its no use just having a few drinks on the side.

"I also know that the culture of politics is one that makes that extraordinarily difficult. I think he was in many ways a brilliant leader – the way he appealed to young people was very striking, the fact that he had no pomposity was remarkable.

"At the end of the day there were too many public occasions when Charles couldn’t handle it because he was under the influence of drink. It was becoming more and more evident to the media."

Williams rejects suggestions that the party had been ruthless and brutal in their removal of Kennedy:

"Actually the Liberal Democrat party behaved with extraordinary restraint. Charles had a problem for at least two years before anyone made it public and the party effectively covered up because they so appreciated the good things he had done.

"They really became quite worried and some of us who were, as it were, senior figures in the party became quite worried. In the end we came to the conclusion that Charles simply had to stand down."

Williams is no stranger to political turbulence. Born Shirley Catlin in 1930, she was the daughter of political scientist Sir George Catlin and the novelist Vera Brittain, best known for her World War 1 memoir 'Testament of Youth'. Young Shirley was heavily influenced by both her parents, and was brought up as a Roman Catholic - her mother was a leading pacifist during the Second World War.

While studying at Columbia University in New York she met Bernard Williams, regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. Shirley returned with him to Oxford and they married in 1955, despite her brief affair with four-minute-miler Roger Bannister.

Williams worked for the Financial Times as a journalist, gave birth to a daughter and lived happily in Kensington with her husband. She became a Labour MP at the age of 34, winning Hitchin in the 1964 Labour landslide, and was an immediate star, becoming a junior minister.

In 1974, her marriage was dissolved - the athiest Bernard had grown distant from the religious - and increasingly ambitious - Shirley. That year she was appointed to the Cabinet by Harold Wilson as Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection.

When Wilson was succeeded in 1976 by James Callaghan, she became Secretary of State for Education.

Williams will always be identified with the creation of comprehensive education, though much of the groundwork had been laid by her predecessor, Tony Crosland.

She is not impressed with the bill that the current secretary of state now finds himself piloting:
"I find the education proposals appalling. They're an attempt to bring the market to bear on education – as they are trying to do in the health service. These are both areas where the customer is captive – you can't choose to have healthcare – ditto with education – it’s a compulsory process you can't not have it.

"It's absurd to think that the market would operate in the normal way it would operate for cosmetics or soups. That means that your customer is in an extremely weak position.

"It's much more effective in my view to deliver a public service where there is accountability to parliament and government, not to try to deliver a market service where the providers have got something close to monopoly power.

"Where the education white paper is terribly weak is that it rests the whole of the non-selective principle on an admissions code which is even now not statutory. It’s a terribly weak protection – it means if the Tories get back in they can sweep it away just overnight.

"They are building a hierarchy of secondary schools, protected by what I can only call the codpiece of an admissions code. But within the system the pressures are all the other way – the academies want the brightest kids, then the specialist schools want the next brightest kids, then after that the trust schools.

"In every case the pressure will be to satisfy the sponsor – these are private business interests and there is no guarantee that their first concern is education. There is no system of sifting or enquiring into, no system of interviewing these people.

"Some of them are very curious people."

Curious people is an apt description of the gaggle of mis-matched Labour MPs who rocked the party in 1981.

Williams had lost her seat in the 1979 election and was disgruntled with the extreme leftists who seemed to be taking over the party. Moderate Labour MPs were being deselected from their constituencies by Militant socialist activists.

Something had to change and in 1981 Williams resigned from the party, along with fellow moderates Roy Jenkins, David Owen and Bill Rodgers, to form the SDP.

Later that year, following the death of Tory Rodney Graham Page, Shirley Williams won a by-election in Crosby in Merseyside, becoming the first SDP MP to be elected.


The SDP rocked the political establishment, at times hitting 25% in the polls. The Labour party reacted by swinging even further to the Left under Michael Foot while Thatcher's right-wing market-led policies became more strident. The SDP seemed the sane alternative.

Williams was elected SDP president but lost her seat in the 1983 general election. The party had failed to make a breakthrough at the ballot box, despite the unpopularity of Labour, who lost 3 million votes, their worst result since 1918.

The Falklands War had buoyed up support for the incumbent and the SDP revolution was stalled by an unfair voting system. The SDP-Liberal Alliance was a mere 675,985 votes behind Labour, but won only 23 seats with 25% of the vote.

Williams supported the party's subsequent merger with the Liberal Party in 1988, to become the Liberal Democrats.

The SDP/Liberal Alliance may never have lived up to their early promise but they changed the Labour party. The Limehouse declaration reads like a new Labour manifesto - taking on union power, a healthy private sector, a constructive role in the EU, the elimination of poverty.

By 1997, new Labour were in tune with many of the LibDem values. Use of the market where appropriate, regional assemblies, independence for Scotland were all policies the Liberal Democrats supported.

If new Labour started out looking like the SDP, where did it all start to go wrong?
"Round about 2002 the whole thing started going pear-shaped. The unbelievable levels of intervention in the public services from this government.

"A new law virtually every few months in the Home Office, reorganising every bloody thing, reorganising the police forces, the schools, the hospitals. Not once but twice and in some cases three times, with the result that we have got a demoralised and totally confused public sector that doesn’t know if it is coming or going."

continued in PART2

Baroness Shirley Williams - amazing interview part 2

In April, one of my political heroes, Baroness Shirley Williams of Crosby, gave an interview for my website www.politicsjunkie.co.uk
With the LibDem conference in full swing, I have decided to republish that interview here on the blog. As you would expect, Shirl the Girl talks sense from beginning to end.

Part 2

One area where the government has been uncharacteristically slow to legislate is reform of the house of Lords. Since the proposals brought forward by Robin Cook in 2002 found no consensus in the Commons, the second chamber has been in a sort of limbo.

The recent scandals over peerages-for-sale has prodded the government into action, with an assurance that MPs will be given a free vote and Tony Blair indicating he will concede to an elected second chamber.

Baroness Williams has a very clear idea of how she wants the Lords to be selected:

"What I would really like is an 80% elected house with a long term – probably not renewable, maybe 10 years, elected by PR from the regions. But with a system like a multi-member constituency system – which allows the public to make the choice but not the party, in other words not a party list system."

She thinks she will get half of what she wants:

"I think we may well get the 80%, I think the government is likely to give in to a democratic element to the Lords. I think we are unlikely to get PR as the government gets scared anytime it goes near PR because you might just get a just voting system. And that would never do."

Williams left front-line British politics in 1988 and moved back to academia. She married for a second time, to Harvard academic Richard Neustadt, and moved to the United States, as Public Service Professor of Elective Politics at the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University from 1988 and also lecturing in Princeton, Berkley and Chicago.

When we talk about the current tide of anti-American sentiment in the UK, it is clear Williams relishes her time in the States. She is sanguine about the current British distaste for America:

"Anti-Americanism is made up of two things – a very unattractive aspect of some of the older and posher groups in society, resenting America just for being big and successful, lively and exciting.

"On top of that there is a different kind of resentment, much more justified in my view, largely directed at the present administration. The US is beginning to change quite fundamentally and will never be again the kind of beacon of liberty that we thought of it as being in the 1940s.

"Roosevelt, Eisenhower, that whole period when America was deeply internationalist, deeply involved in the outside world, dominated by the civilised east coast intellectuals or west coast professionals.

"You now have the middle asserting itself, most of whom haven’t travelled abroad or if they have it is only on the briefest of visits. Most of them aren’t interested in abroad, know very little about abroad and they are becoming the dominant political force.

"They tend to be conservative, fundamentalist Christian and they are a very different ball game. A lot of Brits who have never been to Des Moines or Kansas City just don’t know that America and don’t like what little they do know about it. Even a change of president will not change that."

Returning from American academic life to British politics as a life peer with the title Baroness Williams of Crosby in 1993, she was Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords from 2001 to 2004.

It is a mark of the love which the party have for this icon of the centre-left that her last speech at the Liberal Democrat party conference in autumn 2004 received an emotional standing ovation. She backed another well-loved figure, Sir Menzies Campbell, after Charles Kennedy stood down.

Williams insists the LibDems are back on an even keel, despite the rising concerns about Ming Campbell's recent performances in the Commons, notably at prime minister's questions:

"PMQ are a media silliness, real clown stuff. People watch PMQ in the same way they watch Rory Bremner, because it is a fun entertainment. It has got very little to do with real politics."

The mention of Ming leads Williams to a comparison with the new Tory leader - and criticism of the the press for reducing the debate to image and soundbite:

"We needed someone who could bring to bear a real degree of wisdom and judgment to matters, as Ming did to his credit over Iraq.

"Because of that people like the government and the foreign office treat him seriously. As they do not treat David Cameron seriously despite him being a brilliant performer at PMQ.

"Forgive me for saying this to you so sternly, but that is exactly the mistake the media make over and over again and that is why they are ruining politics."

Chastened, politicsjunkie asked Williams what made Ming the right choice, given that image is more and more important than substance in modern politics, whether the fault of the media or of politicians:

"Ming was the right choice and I was actually a sponsor of him. I think we needed an absolutely steady and reliable leader for a while against whom the press could not dig up anything.

"Ming is completely honest, completely devoted to his wife, most unlikely to be engaged in financial trickery. He is a good, upright Edinburgh man."

Williams' reasons reveal the depth of her political instincts, when one considers what happened to two of Ming's opponents for the leadership:

"Given that the media concentrates so much on personal weaknesses you really needed someone who that could not be alleged against."

As a representative of the media, image is everything to politicsjunkie - so what did the baroness make of the young pretender?

"We have to see - he is very attractive and obviously in the initial phase you get a reaction to him, which you would expect. He is the first good, exciting leader for some while for the Conservatives."

It is the threat from the far-right, more than the rise of green Conservatism, which has been occupying the chattering classes since the local elections. Williams asserts that comparisons with the 1970s are wide of the mark:

"The BNP are hardly a huge threat with 40 councillors - we are looking at a much smaller threat than in the 1970’s – there is no comparison at all.

"The National Front were very consciously racist, more than now, and it was stopped in its tracks by the extraordinarily courageous action of Edward Heath in sacking Enoch Powell.

"Enoch as you know went off to the UUWC (Ulster Unionists) and became a dud volcano.

"This time it's not just to do with race, an awful lot of it is to do with a feeling in some London boroughs and in certain parts of the Pennines that the government is not listening to them. "

Of the two things Shirley Williams is known for, one, the SDP, has been folded into a new political entity.

She still stoutly defends the other claim to fame, the comprehensive principle so closely identified with her as education secretary:

"In Scotland where the comprehensive system has been almost untrammeled by interventions from the centre you have got better results, more children staying on and this is a system which has been true throughout to the comprehensive ideal.

"In England and Wales they have become a political football and not been given the time and the peace and the support to settle down.

"It makes me very angry."

Clegg shows why he is leadership material

LibDem Home Affairs spokesman Nick Clegg has made a barnstorming speech to the party conference.
In a wide-ranging address the MP for Sheffield Hallam recalled the liberal ideals of the last 100 years and attempted to put to rest any idea that his party is soft on criminality.
In one of the best conference performances of recent times, Clegg rejected the policy of 'tough liberalism' in favour of practical measures to stop crime.
He cited action taken by LibDem councils like Liverpool, where a sharp drop in burglary has been achieved. Clegg also mocked David Cameron, calling him David 'small c' Cameron, in one of many amusing lines in his address.
Clegg also attacked the government's record, highlighting their erosion of civil liberties and portraying his party as the only one ready to stand up for liberal values.
He said: "I want to rid everyone of the notion that our values give comfort to terrorists and criminals.
"On the contrary, I believe strong, self-confident liberalism goes hand in hand with the reassurance that the state can, must, and will protect its citizens."
In a fluent and passionate speech, he attacked the values of Labour, saying of another Sheffield MP, former Home Secretary David Blunkett, "he may have a beard, but he is no liberal."
Clegg is often talked about as a future leader of the party, and after today's performance he looks certain to be a leading contender when Ming Campbell stands down.
Perhaps the most eye-catching initiative that Clegg announced was a Great Repeal Act, aimed at getting rid of the thousands of laws passed under the Blair government. He announced the launch of a website where the public can contribute their views on which laws need to be ditched.
Clegg mocked some of the recent new legislation: "It is now illegal to sell grey squirrels. Have you seen anyone try recently?"
The LibDem spokesman berated the government for using fear of terrorism as an excuse to remove basic liberties from the British people, and stressed that terrorism is not won by restricting freedom.

LibDem Conference Begins!

So here we go - the party conference season begins.

The LibDem conference once again comes across like an over-grown parish council meeting. A series of nervous and seemingly disorganised women in the chair, faltering through the laugably complex rules of engagement.

A cringing opening statement from Simon Hughes, a cringing response from the mayor of Brighton, and what appears to be a half-empty hall. Not a good start.

There was an excellent speech from Michael Moore on foreign policy. Not, unfortunately, the American polemicist and director of Bowling for Columbine, but the young Scots MP that Ming has made in his image.

Foreign policy is always a strong point for the Liberals - after all, its not like they are ever going to be sitting in the Foreign Office. The content of the speech was pretty standard, but I was quite impressed with Moore's delivery. He made much of the subservience of Blair to the US, and attacked the death of British diplomacy, with our PM now just here to lay the groundwork for Condi, and the UN asking our PM to stay at home as he is a liability to peace. The behaviour of Israel towards the Lebanon is a disgrace, and it is good to hear someone say it.

Powerful stuff, and Moore sounded like a politician, as opposed to the chairman of a rural parish council, at times pompous and ridiculous, which is how Simon Hughes came across. It is all so bloody middle class.

"Every child really matters" said LD spokeslady Annette Brook in a quivering voice, to the weakest applause you ever heard. God, I wish there were more shouting socialists or smarmy Tories in the LibDems. Its so boring!