Since you've been gone

SO here it is my first blog entry since 19th April.

In that time I have been to Miami, spent the day with schoolkids at Auschwitz, been on BBC Radio Ulster (personal goal ticked off the list - shame my mum wasn't listening!) reported on the election of Boris Johnson as Mayor of London, been to my first PMQ and got to sit in the Press Gallery which was just SO cool (thanks Kevin), talked St Paul's epistles with the only gay bishop in the Anglican communion (only out one obviously. Its faggot central as everyone knows) discussed the psychology of Ann Widdecombe with drunken Labour researchers, listened to London's first gay deputy Mayor relive the experience of his partner dying in his arms, and then be told he was not a 'fit person' to register his death - he went all the way to the Registrar General to have that obscene insult abolished.

I have brooded over getting an interview with David Cameron, then brooded over getting one with Gordon Brown, planned by birthday picnic on Primrose Hill, thought about growing my hair long, had a beautiful dinner with my friend Michael in his new flat, received news that my brother Dominic is a father for a third time, a girl called Megan, found myself agreeing with everything my mother was saying about Tibet, fought a losing battle with Snickers addiction, argued about the ban on gay blood donations with two people who knew a lot more about it than me, had dinner with someone I fully expect to be in the Cabinet in ten years, realised what an brilliant film Minority Report is, interviewed about a million interns and not slept enough.

Clearly no time for blogging - its SO 2007. But we shall keep at it when we find a moment.

Bad press day for the Prime Minister

Bad news for Gordon Brown - the papers today are a chorus of disapproval - Matthew Parris in The Times complaining that he is a naked, clueless vacuum.

Crikey. The Sun reports that he could face a challenge to his leadership if Labour do badly in the local elections next month, and The Guardian has published a series of comments from un-named government MPs bemoaning his election unopposed as leader last year.

All are agreed that the boy Miliband will not be challenging, and that the most likely contenders are Blairites Alan Milburn or Charles Clarke.

This talk of a leadership challenge is bollocks, though the underlying message that support for the government has all but evaporated is true.

The collapse in Gordon Brown's poll numbers is stunning, and it looks unlikely he will substantially raise it in the coming months.

Tessa Jowell, that harbinger of doom, has been raising hackles about the abolition of the 10p tax.

It looks likely that the PM is entering his John Major phase much earlier than predicted; we will see him defeated by his own party on key legislation, his younger Cabinet colleagues jockeying for position, safe in the knowledge they can hold their fire until after he loses the next election.

It is fast becoming a cliche, but it is all so terribly Shakespearean. It is as if he is under a curse, to always half-succeed but always look as if he failed completely.

Everything from the signing of the Lisbon treaty to getting lost in Windsor Castle, to not going to the opening of the Olympics, but happy to be there for the closing, he and his team seem unable to get anything right.

Kebab-eating Home Secretaries, the one-woman wrecking machine that is Harriet Harman and the sight of Tessa Jowell and the Olympics budget roadshow, all adds to the tragedy.

The idea that Brown promised only to serve one term, in favour of Ed Balls, is pure fantasy. There are few Cabinet ministers with as little support on the backbenches as Balls. He is entirely a creation of the Prime Minister, not the party.

And while the Tories may be jubilant at their poll lead, they are still only getting 40% of the vote - hardly enough to propel them into government.

They have yet to make a serious impact in cities like London, Manchester and Sheffield. The local elections on May 1st is their best chance to achieve those symbolic gains.

Even if they do, David Cameron has yet to convince voters that he is the man to lead Britain in a new direction.

Catholics victorious over embryology bill

It may have saved Gordon Brown the crisis of three members of the Cabinet resigning over a point of religious principle, but I for one would question whether people who cannot reconcile party and government policy with their faith should be in the Cabinet at all.

After days of hysterical and mostly totally inaccurate attacks from leading Roman Catholic church leaders, the PM has caved and announced that three parts of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill currently before Parliament will be a free vote for Labour MPs.

While this may spare Ruth Kelly, Des Browne and Paul Murphy from resigning from the government, it raises the role of the Roman Catholic church in British society.

If, like me, you grew up in Ireland in the 1980s and 90s, the sight of the government caving into the brute force of the Roman church demanding that MPs put faith above their role as elected representatives is worrying.

Ireland did not have divorce or abortion because priests stood up in their pulpits and instructed their parishoners how to vote in referendums. The church effectively decided social policy.

Now they have won a significant victory in the UK, and they are unlikely to rest there.

The PM should have stood firm, as Tony Blair did over gay adoption. The church on that occasion threatened to close its adoption agencies rather than consider gay couples. After much internal wrangling Blair, ironically a convert to Catholicism, called their bluff.

What is most troubling about this recent church spat is that they have told blatant lies about the scope and the impact of the bill. There will be no Frankenstein monsters, half-human half-beast creations.

More than 200 charities have spoken up for research. Yet the PM, somehow fearful of the small minority of his own MPs and Cabinet colleagues who feel they must side with their church, has allowed the bill to be challenged by Catholic politicians.

The Roman church has been trying this tactic in every country where they have influence. Gay rights in Italy are frustrated by their malign influence. They blatantly tried to stop the re-election of the Spanish government earlier this month, preaching that people who had allowed gay marriage were "anti-family."

Now they have managed to get their way in the UK. Fortunately, the bill will still pass and those Catholic MPs will have to explain to their constituents why they did not keep their best interests at heart over this matter.

Oh, and yes David Cameron and Nick Clegg have given their MPs a free vote, but then this is not their bill is it!

Read this excellent article on the topic of church vs constituents!

There is no place for Islamic “divorce” in the UK

A century ago, women across Britain asserted their right to vote. Today the Archbishop of Canterbury is suggesting we accept part of Sharia law in the UK.

Not the bit about killing gay people, but other equally controversial concepts such as allowing Muslim people to have Muslim divorces.

At first glance that might sound sensible, sensitive even. It isn’t. Under Sharia, women are judged differently from men, women are constrained in ways that are unacceptable in our society.

And that is the point – it is our society and its values are fundamentally incompatible with aspects of Muslim attitudes.

What is more worrying is that Muslim commentators have been suggesting some sort of ‘live and let live’ idea, where we Christians get on with life under our rules and let them take responsibility for their personal lives under Sharia.

That is unacceptable. Women – all women – in this country have equal rights with men in this country.

Those rights are set out and protected by Parliament. They are the only body in this country that makes laws, and they apply to everyone.

British Muslims, at least those who speak up for the community on TV and newspapers, seem not to have grasped that fundamental point.

Why the Archbishop of Canterbury is hawking this nonsense, under the nebulous cause of “improving social cohesion,” is entirely unclear.

I can think of nothing that would damage the fabric of British society more than different standards, different laws and different rules for different religions.

Gordon Brown talks a lot about Britishness, and to his credit his response was robust.

"There are instances where government has made changes - for example on stamp duty - but the general position is that Sharia cannot be used as justification for committing breaches of English law nor can its principles be used in civil courts,” his spokesman said today.

“British laws should be based on British values."

Gordon shuffles his cards

Peter Hain's resignation in the wake of the Electoral Commission's decision to ask the police to look into donations to his deputy leadership campaign is overdue.

The revelations ruined the government's attempt to gain the upper hand in the New Year, made the whole party seem sleazy and thrust the loans/donations rows back into the public eye.

The PM talking about 'incompetence' really did not help matters.

With his departure comes lots of news stories about the new generation of Labour leaders - Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham and James Purnell all favoured with high-profile roles.

But when you look across at the shadow Cabinet, it still makes a lot of Brown's team look like old hands.

Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove, Theresa Villiers and Nick Herbert all became MPs at the last election.

As did the new Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg.

The challenge of the next year for Labour will be to demonstrate to the electorate that they are dynamic and capable of profound change.

It is not even an issue of age as such - after all Ruth Kelly is not yet 40, but it feels like she has been at the heart of the government for many years.

Ed Balls, Douglas Alexander and Ed and David Miliband are all young, but not in any way new. That being said, there does not seem to be a serious rival to Gordon Brown among any of them.

For a decade the Labour party and the public knew that Tony Blair would be succeeded by Gordon Brown. But who will be the next leader?

For the rising stars, the next twelve months will be critical in establishing themselves not so much as the heirs to new Labour but as someone who can take on David Cameron and win.