f

gdfgdsgdfsgfdg

dfgd
fg
ddfg
gdgg
df
dg


Read more...

sadsa

standfirst



main body

Read more...

Test post 2

This is the perfect time for a rethink on the role of the speaker as well as that of parliament. A new era of parliamentary involvement and activism? Yes, please. John Berkow's idea of the speaker as a public ambassador for the work of parliament is a good one, and would help raise awareness of what parliament does, and its role in examining legislation.

Something has definitely got to be done about the public perception that parliament is simply a debating chamber which is invariably empty except for a few moments when everyone piles in for a bit of yah-boo yelling.

I would like to nominate Tom Stoppard to take a stab at rewriting Erskine May, the bible of parliamentary procedure. This rewrite, as nominated by Menzies Campbell, in his pitch for speaker, is much needed for the rest of the world to know and understand what is going on in the world of parliament. It makes sense to translate such madness as "the question be now put, and the question being put, that the question now be put, being put and agreed to, the question was put" into something just a tiny bit more sensible. Stoppard who is responsible for a new version of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, and takes a lovely stab at translating Shakespearian rhythm in his fantastic script for the film Shakespeare in Love, would be the ideal man to wade through the words and bring it beautifully into the 21st century. It could be the real thing.

Read more...

Test for short post

Test post intro - this is your standfirst



main body of text main body of textmain body of textmain body of textmain body of textmain body of textmain body of textmain body of textmain body of textmain body of textmain body of textmain body of textmain body of textmain body of textmain body of textmain body of textmain body of textmain body of textmain body of textmain body of textmain body of textmain body of textmain body of text

Read more...

Electoral reform: why not follow Ontario's lead?

In recent posts I have supported the idea of taking issues of electoral and wider constitutional reform out of the hands of the party elites and adopting a consultative citizens' convention process to develop reform proposals. As many readers will be aware, this is by no means a brand new idea. It has been tried, successfully, elsewhere.



Back in 2005 the state of Ontario decided that it would reform its electoral system by convening a citizens' assembly. The assembly reported in 2007, after a lengthy consultation process involving many local meetings and individual submissions. It recommended a form of proportional representation for elections to the Ontario state legislature.

Part of the rationale for the citizens' assembly was that this process would take the issue of electoral reform on to relatively neutral ground. If the decision was confined to the political parties, the decision would inevitably be skewed - and would be seen by citizens as being skewed - by calculations of party advantage. By involving citizens directly in a deliberative, consultative process, a reform could be achieved which would represent a genuine popular will, rather than a party fix. And this would enhance the legitimacy of the political system.

Similarly, in the UK at present, its clear that the various proposals for electoral reform floating around largely reflect calculations of party advantage. To say this is not to be 'cynical'. Its just basic poltiical science. So adopting a citizens' convention process is crucial to giving electoral reform integrity and (hence) legitimacy.

However, by doing the right thing, its possible that Labour could in this case also gain some party advantage. If Labour were to come out in favour of a citizens' convention process it would certainly help give the Brown government some of the momentum and sense of mission it is looking to regain.

So, even if you only care about Labour's interests (!), why not follow Ontario's lead?

Read more...

Why Labour shouldn't propose AV

Over at Liberal Conspiracy, Stuart Weir has an impassioned post arguing that for the government to propose electoral reform in the shape of the AV would be a 'Labour stitch-up'. I am inclined to agree. But aside from the substance of what the government might propose by way of reform, I am struck, like Stuart, by the apparent conservatism of the process by which the government appears to be approaching the whole issue of political reform.

Let's start with AV. As has been widely pointed out, AV is not a proportional system, and so simply does not address the intrinsic unfairness of radical disproportionality between votes and seats. Depending on the distribution of preferences, AV can actually produce even more disproportionate results than the current system.

Compared to PR, I think AV is also likely to put minor, radical parties at a disadvantage. This has its obvious upside: no BNP in parliament. But it has an equally obvious downside: fewer Greens. If, like me, you think the future of progressive politics is Red-Green, you will naturally want an electoral system that allows the latent support for the Greens to come through. I stand to be corrected on this, but my guess is that PR is likely to do this better than AV.

Sunder has proposed a compromise along the lines of AV for the Commons and PR for the second chamber. (Correct me, Sunder, if I am oversimplifying.) But this strikes me as a very unconvincing compromise. Under this proposal, many people would quite reasonably see the second chamber as having more democratic legitimacy than the Commons. What would happen then? Either the second chamber would retain its subordinate status, and many citizens would ask why the more democratic chamber was being overruled by the Commons. There would be a crisis of legitimacy for the Commons. Alternatively, the second chamber would achieve equal status with the Commons. But what, then, if the majorities in the two chambers do not match up? How is the government to be formed?

The compromise of 'AV plus' for the Commons strikes me as more plausible, and preferable to the pure AV proposal. So should Labour put this proposal forward instead?

This brings us back to the second point. Whatever the merits of specific proposals, I think we have reached a point where it is inappropriate for one specific governing party, or even the Westminster elite as a whole, to hold control over the reform process. The process of reform needs itself to address the underlying problem of disconnection and distrust between the political elite and the public. Moreover, if this is a constitutional moment, and we believe in the sovereignty of the people, there is a fundamental matter of principle in seeing that the process of reform is one which gives real, meaningful input to the people.

This is why it is a profound mistake for the Brown government to off into a huddle with a small group of selected advisors and come up with a plan for constitutional reform. That's the mentality of the Treasury technocrat, not the democratic citizen.

For a man who pledged on Monday night to start doing things differently, it is a sign that Gordon Brown still doesn't grasp the huge, qualitative change in his approach to governance that the times demand.

The alternative is for the political elite to let go and bring the people in. The idea of a citizens' convention, as the culmination of a wide and inclusive process of public meetings and consultations, is much preferable as a way forward. The convention would produce a set of proposals which would then be put to Parliament, and to a referendum if Parliament rejected them.

Of course, at the end of the public deliberation, the citizens' convention might come up with a proposal for an electoral system based on AV. So be it. At least then I would have confidence that this represented a genuine, deliberated popular will and not - as Stuart Weir rightly worries - an opportunistic stitch-up by the elite of one political party. Read more...

Electoral reform myths: Janet Daley gets it wrong

Since there will be a lot of nonsense talking about the subject, let's begin a short series pointing some of it out.

Janet Daley is quickly out of the blocks with an argument I expect many people will make, even though it is obviously incorrect.

What the "alternative vote" would mean is that it would be virtually impossible for the Conservatives ever to regain power. Labour and LibDem supporters could simply institutionalise their game of tactical voting: by always placing each other's party as their second choice, they would guarantee Left-liberal coalition governments forever.

Nonsense.

Unless Janet thinks that Ken Livingstone is still Mayor of London - and that Boris Johnson lost.

In fact, under the supplementary vote system (a simpler cousin of AV), Ken Livingstone received 135,000 second preferences and Boris almost 125,000 second preference votes, meaning that Boris' first round lead was closed only marginally.

Before Janet opines further on the subject, I suggest that she might want to ask Mike Smithson of Political Betting for a briefing on how LibDem second preferences often divide quite equally between the major parties - though no doubt with some bias to the Tories in circumstances like those of last week's elections, in contrast to a strong bias to Labour in 1997 when the country was united in wanting to get the Conservatives out. Read more...

What is the Alternative Vote? Essential reading

The BBC reports that Gordon Brown is announcing plans to consider electoral reform - with the Alternative Vote, rather than a PR-system.

The details are hazy: I expect it will lead to Labour endorsing the Alternative Vote in its own manifesto, but the more important question is whether there will be plans for a referendum either before or at the same time as the General Election. There is no prospect of a change for the next election.

For background, my Fabian essay How to reform the electoral system in Autumn 2007 set out the case for the Alternative Vote as the best way to build a consensus for reform, if combined with a PR-elected second chamber.

Peter Facey reflecting on this - and similar proposals from John Denham - argued it was an imperfect reform, which would improve the current system but not make every vote count equally.

A very informative and well informed study of - A better Alternative? - was published by Lewis Baston of the Electoral Reform Society, noting that it is not a proportional system, but suggesting it may have greater merits than supporters of PR have tended to acknowledge.

Peter Kellner's submission to the Jenkins Commission suggested that the Alternative Vote was the best system at balancing the various goals of electoral systems - in offering voters a clear choice of governments while being fairer to different parties. Kellner also deals in detail with the issue of AV's ability to offer even larger majorities than FPTP in some circumstances - such as 1997 - pointing out that (unilke under FPTP) a government needs to be generally popular with voters across parties for this to happen.

On past form, one can expect the Conservative response to be pretty ill informed about the issues at stake in voting reform.

For example, Jonathan Isaby is already mistakenly referring to "plans to adopt the alternative vote system of proportional representation". AV is not Proportional Representation.

The Conservatives may also claim that the system would be biased against them.

But academic experts disagree with this - certainly in present circumstances.

The transfers in the London Mayoral election showed that (which is the SV system, a simpler system in that it only allows second preferences), while last week's results showed an 'anybody but Labour' effect which would harm Labour under AV if it remained this unpopular.

On the whole, AV might reinforce Cameronism - because it rewards the breadth of appeal of a party's candidates, rather than an intense appeal to a core vote on a low turnout - but Eurosceptics might well also want to take some interest in a system which enables transfers between UKIP and the Tories without the problem of 'wasted votes' just as it does for progressive voters sympathetic to the Greens or other smaller parties. Read more...

What happened to the left's moment?

Asks The Times in a leading article.

... The recent financial crisis has thus reproduced many of the conditions that brought social democracy into being. And it made the case for liberal economic purity harder to make.

In such circumstances, there are four possible explanations for the electoral failure of the Centre Left. The first is that European electorates chose to send a resounding message to people at the Fabian Society not to muck about with their beloved neoliberal capitalism. This seems unlikely. The second, more credible, explanation is that in difficult economic times parties promoting prudent spending and lower taxes tend to do better. A third explanation is that the Left in general has not offered a coherent alternative to the market economics that it says has failed. There is certainly truth in this. Yet in the United States, conservatives are retreating as a self-confident Centre Left captures the public mood.

This leaves as the most powerful and convincing a fourth explanation. The leadership of European social democratic parties in one country after another has been poor. They could win, but they do not. ...

Its an important challenge, which needs more debate here too, though I suspect the issue goes deeper than that.

Though at least, in the view of The Times, it probably wasn't entirely the Fabians wot lost it. Read more...

The lost plot

So it's over. Tonight's Parliamentary Labour Party meeting seems to have put the lid on the coup that never quite was against Gordon Brown.

Crucial meetings of the PLP - like crucial leader's speeches at the party conference - are tests that leaders are likely to pass. The media briefing operation was well drilled too. But the political impact is real.

There is little or no prospect of the 'plotmail' letter surfacing with fifty signatures.

The crucial comment after the meeting was that of Barry Sheerman, who was pushing for a secret PLP ballot today, but who said after the meeting that he would 'stand down' his criticisms:

[Brown] said he was willing to change, he was wiling to listen more to the parliamentary party...if that is true yes we will stand down the criticisms that we have made publicly in the last week".

It is the role of senior non-usual suspects like Sheerman and Nick Raynsford who best serve as proxies for the mass of backbench opinion, rather more than the better known critics of the Prime Minister.

According to the PoliticsHome tally, Around a dozen MPs have gone public in calling for Brown to go this week.

Charles Clarke and Fiona MacTaggart called for the PM to stand down as leader, having done so last summer as, for the first time, did Tom Harris who has blogged his intervention. The Guardian's indefatigable Andrew Sparrow, who seems to have live-blogged the entire week of shuffles, counts and coups has pieced together the post-PLP meeting comments.

Stephen Byers continued the argument debating Ben Bradshaw at the Progress meeting afterwards, Alex
Smith, LabourList editor, offers a twitter report.

The tone of Harris' intervention - "I’ve done some media this evening but after today, that’s it" - and the (reported) decisions of James Purnell and Hazel Blears not to make resignation statements suggest that some MPs feel they should honestly put their own views on the record, without necessarily having the appetite to fight a guerrilla war if their colleagues are unpersuaded.

In reality, the danger to Gordon Brown peaked between 10pm and midnight on Thursday - as the Cabinet made their decision to back him. At that point, Next Left was swimming against the tide of expert opinion in explaning why it wasn't all over, but it was difficult to see what the backbenches could do other than by persuading the Cabinet to act.

This is not the last we will hear of the 'will Brown go' question. But, after two failed coup plots already, I am suspicious of the idea that there will be an extensive appetite - in Parliament, as opposed to the media - for a third round in the Autumn. Read more...

Irish tale brings new characters

The Irish election results prove once again that... it's the economy stupid. The economic downslide in Ireland culminated in a face slap for the governing Fianna Fail party and its alliance partner the Greens, but is likely also signal a turnaround on Ireland's attitude to the EU.
The island that has been transformed with the help of EU funding to help create a new era of Irish life, suddenly turned against it with the Lisbon vote, but once the severe financial crisis set in a reassessment of the helpful EU was not far removed. Memories of how poor Ireland was before it joined the European community in the 1970s are only a generation away.
Since Ireland is still dotted with massive signs showing EU project funding for Irish developments, it is not surprising with the Irish economy in uproar the European election results suggest that the Irish people have changed their mind and once more want to embrace the EU's blue flag as a valued friend. The final answer will be delivered after the recount of the votes for anti-Lisbon campaigner Declan Ganley, who is expected not to win a seat.
Are there lessons for the UK mainstream parties from the Irish result? Get your head outside the Westminster bubble and you might notice that the economy and jobs are what people care about more than anything, and there is an anger that these important issues are being ignored in favour of endless insider chatter about MPs' expenses and an endlessly shuffling pack of ministers.
When it comes down to it, the talk on the journey to work or down the pub is about security, how people are worried about losing their jobs, their homes, their savings. Would this explain a swing to UKIP and the BNP? It might.

PS: Peter Kellner has just published this very interesting analysis of the BNP vote - should be essential reading. Stop talking about this being an anti-expenses vote and start talking to these voters about issues such as housing and employment. Read more...

We need more, not less PES

While we await the final results of the European elections, it is obvious our socialist and social democratic family had a disappointing result.

We face a more conservative European Parliament, with a right that is more euro-sceptic and more nationalistic than before.

The low participation rate was a huge problem, especially for us. Our voters stayed away. They simply didn’t see the relevance of these elections. They did not see the political choices at European level - perhaps not surprising since these elections were mainly fought over national political disputes.

We had a European alternative, but it was not visible enough. Europe still needs a new direction. We are in the middle of a recession, and it will not go away. Wage earners are not to blame but they may end up paying the price. We will have 27 million unemployed next year unless we have a new and stronger European recovery effort. So we will continue our fight for more and better-coordinated investments in new jobs, and to save jobs. We will continue to stand up for social justice and equality. We will continue our fight for a global new deal, including a new strong global climate agreement in the coming months.

We have suffered a loss but we remain the second largest group in the European Parliament. We lost 3 percentage points overall, but we gained in ten member states including in the Czech Republic, in Sweden, in Greece and in Ireland where we are in opposition, and in Slovakia and Slovenia where we are in Government.

We need to reflect, and for our common European party to come forward with a renewed strategy and new ideas. But I say no to those who announce a profound crisis in European socialism. European citizens still depend on social democratic values for decent work, good schools, good health care and a clean environment. Europe still needs a society where everyone can participate, contribute and benefit. This is no time for dismantling our welfare states, it is time for strengthening them.

The centre-right cannot claim a victory for their policies. People are still worried about the crisis, and the crisis remains our number one priority.

The far-right made worrying gains in the elections. People still need us to stand up for respect and tolerance for all, and to continue to fight to protect all workers from the recession.

We need more PES, not less PES. We will make new efforts to strengthen our European political party because we must engage more than ever as a political family in European politics. Read more...

Peter Townsend - a tribute

For six decades Peter Townsend campaigned against poverty, wrote volumes of academic work, virtually invented the idea of relative poverty, and worked enthusiastically to support causes he strongly believed in.
Even at the age of 81, his enthusiasm for his work was undimmed. Fabian vice-president and veteran anti-campaigner Professor Peter Townsend, who died yesterday, had earlier this year contributed to a new Fabian pamphlet, and conference, From Workhouse to Welfare.
Peter had an impressive academic career at the LSE, Bristol University and Essex University, and Policy Press is about to publish The Peter Townsend reader, charting his contributions over his distinguished career.
But he balanced his academic interests with practical action. He was a founding member of the Child Poverty Action Group, and was co-founder of the Disability Alliance.
Peter had an international vision of change, and also worked in various roles at the UN, Unesco, World Health Organisation and Unicef.
He has served on many government committees and has been vice-president of the Fabian Society since 1989.
Hitting his 80th birthday last year did not seem to have slowed him down, and Peter continued to enthusiastically contribute to the Fabian Society's work, and always had time to talk.

Read Peter Townsend's argument for a review of the World Bank's role here, and his contribution to the From Workhouse to Welfare pamphlet here. Read more...

The election inquest in numbers

The European election inquest will be all about opinions. I will update this post with the best pieces of factual analysis of the results: please do suggest resources and links, and let us know whether the explanations of politicians and parties stand up.


The national UK result and Europe-wide summary (BBC)

The Guardian summarises a miserable night for the centre-left across most of the EU.

John Curtice (The Independent): A disaster for Labour but hardly a Tory triumph

For Labour, the ignominy of coming third for the first time in a nationwide vote since 1922. Its share of the vote was easily it lowest-ever score in a nationwide vote since it first started fighting elections as an independent party in 1918. It only managed to top the poll in the deepest of deepest heartland, the North East of England.

True, most parties of government around Europe lost ground. But the drop in Labour's share of the vote as compared with the last general election looks set to be the one of the biggest suffered by any EU governing party

...
Yet it was far from a night of triumph for David Cameron. The Tory vote was no higher than in 2004, and well down on the 36 per cent William Hague managed in 1999. Hardly a performance to show that the Conservatives are on course for power ... Collective support for non-Westminster parties increased beyond the already remarkable one-third recorded in 2004 to no less than two-fifths.

Make Votes Count say that three out of four voters will be represented by an MP they voted for, ranging from 62% in the north-east to 87.7% in the south-east.

And they have a response to the criticism that PR let the BNP in

Systems don't elect candidates; it is the actions of parties and voters which do. What we have seen in the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber is a failure of the Labour party and the political class as a whole to engage with and mobilise people – at these elections, and more widely.

Read more...

Financial Times: 'recession is over' (for now)

Amidst the political gloom, an unexpected glimmer of economic light in the Financial Times this morning.

The report of City opinion - Economists see pause in recession - suggests (against almost all political/media commentary to date) that the Chancellor's budget growth forecast "may have been too pessimistic",

The recession is over for now, the majority of City economists polled by the Financial Times believe.

In a survey conducted at the end of last week, 11 out of 20 economists said the economy had stopped contracting in June and was likely to start growing in coming months. The majority of those believing the economy was still shrinking thought the bottom of the downturn was near.

The survey suggests the government’s forecast in the Budget that growth would return only by the fourth quarter of this year may have been too pessimistic.

Alan Clarke of BNP Paribas told the FT: “The outlook for gross domestic product over the remainder of the year has improved dramatically . . . the recession is over.”

...
Equally, a pick-up in manufacturing will give a quick boost to growth. But the question remains how sustainable that will be.

“Growth is likely to remain below potential for some time. In turn, this points to ongoing increases in unemployment,” said Mr Clarke. “Things will still feel awful for a long time.”

I don't have the technical expertise to comment on the accuracy of the predictions, but it is a serious survey based on key indicators. Perhaps more surprising still is an uptick in consumer confidence.

In last week’s Nationwide consumer confidence indicator, as many respondents thought the economic situation in six months’ time would be better than today as believed the outlook would be worse. As recently as March, the same survey showed twice as many respondents gloomy about the UK’s economic prospects than those who were optimistic.

(Hat tip: New Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw (on Facebook) - "Ben Bradshaw notes today's Financial Times says the recession is over - a story completely ignored of course by the BBC". I might or might not have got to the FT eventually but not - this morning - by 7am. Read more...

Welsh earthquake

The Tories topping the polls in Wales is one of those political developments which can not be diminished by expectation management. Even on a night when the BNP have won seats, UKIP have finished second, and Labour has its lowest ever score, this must have a good claim to be the headline of the election.

It is an achievement for the Tories to benefit from the sharp drop in the Labour vote, rather than Plaid Cymru.

I have heard conflicting reports between the BBC website and the TV broadcast about whether the last time Labour did not come first in Wales was the Khaki election of 1918 (as just said on the TV) or the 1922 election. Can any Welsh specialists clear that one up?

PS: I just about managed to resist "Earthquake in the Valleys" as a headline. Here's betting that two or three newspapers use it tomorrow. Read more...

If the BNP knew our history ...

The BNP win their first seat in the European Parliament.

Hope Not Hate have already launched a Not in my name petition to be presented to the European Parliament when the BNP arrive.

The first MEP Andrew Brons gave a rather muted acceptance speech, stressing that he was a former politics teacher and banging on about the d'Hondt formula in the style of the more anorak-ish type of old Liberal party councillor. Nick Robinson of the BBC had some interesting information about his National Front background, and suggested some National Socalist appreciation society affiliations too. No doubt more will be revealed.

The BNP think they are proud of our history, but perhaps they could learn some more of it.

It is not just the chutzpah and ignorance of a racist party using second world war imagery in a campaign to win seats on the weekend of the 65th anniversary of D-Day.

I was rather surprised to hear Nick Griffin say this in their electoral broadcast.

In the end, the answer to the question “by what right should native britons be put first?” can be seen on every war memorial in the country. Just think with me for a moment of all those names carved on those cold, sad slabs of stone. English names, Scottish names, Irish names, Allied British names. Nobody else’s.

Conservative activist James Barlow blogged some pictures of Commonwealth War Graves which suggest otherwise, in a very effective post on his blog.

There was an excellent Guardian letter from Alan Shaw of Norwich, noting that he had served during the second world war in the Indian Army, also making this point.

I served throughout the second world war in the British army. This included four years with the Indian army, which expanded on the outbreak of the war with Japan to approximately 2.5 million, all ranks, the largest volunteer army in the world. This was at a time when the UK armed forces were at the limit of their manpower resource. That Indian army won many VCs and lost very many Indian officers and men killed in action in what was a war against extremism. Its Indian officers and men looked for, and received at its end, independence from British colonial rule.

So one way to counter political extremism - let's teach British history properly in our schools, so even the far right as well as the rest of us might learn something about who we are and how we got here. Read more...

Scottish swing will be major worry for general election

Figures showing a massive SNP swing in Scotland will be a major migraine for Labour in the general election, whenever it might be.

Swings putting the SNP ahead in Edinburgh and Fife show the wobble Scottish voters felt at the beginning of the economic downturn in the autumn last year, which undermined support for the SNP, has worn off.

In September last year - as the Scottish banks were being part nationalised - SNP voters' belief in a strong independent Scotland were undermined and there was talk of a move back towards Labour.

The votes in the EU election show that concern about the SNP's ability to govern in hard economic times may have worn off.

If the EU vote is anything to go by the SNP are in the ascendancy in Scotland and will challenge Labour's historic domination of the Scottish vote further in any general election with dramatic long-term consequences.

Read more...

Purnell is suspiciously French, says MacShane

Given that my friend and Fabian Executive colleague Denis MacShane is as laudably Europhile as it gets in the Labour party - and one of the few MPs capable of giving an off-the-cuff run-down of the specific electoral challenges facing the Socialists or Social Democrats in France, Germany, Hungary, Romania or anywhere else - I am not sure that pursuing against James Purnell the line of attack which the Bush Republicans used against John Kerry - that he seems suspiciously French - is his best ever idea.

MacShane is rather associated with the Blairite wing of New Labour, though is very much a party loyalist. He writes in the Yorkshire Post.

Jim Purnell is like the Conservatives' John Redwood. A clever clogs intellectual fizzing with new ideas and as smart as buttons on the seminar circuit. But political bottom and judgment? Hmm. Mr Purnell was educated in France and was trained in the rigorous school of French intellectualism. It does not fit the messy pragmatic rambling nature of British political life where the theatrical gesture is laughed at more than admired.

Denis has never been a great fan of the non-modernising French left - where the Socialists have had a terrible night, as Sarkozy bucks the anti-government mood across the continent - but then I am not sure James Purnell is quite of that persuasion either. Read more...

The new coup strategy

The "botched, half-cocked" coup has failed, so only one man can save it now.

Brown appears safe - and that's why Gordon Brown should go, argues Jackie Ashley in her mildly counterintuitive column in tomorrow's Guardian.

Brown knows that almost all the possible alternatives to him have damaged themselves in the past few days. Senior Labour people are bewildered and very critical of Alan Johnson's apparent decision to lead potential supporters up the hill only to march them down again, just before the polls closed last Thursday. They are more critical still of David Miliband for staying inside the tent. Yet by leaping, only to find no one following him, James Purnell has seemed isolated.

...
The only person who can save the situation is Brown himself. Couldn't friends talk him into it? I can confirm they are discussing that, calling him up without public fuss, keeping well away from media interviews. Most of these friends, however, complain that he just refuses to listen to anyone now except Mandelson.

Read more...