91Èȱ¬

If members of the Commons Culture Select Committee are serious about getting to the bottom of the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand affair presumably they'll want to haul both broadcasters before the committee for a good grilling, asap.

It would be a wonderful watch.

For my Newsnight film on the American election (see below), I flew up to Connecticut and drove through the beautiful golds, crimson and browns of New England in the autumn, to meet a historic figure - , who is standing for the presidency for a third time.

He met us in his home town of Winstead, which still looks like an old-style American town, with a main street full of good old-fashioned private shops, and not wrecked by a soulless shopping mall. We caught up with him at the local high school, and then he took us into the local fix-it shop, the health food store, and his barber's, where even a famous presidential candidate has to wait in line to get his hair cut. Nader's aides told us that it was the first time he had ever allowed a TV team to film him on his home patch.

Ralph Nader, who is now 74, is known to many people these days as they man who ruined things for (and won it for George W Bush) by standing in 2000, when he gained almost three million votes, and 2.74% of the national vote. In Florida, he won more than 97,000 votes, many times Al Gore's losing margin of 537. Nader insists this argument is "rubbish", and claims that his candidature in 2000 actually helped Gore, by pushing him to take up more popular, radical positions.

Nader is quick to point out that has twice included him in their list of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century, not for his role in 2000, of course, but his work as a citizens' rights advocate, pushing through laws in the 1960s and 1970s on consumer issues, environmental protection and workers' rights. In 2006 a panel of historians recruited by in their 100 most influential Americans in history, just one ahead of Richard Nixon. Neither of the president Bushes, nor Clinton, made it into the historians' top hundred.

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1952 is the answer if one is talking simply about the Presidential general election - ie. once the parties have picked their candidates - but my question referred to the "presidential race". In 1952 President Truman actually contested the New Hampshire primary and announced his retirement after losing badly to Estes Kefauver (though Adlai Stevenson was eventually the Democrat nominee that year).

(Incidentally, the 1952 Democrat nomination was also contested by Jeffrey Archer's half-brother-in-law, the Connecticut senator Brien McMahon, but that's another, quite fascinating, story.)

The real answer is 1928 - 80 years ago - when neither the sitting President, Calvin Coolidge, nor his Vice President Charles Dawes, contested any part of the election.

For record, President Hoover was beaten in 1932, President Roosevelt won in 1936, 1940 and 1944, and Truman won in 1948.

After 1952, President Eisenhower fought in 1956; Vice President Nixon in 1960; President Johnson in 1964; Vice President Humphrey in 1968; President Nixon in 1972; President Ford in 1976; President Carter in 1980; President Reagan in 1984; Vice President Bush in 1988; President Bush in 1992; President Clinton in 1996; Vice President Gore in 2000 and President George W Bush in 2004.

With most now giving Barack Obama a substantial lead in the presidential race, the big unknown is the possible - a reference to what seemed to happen back in 1982 when the black mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley, ran for the Governorship of California.

Before that election most polls gave Bradley a substantial lead, but then he lost. In short, the effect was identified as a distortion in opinion polls caused by voters who didn't want to vote for a black candidate, but didn't want to admit that to pollsters.

A similar effect was cited by some analysts - rightly or wrongly - when Hillary Clinton confounded expectations, and the polls, and beat Obama back in the New Hampshire Democrat primary earlier this year.

But my former Newsnight colleague Peter Kellner, now president of the polling company Yougov, has written suggesting that the Bradley Effect may be a bit of a myth these days. Indeed, he argues that current US polls may in fact UNDERSTATE Obama's lead, simply because, on the basis of past voting behavior, they may underestimate how many black voters will turn out. But with Barack Obama in the running this time, the argument goes, black people may be a lot more inclined to cast their ballots than ever before.

Intriguing stuff.

Change is in the air in Washington. As I'll be exploring on Thursday for Newsnight, it's the buzz word for Barack Obama (just as it was for Gordon Brown when he ran for the Labour leadership last year), but also a theme for John McCain - to the extent of parody in both cases.

It's the first year since 1976 that neither a Bush nor a Clinton has been on either of the main tickets (though Hillary almost got there).

And remarkably 2008 has been the first presidential race since goodness-knows-when which has not been contested by either the sitting President, nor the incumbent Vice President.

But what year exactly was "goodness-knows-when"?

Think hard.

It's a surprisingly long time ago, and the answer's not as simple as you might think. I certainly got it wrong when an anorak friend posed the question a few weeks ago.

A few more thoughts on the reshuffle:

The full Government list has been published today, and while most attention is understandably elsewhere a few ideas have struck me.

The first is that while at cabinet level so-called 'Blairites' have been well-treated, lower down the ladder there seems to be an emphasis on loyalty.

Specifically from the 2001 generation of MPs three MPs who in September 2006 helped force Tony Blair to announce his leaving date have been promoted (Sion Simon, Kevan Jones and Chris Bryant) while two who were loyal to Blair in that crisis have been sacked (Meg Munn, although she was already in Government, and Tom Harris who signed a letter loyal to Blair). Meg Munn I understand received the call while she was on a work trip to Mexico.

Indeed Tom Harris was promoted to Government initially by Tony Blair to replace Tom Watson who had just resigned. The message to ambitious MPs is not hard to spot.

The second is that Ian Austin's departure as the Prime Minister's PPS and replacement by Jon Trickett is more significant than has been generally commented.

It is a calculated attempt to reach out to the left of the party (which has been partly stymied by Jon Cruddas's refusal to take a job on the terms offered), and Ian Austin was very influential in Downing Street's media operation: he was Damian McBride's predecessor as Brown's spinner.

The third is that the departure of Tony McNulty as 91Èȱ¬ Office Minister is significant both for the 42-days policy which he did so much to take though the Commons, but also for his new role as Employment Minister - this is clearly an issue that the Government thinks it will need a feisty Commons and media performer in the next few months.

There's much speculation as to the title Peter Mandelson might take in the Lords. "Lord Mandelson of Darkness," my cameraman suggests.

But surely, before the recent reforms to the Lords, I suggested, he wouldn't have needed a new title. HRH the Prince of Darkness would have been there by right.

Peter Mandelson's appointment came as a complete bombshell. So far as I know, nobody predicted it. And it partly answers those Brown critics - of left and right - who have long said the Prime Minister should be much more inconclusive, and widen the ranks of his ministers politically. Certainly with Mandelson in cabinet it will be quite a lot harder for the Blairites to challenge Brown's leadership.

Peter Mandelson was due to step down as a European Commissioner next year, and had already started thinking of a new career in business. But the chance to return once more to cabinet was irresistible. In part, it brings what one friend calls "closure" to the huge sense of personal injustice he harboured over his second forced resignation - over the Hinduja passport affair - a resignation which most people in politics now accept was unfair.

Peter Mandelson returns to cabinet in much changed circumstances compared with his two brief spells in the early Blair years. He has established a new, independent reputation in Europe, where he is generally thought to have done well in the job of trade commissioner. Whereas in the past, his position stemmed simply, in the eyes of many people, from his closeness to Tony Blair. Indeed that was why so many in the media pursued him so relentlessly, helped to a large degree, of course, by key figures in the Brown camp. Presumably the latter will no longer be a problem.

It suggests a new attitude to government by Gordon Brown - a willingness to have colleagues around the cabinet table who will stand up to the PM when necessary. Among the previous team it was hard to see anyone who would do that. A return, perhaps, to the style of Attlee, Wilson and Callaghan, who happy to have fellow big beasts in cabinet who might easily disagree.

Which brings me to the strange story of Jon Cruddas, the left-wing MP who did so well in last year's deputy leadership contest. The word was that Cruddas would now be brought into government, perhaps as housing minister. But that job has now gone to Margaret Beckett. There's a strange silence from the Cruddas camp today, so something may yet happen, especially since not all the ministerial posts have yet been filled.

Beckett's return to ministerial office seems a pretty selfless act, for she's got a post which isn't even in cabinet (though she can attend cabinet meetings). And yet only 15 months ago she held the mighty post of Foreign Secretary. And previously she's been deputy leader of her party, and indeed was briefly, in 1994, Labour's acting leader.

Finally, a small amusing footnote. The posts of Scotland (Jim Murphy) and Wales (Paul Murphy) are now held by men with the same name, a name which is Irish.

Thirty nine academics from the Political Studies Association placed the Conservative leaders as follows:

1. Winston Churchill (1940-55)
2. Margaret Thatcher (1975-90)
3. Harold Macmillan (1957-63)
4. David Cameron (2005 to date)
5. Edward Heath (1965-75)
6. John Major (1990-97)
7. William Hague (1997-2001)
8. Alec Douglas-91Èȱ¬ (1963-65)
9. Michael Howard (2003-05)
10 Anthony Eden (1955-57)
11. Iain Duncan Smith (2001-03)

In our poll of activists, the positions of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher were reversed.

1. Margaret Thatcher (1975-90)
2. Winston Churchill (1940-55)
3. David Cameron (2005 to date)
4. William Hague (1997-2001)
5. Harold Macmillan (1957-63)
6. John Major (1990-97)
7 Michael Howard (2003-05)
8. Alec Douglas-91Èȱ¬ (1963-65)
9. Anthony Eden (1955-57)
10. Iain Duncan Smith (2001-03)
11. Edward Heath (1965-75)