Tables turned
Hope you're all having a good time. Here's something worth listening to - David Blunkett has a go as guest editor of the Today programme and turns the tables by interviewing John Humphrys. (You can hear it here.)
Archives for December 2005
Season's Greetings
Happy Christmas to everyone. Barring unforeseen political events, we'll return to normal Newslog service after Christmas. Next year looks like it's going to be absolutely fascinating.
Tidings of joy?
Tis the season to be jolly but facing rebellions at home and accusations of surrender abroad, the occupant of Number Ten could be forgiven for asking "Do they know it's Christmas time at all?"
Last weekend John Prescott publicly attacked Tony Blair's proposed education reforms. Today it's become clear that privately the chancellor's had doubts about the EU rebate deal.
Pointedly the Treasury has consistently refused to give its public blessing to the deal done over the weekend. The chancellor - who was in the United States when the deed was done - has hidden behind the procedural nicety that the EU budget is the responsibility of the Foreign Office and Number Ten.
Why? Because he argued privately - as the Tories now do publicly - that not a penny of the British rebate should have been given up until the French were forced to give up a euro (or more) of their agriculture payments.
Tony Blair rejects that view because he insists it would have led to British isolation. Ah, argued Gordon Brown, why not offer a one-off payment for EU expansion while still refusing to budge on the rebate?
The prime minister argued today, in a curious reversal of roles, that that would have cost the Treasury more. These differences over a deal now done would be a matter for political historians if it were not for the fact that at a difficult political time for the government, the chancellor wants us to know about them.
There's no doubt that after today's news conference, Tony Blair still has it in him to lead. The question is whether the Labour Party wants to follow. No wonder Peter Mandelson warned this morning that New Labour was reaching a moment of decision.
Times they are a-changing
"Blair at bay" says the Daily Mail. No surprise there, you may think, before turning to the Guardian.
It declares: "The Tories are back".
At the end of this election year, Westminster buzzes with talk of an end of an era. The Tories have changed their leader to someone who, at last, is making the political weather.
If you wonder what all the fuss is about just look at the polls. For a decade the Conservatives have flatlined at 30-and-a-bit percent. Those days appear to be over and that鈥檚 what's driving politics.
The Lib Dems dithered over whether to ditch their leader and have, instead, merely wounded him. Come the New Year the talk of ditching Kennedy will return until attention focuses on the big one 鈥 when will Blair go?
You think I鈥檓 overdoing it? Just look at the behaviour of Labour MPs once mocked for being automatons with pagers (Do you remember the old gag about the Labour MP who dropped dead when a hairdresser removed his earphones? The baffled barber picks up the earphones to hear Peter Mandelson saying "Breathe in, breathe out").
The man who taught the Labour Party the value of discipline, John Prescott, now symbolises its absence.
The curiosity about all this is the gap between the real world and the world of Westminster. Is the country in the midst of a crisis? No. The IMF and the Bank of England have just confirmed that the economy is picking up again and inflation is 鈥 despite all the fears 鈥 under control.
Has patience with the war in Iraq run out? Things aren鈥檛 obviously worse than they were and arguably better, politically at least.
The only explanation I have for this is Blair-weariness. Take the collection of problems which allowed the Mail to talk of Blair at Bay 鈥 Europe, education and smoking. In each case, it鈥檚 Tony Blair鈥檚 rhetoric that lands him in trouble.
He prepared the country for a battle with the old enemy to protect the rebate and slay the Common Agricultural Policy. Had he not done so he could, as he struggled to do on Monday, so easily have heralded the deal he got as a victory for British diplomacy and the EU expansion.
It was he who proclaimed a schools revolution with every school governing itself, leaving the hapless education secretary to tell her MPs that her White Paper in fact only represented evolutionary change.
It was he who said that every time he carried out reform he wished he鈥檇 gone further, leaving many in Labour baffled why this injunction doesn鈥檛 apply to a smoking ban.
Now, you may say and you鈥檇 be right, this happens to anyone who鈥檚 led for as long as he has. You may say and you鈥檇 be right again that reality will soon kick in. Finally, you may say, the Cameron honeymoon can鈥檛 last and even on these polls he wouldn鈥檛 win an election. Right again.
And yet and yet change is in the air.
I'm off to see the prime minister's final news conference of the year. Let's see what he's got to say about it.
Green tie curry
Talking of attire, I can鈥檛 help noticing David Cameron鈥檚 choice of neckwear 鈥 when, that is, he dons a tie. 
Yesterday, I recognised the striking lime green tie he wore in his outing against the prime minister in a Commons statement (on the EU budget deal). Unless he has a collection of green ties, this appears to be the same one he wore for his big Conference speech and on the day he was elected leader.
Could it be self-conscious image making 鈥 green for moderation, perhaps 鈥 or does it reflect a sub-conscious desire for a reassurance at times of great stress?
Equally preposterous theories gratefully received via the usual channels!
Prezza's first love
One more word on the great selection debate.
Some mock John Prescott for allowing class war nostalgia to fuel his fears about selection in schools.
Yesterday I mentioned that he missed out on a bike when he failed his 11 plus. The . Failing the 11 plus meant he lost the girl of his adolescent dreams.
There is a danger that people of my generation simply don鈥檛 get how wounding this division into academic sheep and goats was. One curious experience brought it home for me. Filming in the Yorkshire mill town of Dewsbury I saw a sign for "shoddy".
Seeing my bemusement, my host told me that "shoddy" was cloth of an inferior grade made by recycling old army blankets and the like. You saw it around the town when I was a kid, he told me. The secondary modern kids wore shoddy while the grammar school boys wore proper cloth.
Missing out on bikes, girls and having to wear a shoddy blazer are experiences that shape political attitudes for life.
Hands up for selection
Hands up who believes in selection? What do you mean no-one does?
Surely, it was John Prescott's worries about a return to selection that persuaded him to give a whole new meaning to the idea of "open government" (he told a Sunday newspaper what he'd previously told the Cabinet - namely that he feared that government proposals would lead to greater divisions between good schools and "bog standard" comps).
There again, Tony Blair tells us he too is not in favour of selection. His Education Secretary Ruth Kelly says she won't allow it by the front door, the back door or the green door (I didn't understand that either).
Tony & Ruth say it's the Tories who really favour selection. But hold on a sec, David Cameron insists he too doesn't want a return to selection either. So what on earth is going on?
The real debate here is a belief in parent power versus a fear of it. Tony Blair plus his new friends on the Tory benches want to "set parents free" to shake-up the schools system. They want parents to shop around so that competition - or what the policy wonks call "contestability" - encourages the best schools to expand and the worst to get their act together or even close.
That means giving schools some power (more or less limited depending on who you listen to) over which children they admit and which they keep out.
John Prescott speaks for many in his party, many in the Lib Dems and many in the world of education who fear that parent power is all too often used only by highly motivated and relatively well-off parents at the expense of the rest. They believe it's the job of government and local councils to stop the anarchy of unrestricted choice distorting the schools system.
So why all the talk about selection then? It is still the biggest emotional issue in education. Prezza missed out on getting a bike from his mum and dad when he failed the 11 plus. Worse still - his brother got one.
Many Labour MPs are angry that the status of private schools and grammar schools has not been challenged even after eight years in power. Tony Blair knows that, so he wants to trap David Cameron into backing it - or at least appearing to - so as to draw a "dividing line" between the Tories and Labour.
Mr Cameron, of course, knows this all too well but also knows that many in his own party hark back to the days of selection so he somewhat awkwardly has to say that he wants schools to have the freedom to select while predicting that few schools will want to use it. Now is that clear?! I'll be testing you later.
P.S. Sorry about the interruption of normal service. My blogging software crashed and then when it was fixed my boiler went.
A slurp of Cullen Skink
Can a slurp of Cullen Skink (a type of haddock soup, now you ask) and a glass of Sharpham Beenleigh (a fine Devon red, I'm told) lubricate the wheels of EU diplomacy?
That's what's on the menu of the European Council tonight in Brussels courtesy of Tony Blair who's sitting in the EU's big chair for a few more weeks. It's unlikely to prove enough to sate the appetite of the EU's leaders. They are likely to dine instead on Britain's reputation and her rebate.
Standby for reports of harsh words exchanged. So Europe heading for budget breakdown then? Well maybe but maybe not. Beneath the gloomy rhetoric on all sides I smell the possibility of a deal. Britain and France can, I believe, agree on a review of the EU budget. It will allow Britain to say that the there MAY be changes to the Common Agricultural Policy from 2008 (if you're an EU trainspotter that's before the end of the current EU budget deal in 2013) and France to say it MAY NOT.
Britain would have to agree to permanent cuts in the British rebate - something the Eurosceptic papers assume they have already offered but has not infact been tabled. The Central and East Europeans will need to be offered a little extra cash not in the form of a bigger budget but a bung here and a bit of what the Americans call pork there so that they can tell their electorates there has been no cut in the money they were offered when the last budget collapsed.
The only real obstacle is just how much more of the British rebate has to be given up. We say we're giving up 8 billion Euros. The French say we should give up 14 billion. I use the word "say" deliberately as how much we actually give up depends on how you measure what we spend on the EU. Believe it or not, Britain and France measure in different ways.
There's is also a difference between what you commit to spend and what you actually spend. Never mind the detail it just means that a Britain and France can't even agree on what they say we'll spend. Diplomats are not just haggling over cash but over the words that allow Blair and Chirac to sell back home what they agree to in Brussels.
Even if he can get agreement on all of this there is, of course, one problem. He will be negotaiting not just in Brussels and not just with EU leaders. Agreement will be needed from a crucial player who's in the United States.
His name? Gordon Brown.
Take one leader...
What do you get when you add a dash of panic and a helping of ambition to a bubbling brew of discontent? A recipe for a Lib Dem crisis.
The panic was that of newly-elected MPs with wafer-thin majorities over the Tories, who feared that life might not be so easy next time round.
The ambitions were those of Messrs Campbell, Hughes and Oaten who fancied a go at the top job and the youngsters who dreamt they might follow next. Without the brew, though, there would have been no crisis.
Its essential cause was doubt - doubt that Charles Kennedy is hungry enough for power to give his all for his party. Over the past heady 48 hours, he's told his MPs that he is and he will. That was enough for many for now, but he knows and they know that this crisis simmers still and not much will need to be added to the pot for it to boil over.
I'm off to Brussels to see which is greater: Britain and France's fear at being blamed for the failure to get an EU budget deal, or the fear of their electorates for selling out to the old enemy too easily.
That Kennedy interview in full
Charles Kennedy spoke to me yesterday - you can watch our conversation in full here.
All right Charlie?
It seems to be catching - the idea of changing your leadership, that is.
The Tories have done it, some Labour MPs are thinking of little else and now the Lib Dems are wondering whether it's their turn. Yesterday Charles Kennedy moved to head off what both his friends and enemies agree was an attempted mutiny.
No-one used the meeting to tell Charles to his face what they tell each other or indeed the media - namely that they don't think Charles is up to it. Many did though queue up to express their concerns. Mr Kennedy told his team that the mutterings about him had to stop and that if they weren't happy with him, they and not he should consider their positions.
That's a long and more elegant Kennedy-esque way of saying "Put up or shut up".
Senior Lib Dems were then invited to tell their leader or, if they preferred, their Chief Whip what they thought should happen next. My sense is that if his colleagues had been asked "Would you like Charles to spend more time with his family - a lot more time", the answer of many would be yes.
That's very different, though, from telling a man who wants to stay and was recently re-elected to the job that he has to go. The widespread hope among the Lib Dem leadership that Charles Kennedy might "stand down in his own time with dignity" has been dashed. Either his critics push him out before Christmas or they will be forced to accept that he's staying. Watch this space.
PS... CK has not yet used his best defence - namely that he's so expanded his party that it's big enough to have leadership coups and rival factions. On the other hand, maybe that wouldn't be his strongest line...
Brown: When I'm PM
Get unstitching those banners, comrades. Egality, Fraternity, Solidarity won't do any more. They're so 18th century.
Gordon Brown tonight unveils three new words to hold aloft in the fight with the forces of conservatism - Cameron and, whisper who dares, perhaps Blair too. Liberty, Responsibility and Fairness are the three words in question.
In a weighty speech in memory of the late great Hugo Young of the Guardian, the Chancellor argues that "the surest way in which our nation can succeed economically and socially in the 21st century will be by building a society in which there is liberty for all, responsibility by all and fairness to all".
He also begins to outline "ideas that should in my view be the foundation for a new agenda of political, economic, social and constitutional reform, a new settlement that will enable us to face up to the scale and size of the global challenges".
That's code - though not very coded code - for "what I would do when I finally get to be prime minister".
Naturally, as he's not yet PM, Gordon Brown is a little coy about giving us much detail. However, the Chancellor does remind us that in order to underpin liberty he would give Parliament a vote before going to war, complete the reform of the House of Lords and revive local government.
As for responsibility, he points to his recent announcement of funding for the first British youth national community service and says he wants to "energise a new debate on the vital future role of the voluntary charitable and community sector in our country".
Finally, and most importantly, he turns to fairness and makes clear that government and government alone can guarantee - even if they don't provide - childcare and the New Deal's training for the unemployed.
I say that fairness is the most important. That's because it is - in a favourite phrase of his - the real "dividing line" between New Improved New Labour and New Conservatives - between, in other words, Brown and Cameron.
"Britain can retreat," he argues tonight, "into the old narrow view of liberty as a form of libertarianism, responsibility as little more than paternalism, fairness as just formal rights before the law - leaving people and communities not only ill-equipped for challenges ahead, but with too little liberty, too little responsibility, and too little fairness."
Translated, that means that Cameron would not invest in child care, the New Deal or the environment. What though if Cameron says he would? Then Gordon believes that will split the Tories - or be simply less attractive to the public than sticking with the guys who really believe it.
Eleven plus minus
What a difference a decade makes.
Ten years ago the Labour Party conference was delighted to hear this ringing decaration: "Watch my lips. No selection - by examination or interview." It was the reassurance the party needed to pull back from defeating their leadership (and you can see the video of it right here).
With victory in the bag the man who uttered those words made clear that he hadn't meant to suggest Labour was going to stop the selection going on now. Tush tush. No, he was saying that there'd be no more selection if Labour were elected.
Many in the Labour Party felt betrayed. Wind forward a decade and we find the prime minister standing next to the Education Secretary, Ruth Kelly, declaring that "under Labour there will be no return to selection at the age of 11" - words that have not proved enough to reassure Labour backbenchers including a man called David Blunkett who (yes, you remember it now) uttered the "watch my lips" promise.
Mr Blunkett has, I'm told, made his concerns clear in a series of backbench meetings with Ruth Kelly. He will not, perish the thought, speak out (yet) or rebel, but he wants to "act as an honest broker" between the backbenches and the government to bring about "appropriate concessions".
When it comes to selection, words will clearly no longer do for those who've heard them and even uttered them before.
No joke
Incidentally, I'm sad that a gag I made about Boris Johnson's promotion to the Tory front bench was cut from Friday night's programme. I remarked that he'd made the move from Have I Got News For You to I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. I knew the Tories wouldn't complain as it's a joke I nicked from William Hague who first said it about Charles Kennedy!
'Pershonalities' v 'ishoos'
Tony Benn used to upbraid the media for focussing on what he called "pershonalities" and not "the ishoos". Some Newsloggers obviously agree, .
John wrote that the media was interested in personalities but then pointed fingers at the politicians for not having explained their policies properly. Jonathan wrote that UK politics was becoming similar to the 'who-can-come-up-with-the-most-dirt-about-their-opponent' politics of the US.
But there's one intriguing fact that suggests they are wrong. It tells you a great deal about what David Cameron is up to.
Simply attaching the word Conservative to a particular policy proposal significantly reduces public support for it - in other words people who take a view of an issue take the opposite view once they know which personalities support it.
The reason for this is fairly obvious and well documented. It's less and less common for voters to choose parties on the basis of their class or ideology - in part, of course, because fewer of us can tell the major parties apart.
You may believe this is a thoroughly bad thing or you may think its evidence of a mature emerging consensus. Either way it makes the personality of leaders vitally important. Labour had been changing its policies and structures for many years before Tony Blair reached the top. The fact that he was young, middle class, English and a family man with young children and a successful career wife embodied that change for many voters, and served as a reassurance to many nervy of voting Labour perhaps for the first time.
The Tories too have been changing some of their policy stances - becoming more positive about public spending, the environment, international development, etc - in the past few years. The buzz in the political classes is because some believe that David Cameron may do for the Tories what Blair did for Labour.
The question is whether the problem with the Tories is personality or, , being in the wrong place on the fundamental issues - tax, Europe, the war with Iraq, etc.
The truth about Bohemian Rhapsody
Why oh why oh why did I do it? It鈥檚 the question I lie awake at night asking.
It鈥檚 the question my friends are simply too polite to ask. It鈥檚 the question which is as uncomfortable to answer as it is to ask. Why did I agree to appear on TV singing grotesquely out of tune and higher than a chorister with a rubber band twisted round his gonads?
Lest you missed my bit part in the annual Children in Need humiliation of 91热爆 journalists, those good and gentle folk on Have I got News for You replayed it last night. Ego, of course, goes a long way to explain why people 鈥 whether political editors or Pop Idol contestants - make fools of themselves for your gratification. In my case, though, the answer鈥檚 more shameful still.
It鈥檚 fear 鈥 of seeming a humourless spoilsport.
My new 91热爆 colleagues did warn me. Just say No they said. Say yes once, they said, and you鈥檒l never escape. I took heed. When invited to join in the fun by Pudsey鈥檚 little helpers I ever so politely declined saying that sadly I was busy that night. I was free or so I thought. No problem, a second e-mail said, we鈥檙e doing a video of Bohemian Rhapsody to be recorded whenever suits you.
鈥淵ou don鈥檛 understand. I don鈥檛 want to make a prat of myself even for that bloody bear and those cute but appallingly deprived kids鈥 read the e-mail I never had the courage to send. So it was that I headed for the recording consoling myself that I only had to sing 鈥淢ama Mia鈥 a couple of times.
On arrival I was told there鈥檇 been a change of plan. Dermot apparently didn鈥檛 fancy his part so I鈥檇 been given it instead. And so it was that I did a falsetto version of 鈥淚鈥檓 just a poor boy I need no sympathy鈥. My only worry at the time was that I might be late for the World at One.
鈥淵ou were great!鈥 鈥淵eh, marvellous, Nick鈥 chorused the producer, the director and the singing coach (what do you mean you couldn鈥檛 tell there was one?) Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a studio technician bent double with tears streaming from his eyes. If it鈥檚 the last thing I do I鈥檒l get Dermot bloody Murnaghan. Maybe I could do that for charity.
Hand in glove
People have been telling me all week I should have seen this great report from Newsnight, in which a plucky chap with a camera pursues the new Conservative leader discussing the various merits of Smiths albums. In case you didn't see it, .
Have I got Newslog for you?
It鈥檚 the morning after the night before.
No, I wasn't at the party that David Davis was photographed at. I was recording tonight's edition of Have I Got News for You. I am now utterly exhausted, thanks in part to constant fear, in part to maintaining a rictus grin on my face (a little like you do as a child when the relatives come round on Christmas Day), and in part through the pain of being ritually humiliated.
How? I'd love to tell you but that would spoil the fun (for you) and merely add to the pain (for me).
As I recover, let me just say thanks to all of you who have taken part in this first week of Newslog's comeback, especially those of you who have sent comments. Below are some of those which have caught my eye.
John wrote:
- I find it fascinating how political reporting is based so much on personality and not on policy. The media ignore policy and then point fingers at the politicans for "not explaining your policies to the public".
It was a concern shared by Jonathan, who said:
- John has a good point about the personality/policy divide. I'm scared to admit that UK politics is becoming rather too similar to the "who-can-come-up-with-the-most-dirt-about-their-oponent" politics of the US.
Sedulia countered:
- Personality IS politics. Of course it matters. Think of any politician who made a difference. Policies change because of personalities.
David Wilson has been watching closely:
- I have noticed that TB and DC both have adopted the approach of a closed fist pointing the knuckle of the forefinger (also used by Bill Clinton). All very affected. Give me some good aggressive old finger pointing!
Ray Glover makes an interesting point:
- Nick - is it possible that David Cameron and his advisors haven't been given credit for a little trick at the end of his second set of questions, when he left one unasked. Result was that Tony Blair's last reply, because he didn't know it was to be the last, was not couched in the customary grandstanding tones that send his backbenchers into frenzied, adrenalin-fuelled shouts of "More!" Yes, there were a few "Oohs" from them, presumably to suggest the David Cameron had chickened out, but the end result was that Tony Blair ended on, for him, something nearer a whimper than a bang.
On the other hand, Manjit Mand wrote:
- Do you not think that the media as a whole is in danger of hyping up Cameron? Are some sections of the media going easy on Cameron because he has so many friends in it? Some of the comments have amazed me, when Lord Heseltine says Cameron is the British Kennedy, I'm left shaking my head. Do I simply not see what is great about Cameron?
And lots of you made comments welcoming Newslog back, for which I thank you. Benjamin wrote:
- I'm intrigued by who will be the next blogger? Can you let Boris work for the 91热爆
DS Taylor wrote:
- Good to see the 91热爆 entering into the world of the internet geek... lots of us are looking for more ways to learn about the goings on at Westminster and beyond. PS I am a 15 year kid who goes school in Westminster.
Thanks to all.
Etonian dilemma
So Labour's classiest class warrior, Dennis Skinner, has been booted out of the Commons for alluding to suggestions that the new Tory leadership had a "full and active student life".
It comes as no surprise to me. Many Labour MPs are raring to go for Cameron and his friend Osborne as old-fashioned Tories out of touch with the real world and with enough money to spend on you know what.
The problem, as one northern Labour member put it to me, is that "Tony's posh too and we don't want to embarrass him." Then he added: "On the other hand, he's on his way out and we've got to get Cameron."
The serious aspect of this is that if - and yes, it is a very, very big IF - Cameron continues on a roll, some in Labour will demand a change in leader to someone better able to take him on. A gruff Scot perhaps.
One of his backers recalled the other day that Margaret Thatcher boasted that she'd forced the Labour Party to change so that it was safe to have them in power again. "Tony," he said, "has made it safe to have a bloody Old Etonian toff running the country again. Thanks Tony."
Tony flattery
Imitation - the old saying goes - is the sincerest form of flattery. And there is no doubt that Team Cameron, however much they deny it, are imitating Tony Blair's electoral strategy.
So, a charismatic young opposition leader, long on confidence if short on experience and policies, pledges to change his party and prove he's up to changing Britain.
Thus Mr Cameron today tried to re-write the rules of Question Time by pledging to back the prime minister against the opposition of many on his own side. Thus he travels to a deprived area of East London to talk to a multi-racial audience about social justice.
Thus he will take on his own party over the selection of more women candidates. He does it all with a following wind from those parts of the media who sense - and even hope - that the Blair era is coming to an end.
But hold on a minute. It was Mr Blair with Mr Brown who wrote the handbook for this strategy and they think they know how to defeat it. This time they will take on the ball and not the man, believing that it's policy which will be Mr Cameron's undoing - whether backing selection in schools, tax cuts or confrontation in Europe. It'll be a fascinating contest.
If you don't believe me you may wish to consider a quote from a younger George Osborne interviewed for a documentary about the Hague years I made some time ago for 91热爆 Two: "We want a new leader, a new generation to do in effect for our party what Tony Blair did for the Labour Party."
Strange way to earn a living
In this part of the capital, at least, there's no sign yet of .
First day report
So, DC's first appearance at . What an extraordinary display of confidence the new boy gave - more so than Tony Blair when he first did it, as the shows. But the question some people will be asking themselves is was there too much confidence?
Clearly, telling Mr Blair that he had been the future once will go down as being the line of the day - and it's one David Cameron might find being repeated again and again in the coming years. Is this quite the thing to say on your first day in the job, some people will be asking, or does it show a touch of arrogance?
DC did try to live up to his promise to scrap the Punch and Judy show by pledging to back the PM on education. Tony Blair saw this promise of a new consensus coming - and that's why he too dropped the aggression - even to the point of refraining from jabbing his finger at the opposition benches (although he forgot on one occasion).
He even took off his glasses so that he could use them to gesture with instead of pointing. This is a trick Harold Wilson used, - he was given a pipe by early spin doctors to stop him gesturing aggressively (right). Tony Blair with a pipe... Now there's a thought.
Amid all the Tory euphoria, and the comparison with Tony Blair, DC will remember that he's in a very different situation from Mr Blair, who already had a hefty lead in the polls when he took over. Mr Cameron knows he is in far from that position.
Parallel lines
My enterprising colleagues in the newsroom have dug out the report of Tony Blair's first appearance as leader of the opposition at Prime Minister's Questions, in which he told the 91热爆 that he wanted to get away from "soundbite politics". (.) The parallels don't end there - the first question he asked was about the chancellor of the exchequer - then, as now, seen as being at odds with the prime minister. Deliciously, Tony Blair, who always accuses the Tories of being obsessed with Europe, also mentioned precisely that subject.
Don't panic!
Talking of courtesy, it is one hugely underrated quality that both main party leaders share. That and a sense of humour.
Over the years Tony Blair has been labelled a traitor, a Tory (even worse from his point of view), and a war criminal by his own supporters and commentators. Yet I cannot recall an occasion on which he's shown more than slight exasperation. He doesn't snap back and, more often than not, smiles wearily in a way which has the viewer on his side.
David Cameron shows the same quality - laughing off Jeremy Paxman's aggressive questions and, yesterday, one from me. I - somewhat churlishly - pointed out that I'd been to five euphoric unveilings of a new Tory leader and yet every leader to date - Major, Hague, IDS and Howard - could be described by one word - "loser".
What, I enquired, made him different? I'm told that his staff panicked. This was one question they hadn't prepared for. Cameron didn't. He smiled and said: "Nick, this is my first." Laughter all round. Robinson left slightly red-faced. I wonder if that's what they teach at the best public schools?
That's not the way to do it
So farewell then Punch & Judy. It's a turn off. It's outdated. It's aggression for its own sake. So very last century.
Who says so? Why none other than the new leader of the Tory party just hours before his first clash (sorry, there I go again) with Tony Blair at Question Time. What's more, the PM himself said as much when challenged to change the tone by a new MP last week on the occasion of Michael Howard's farewell.
So, in a little over an hour's time, no doubt we will hear Messrs Cameron and Blair fall over each other to be the first to praise their opponent's policies and to exchange in detailed policy analysis. Mmmm. I wonder.
The Guardian today helpfully re-prints DC's musings (he did a kind of blog for the paper) on the first time he .
In it he defends the parliamentary bear pit as a great democratic test of whether leaders have got it. It's worth remembering that we have heard this sort of thing before from previous Tory leaders and indeed from Mr Blair himself from time to time. They both read the same opinion polls but they also both know that PMQs - like the school playground - is the place you have to demonstrate your strength if your gang are to stay onside.
I suspect what DC will try to do is to avoid the witty Hague-ite soundbites - in part because he's not very good at them and in part because they give Labour MPs an excuse to rally to their leader - and focus instead on questions designed to tell the country more about him and his priorities than about the failings of Tony Blair.
DC's missing challenge
How does he do it? That was what the Tories asked after watching their new leader speak without notes, flawlessly and confidently about changing the Conservative Party (you can if you didn't see it). Only one problem. David Cameron told us the party faced six challenges and then only listed five. What was the missing one? It's a bit of a problem for the new face of the Tory party. It was, er, tackling global poverty. Ooops.
Hi, Definition
Today I keep thinking back to the the morning after the speech before. You know, the one I mean. The speech that catapulted David Cameron from "most likely to be eliminated first" to "the man to beat".
I was breakfasting with a close friend of DC (they prefer calling him that now to "Dave" since so many people winced at that). As we pushed our greasy bacon around our plates I said "you do realise, don't you..." Before I could finish my sentence my guest did it for me "鈥hat we might actually win? Yes. We suddenly realised that late last night".
Since that night Team Cameron have had almost two months to work out what to do if - when - they took control. Today we find out.
Who and what defines the new Tory leader in his first few days and weeks may hold the key to his success in the years to come. Cameron is a relatively blank sheet in the public's mind. 
The good news for the Tories is that that means he's not associated with past mistakes. The bad news is that he will defined by his first few appearances in the public spotlight. Get it wrong - at PMQs or by self consciously wearing a baseball cap - and he'll find it very hard to escape the image the public forms of him. Ask William Hague if you don't believe me.
Then there are the enemies and the misguided friends who try to help define him all too quickly. Gordon Brown began yesterday by claiming that the reassuringly ill-defined Cameron pledge to share the proceeds of economic growth really meant savage spending cuts.
He hopes to tempt the man he expects to face at the next election to confirm or deny - either will do - as that will trigger a battle within the Tories about what it should stand for. Messrs Hague, Duncan Smith and Howard all started out talking about modernising and ended humming traditional Tory tunes under pressure from their party and the Tory press to score some runs.
The hired hands of American politics always tell their candidates "Define your opponent before they can define themselves". They get paid good money because they're right.
By the way... Anyone got any idea what I should say if Davis wins? Perhaps I should study for ways to say "I got it wrong" without, er, actually saying that.
The beauty of blogging
Now I never thought I'd find myself writing this but... My name's Nick Robinson and I am a blogger.
If,听 like me, you're not a trainspotter of all things on the web you and might not much fancy the sound of it. Worry not, it's .听 Please read on, though, because this blogging business is something special.听
You see, the funny thing about broadcasting is that you speak to a vast number of people but you all too rarely have a conversation with them - beyond perhaps with someone who asks "Are you that guy on the telly?" or "Why do you wear those ridiculous specs?"
Which is where Newslog - this weblog - comes in. It's a chance for me to add a thought or an observation from my political front row seat. I may also invite you to listen, watch or read something that's particularly interested me. It's a chance too for you to add your thought or pose a question (though preferably not about my choice of glasses).
As well as being a conversation, weblogs can be more personal, which is why the format is finding ever more uses in the mainstream media.
A good weblog can really change the relationship between author and reader. And the politicians themselves are in on the game too - as my colleague , a good weblog can also change the relationship between politician and voter.
So welcome to Newslog, although I really ought to say "welcome back" for, as those with long memories might remember, I'm really picking up where I left off three years ago.
I first started writing 1, when I started keeping a daily live diary of goings on in and around Westminster (that's a shot of the old days, on the right). Published on this website, it was a continuation of we had started during that year's General Election campaign, in a daily article called The Campaign Today.
I naturally stopped doing Newslog when I went to ITV News to be political editor - it was only polite, really - but ever since I returned to the 91热爆 in September, I've been anxious to start blogging again.
The 91热爆 is about to start a trial series of blogs, each of which will be built using the kind of software employed by millions of weblogs around the world. This is the first of that trial. There are .
With plenty going on in the world of politics in the next few months, not least the new leader of the Conservative party, the prospects for lots of weblog action are pretty good. I think it will be an interesting time, and I hope that makes for an entertaining blog.
But remember - to work, this thing needs your comments too. Come on in, the water's lovely.
Sorry seems to be...
Now you weren't expecting him to say sorry, were you?
This Chancellor doesn't do sorry. Instead he turned the story of having to halve his growth forecast and add five billion on to his borrowing figures into a tale of triumph over adversity in what he called "this toughest and most challenging year".
Despite, he told the country, a hike in oil prices, sluggish growth in Europe and the slowdown of the housing market, all has not gone awry.
Nonsense, say his opponents, he was wrong and predictably wrong. The Tories even went so far as to hint that the Chancellor had been telling pre-election lies about the state of the economy. What's at stake is not so much major policy choices - unless, that is, you've an interest in an oil company.
No, the pre-Budget report was all about听 political reputations. The reputation of a Chancellor who all assume - barring accidents - is headed for Number Ten. The reputation too of his Shadow, George Osborne, whose friend David Cameron all assume is about to become the new Tory leader.
This week sees the start of a new political era. New personalities - Team Cameron versus New Labour's dynamic duo - will fight over new political turf - who can manage Britain best when finances are tight. Today was simply round one of a bout that will last from now, yes you've guessed it, through until the next election.
How this weblog works
It might be worth explaining a little about how this weblog works. When you come to the Newslog front page, which you will always be able to access at bbc.co.uk/nickrobinson you will see all the latest entries I have written, with the most recent at the top of the page. Scroll down the page for previous entries.
On the right hand side of the page, you'll see a calendar. When any date on that calendar is blue, that means there was one or more entry published on that day. Click on the date and the page will display that day's items.
At the bottom of each entry are two words - "permalink" and "comments".
- Permalink simply means "permanent link", and is useful if you want to bookmark a particular entry, or send it by e-mail to a friend.
- "Comments" means just that. Click on it, and you will be able to add your comments to that particular entry - more of which in a little while.
Clicking on an entry's headline takes you to that item's own page, where it is printed in full with all the comments which have been published. From there, if you want to go back to the main index page, you can click either the words "Nick Robinson's Newslog" at the top of the page, or on the word "MAIN" which you'll find on a beige bar. On that bar you might also see the words "PREVIOUS" and "NEXT" - these simply take you directly to other entries in chronological order.
A word about comments
The main thing which makes blogs different from a newspaper column or even TV or radio broadcast is that it is a conversation between the author and the audience. So the success of Newslog will depend on you letting me know what you think about the news, and indeed about what I've written myself.
We are aiming to publish as many comments as possible in this weblog, though unfortunately we can't guarantee to publish every e-mail you send. E-mails will only be published after we have had chance to read them first.
Try to keep your comments short and relevant to the blog entry you are commenting on. As you might expect, we won't publish e-mails which are abusive or offensive.
You should also be aware of , which, for technical reasons, is a bit different from our usual.
One other thing...
I also want to say a word about RSS. You might have seen a little orange rectangle with these letters on other 91热爆 News pages and on other websites, but you might not know what it's about.
Put simply, if a site provides an RSS link, it means you can see its entries in a much quicker way than coming to the website. You can, for instance, see an automatically updated list of headlines in your "bookmarks" folder, if you use an internet browser such as Firefox. Or you might use a specific program to browse lots of sites quickly.
There's lots more about how RSS can make browsing the internet easier on , but my tip is that you should do what I did and ask a friend who knows how to use it to show you. Once you see it in action, you'll not go back.
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About this blog
I'm Nick Robinson. Welcome to Newslog, my blog about what's going on in and around politics.
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Series and specials
TV/Radio reports
- AV referendum: Cameron confronted by Huhne
Broadcast: 3 May 2011 -
Broadcast: 3 May 2011 - AV explainer: Voting system differences explained
Broadcast: 27 April 2011 - David Cameron on the campaign trail
Broadcast: 21 April 2011 - Referendum: Stop AV 'mudslinging' urges Nick Clegg
Broadcast: 20 April 2011
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