91Èȱ¬

What is Labour's deputy leader actually for?

Wait a second. This is not another assault on John Prescott. It is the question that is all too rarely asked when debating his merits or those of who might come next.

Pressa sold himself to Blair first and foremost as deputy leader, not deputy prime minister. Blair saw the potential of the man who sold OMOV (one member one vote) to a reluctant party to sell 'the third way'. The implicit message was that if Prescott was happy how could anyone else complain.

Over the years he's proved invaluable and discreet. Even when dissenting on the schools reforms he acted like Labour's pressure cooker and not a focal point of rebellion. This, of course, is very different from being deputy prime minister. Even in that position though, ministers say he can knock heads and 'progress chase' in a way few others could. Now, fairly or unfairly, he's become a symbol of over fondness of office and arrogance.

Before replacing him though Labour would need to decide what job they are seeking to fill.

Harriet Harman would use the job to reach out to women voters, who David Cameron is already marching out of New Labour's big tent. But many remember her uneasy and short-lived time in charge of welfare reform.

Peter Hain has the clearest track record in advocating party reform but Gordon Brown will remember his advocacy of a higher top rate of tax and other unapproved policy kite flying.

Alan Johnson is being pushed by those in the Parliamentary Labour Party who want to ensure a Brown-led Downing Street consults and listens to others - including its backbenches (witness his soothing salesmanship of school reforms and tuition fees). They will also push his appeal to English voters. Brown may fear him as a potential long-term rival though.

None of this suggests whether any would be any good as deputy prime minister. That job doesn't have to go with being deputy leader but, as John Prescott almost certainly won't say but Margaret Thatcher did, "every PM needs a Willy"!

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• - What's this?

Why was the chancellor smiling, the Lib Dems pension spokesman demanded to know in the Commons today.

You can see why he asked. There was Gordon Brown sometimes grinning, sometimes heckling the opposition, sometimes even whispering asides to John Hutton (these men, it should be noted, are not political soul mates).

Could this really be the same man who'd fought Blair, Hutton and Turner (whose report the other two had pledged to implement)? Could this be the same man who'd threatened privately to shelve that report?

It was, which leaves an obvious question - what's changed? Since I can't see into the chancellor's head, let alone his soul, here are a few theories with my thoughts on them. (Your musings may be just as valid so please add them below)

Theory 1 - Brown has no intention of doing any of this if he gets to Number Ten.

Today's Pensions White Paper does talk of "our objective" (not "our commitment") to re-link the basic state pension to earnings "subject to affordability and the fiscal position" (which sounds like a Treasury inspired get-out clause).

However, alongside it is a Number Ten "there is no get out" clause. The link is to be restored "by the end of the (next) Parliament at the latest" with the precise date to be set out "at the beginning of the next Parliament". In other words, Prime Minister Brown would have to say straight after an election when he'd do it and - assuming that parliaments run for about 4 years - he couldn’t put it off much beyond 2013.

My view is that Brown would pay a huge political price if he failed to deliver unless war, famine or recession changed the economic and the politics dramatically.

Theory 2 - Brown's only worry was affordability and he made the sums add up.

That is the Treasury line.

Certainly, the costs of the government's plans are a little lower than those in Turner's report. The earnings link is to be restored a couple of years later than he suggested. We're all going to have start working for longer a few years earlier than he'd suggested.

My view is that these are refinements and do not represent the fundamental re-writing of what friends of Brown claimed was an "unaffordable plan in which the sums don't add up".

Theory 3 - Brown had no choice - he'd lost.

That is the Blairite view.

They believe that Gordon Brown got himself into a hole. He adopted an unpopular position out of line with many of his natural supporters in the Labour Party. Once he spotted that he shifted. It's certainly true that Brown often fights and scowls in private only to emerge smiling in public.

My sense is that the Treasury regarded the Turner report as the prime minister parking his tanks on their lawn. They feared that the PM might be tempted to make bold but extravagant promises which he wouldn't be around to pay for. They would rather have left pension reform to a later date when other spending pressures were clearer.

However, they do now accept today's deal and privately accept that they've moved quite a long way.

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• - What's this?

It is a quarter of a century since Margaret Thatcher broke the link between pensions and earnings, and in the minds of some pensioners broke faith with them and their right to expect to share in the nation's prosperity.

From that day to this the basic state pension kept pace with prices - rising faster only at the whim of chancellors. The guarantee that as workers grew richer so too would retired workers was at an end.

The link, Margaret Thatcher's ministers insisted, was simply unaffordable. A view scorned by Labour then but years later echoed by New Labour - desperate to demonstrate financial prudence and political virility in the face of insistent demands to spend more.

It was Barbara Castle who first linked the basic state pension to the average rise in earnings in 1974 and she fought - even into her 90th year - to have it restored. Six years ago she roused a Labour Conference still fuming at the decision to raise the basic pension by just 72 pence - the price, she said, of a bag of peanuts.

But Gordon Brown and Tony Blair were unmoved.

"We did reject returning to the earnings link. For the next two or three years we could afford it; but 10, 15 years down the line, it would have imposed a huge financial burden on a future generation that would have been unfair. And yes we do want to do more now for middle and low income pensioners. You do not meet long term need by giving the wealthiest the same help as the poorest," the Prime Minister declared to applause.

What once would have been condemned as the hated means test was now hailed as targeting resources on those who needed them most. Only Old Labour talked of restoring the link.

But outside the Party the political plates were moving and a new consensus was being forged. The country, it was said, faced a pensions time bomb. The young weren't saving for their retirement. The spread of means testing had to be halted. The pensions industry said so, big business said so, the Lib Dems said so. Even the Tories said so. And soon Lord Turner - asked by Tony Blair to address the pensions crisis - would say so as well.

He took up the old cry of the Left that the link between pensions and earnings should be restored. Only that way - he argued - could people have the certainty that if they saved for their retirement means testing wouldn't rob them of those savings. To those who said it was unaffordable, he had an answer. We would all have to work longer.

But Turner still had not convinced the Chancellor. Just 6 months ago Gordon Brown talked privately of shelving Turner, claiming that his sums didn't add up and would force taxes to rise. The battle over whether and when to restore the link became yet another catalyst for yet another Blair-Brown split. The Prime Minister talked of over-ruling the Chancellor. Meetings between the two became so long and so acrimonious that Downing Street officials advised ministers waiting to join them to go back to their offices and to leave them to have it out alone.

Today we see the outcome. A carefully worked deal.

Brown has abandoned his hostility to restoring the link and has agreed to cap means testing. Blair has conceded that the link will be restored later than Turner recommended. 2012 at the earliest but later if - Brown insisted on this wording - it proves (you guessed it) unaffordable.

Does that mean that Brown can tear up the plan if he becomes PM? No, because Blair insisted on some wording of his own. Today's white paper will say that the date for the restoration of the link will be announced at the beginning of the next Parliament. Blairites believe that Brown will come under irresistible political pressure to confirm 2012 in an election campaign.

So, the link which Castle created and Thatcher destroyed refused to die - but the debate about its future is very far from over yet.

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• - What's this?

It's worse than you think. That was about the state of the 91Èȱ¬ Office this morning.

It is what I call the Sybil Fawlty defence (for those too young to remember Fawlty Towers, Sybil Fawlty used to say "ooh I know" whenever told any piece of dreadful news).

The new home secretary described Britain's immigration system as "not fit for purpose" before going on to say "there are huge obstacles to that, if you don't have a system that is computerised, if you don't have identification , if you don't know the number here, if you don't know the number leaving".

The great political merit of this is that whatever embarrassing story now emerges he can, like Sybil, say "I know… dreadful isn't it?"

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• - What's this?

It is a sign of the times that the leader of the Conservative Party that the nation's sense of well-being is the central political challenge of those times and not economic regeneration. It's a sign of how used we've all become to an era of never-ending economic growth. A sign too of how keen Mr Cameron is to challenge the notion that his is a party obsessed with money alone.

Is this speech about more though than political positioning? The Tories insist it is - that they are staking out the middle ground between laissez-faire and over regulation... between indifference and interference. A promise to make the British public sector a world leader in the way it treats its employees and to stop burdening business with bureaucracy is, they say, evidence of how that approach could improve life in the workplace (speeches are to follow on the family and the community).

Labour have been quick to point out that the Tories opposed extensions in maternity and paternity leave. They claim that the Tory leader's support for exhortation is not new politics but merely a new gloss on Tory opposition to minimum standards at work. It is how that debate plays out which will mark the true significance of today's speech

P.S. - In a sign that there may be just a little resistance amongst the grassroots to the politically correct Cameron leadership, Tory chairman Francis Maude has been Conservative constituency associations that the leadership is not trying to foist "mincing metrosexuals" on to "gritty northern" seats. So that's all right then.

He says this, apparently, in a podcast for "Tory Radio". Has it occurred to him that those this message is aimed at will neither know what a metrosexual or a podcast are?

P.P.S. - Talking of new means of communication, it's a little unfortunate that David Cameron praised a website in his speech today but failed to point out that it was a .com and not a .co.uk. Unfortunate because the UK website - and no I'm not telling you its name - is a site for those seeking casual sex. It includes an interesting quote from someone called "David 'married and cheating'" about his liaison with a housewife.

I wonder what his level of "well-being" is?

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• - What's this?

Happy Birthday Sir Menzies!

Actually, I suspect this is one birthday the Lib Dem leader would rather everyone ignored. Ming became a pensioner today which hardly helps his image at a time when Dead Ringers is portraying him as an old boy sat in an easy chair and when the media is reporting persistent grumbling about his performance since getting the job.

Clearly he's not had the most comfortable of starts in the Commons and has admitted that he has to do better in Prime Ministers' Questions. It's obvious that the Lib Dems would have preferred to have maintained their record of permanent electoral momentum in the local elections. But I wonder if people have forgotten the key thing about Ming.

A number of those close to the Lib Dem leader believe that their party is entering a period of maximum challenge and maximum opportunity - a period well suited, they believe, to Ming's political skills.

The challenge comes from Labour's troubles and the rise of the Tories. As one Lib Dem put it to me, "history shows that when the tide goes out for Labour, it goes out for us too". The opportunity stems from the growing sense in Westminster that a hung parliament is more likely than ever. Ming is respected by both the big parties. Both men who would be PM are already wooing him and his supporters.

David Cameron's claim to be a "liberal Conservative" is, in part, a bid for Liberal votes but it is also a bid to lower Lib Dem opposition to a parliamentary arrangement if the Tories need them to form a government ().

Gordon Brown's new-found interest in constitutional reform - some even wonder if he'll back electoral reform - is, in part, driven by his desire to keep the Lib Dems sweet in case he needs them. Ming Campbell and Gordon Brown often get the chance to chat on planes and trains on their way to and from their Scottish constituencies. It's worth recalling too that Vince Cable wrote a chapter in the Red Book edited by Gordon Brown many years ago.

The thing about Ming may turn out to be his capacity to form alliances even with a smaller number of MPs than he has now. The biggest obstacle to that though would be if his party regards this ambition as defeatist and insists it could and should win many more seats - perhaps with a different leader.

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• - What's this?

Parliament will be a duller place .

I will miss his outrageously loud ties, waistcoats and the handkerchief which poked flamboyantly from his top pocket.

I will miss his enduring belief that parliament mattered and that it was his duty as an opposition politician to use its procedures in any way possible to slow down and frustrate the government.

I will miss his ideological certainty in an age when it has become unfashionable.

Above all, though, I will miss his mischievousness. It was a heckle of his that fuelled the doubts about Ming Campbell's PMQs performances. As the Lib Dem leader began a question on pensions, Eric shouted out "" - bringing the house down and Ming to a stuttering halt.

Bumping into Eric in the lobby afterwards I congratulated him on his perfect comic timing. It was easy, he told me. Ming's speaking notes were written in huge block capitals which were easy to read from Eric's place one row behind him.

Eric made life hell for Ming, the Labour whips and, all too often, the leadership of his own party. It was he , "I believe in tax cuts, grammar schools and big business - am I still a Conservative?"

He infuriated and entertained in equal measure. He was a free spirit.

It will be odd to enter the Commons and never see him again.

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• - What's this?

The chancellor is off to Ellesmere Port today - news that will make workers at Vauxhall's car plant there nervous.

They expect 1,000 job cuts to be announced at General Motors' last UK car factory. They remember that Mr Brown visited the MG Rover factory when it closed last year to offer aid packages to the staff.

The good folk of Cheshire may not yet have got round to reading the Washington Post. They should. It contains an intriguing interview with the chancellor. In it he was asked: "If you become prime minister, what will be the main difference between you and Blair?"

He replied: "It's not so much that the method will be so different as the challenges. Many manufacturing jobs were lost in America and Europe last year. People are worried about what's going to happen to their jobs. There's a lot of offshoring and outsourcing taking place. There's a lot more mobility of labour and of people. Unless we explain what's happening, people will resort to protectionism and xenophobia."

Does he intend only to "explain" or to do something different?

For New Labour kremlinologists there is more….

Asked "So when people say you represent a return to 'Old Labour,' are they wrong?", he replies: "Totally wrong. And the economy that I admire most is the American economy. There's obviously an interest in my opponents saying that I'm not what I am, but I've worked to create New Labour with Tony Blair, and I've said that what we need to do is broaden the New Labour coalition over the next few years."

"What do you think of the war in Iraq?"

"I was a supporter of the war in Iraq."

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• - What's this?

He's tried picking an argument with animal rights protesters. He's tried picking one with himself on human rights. Tonight Tony Blair will take on the anti-nuclear crowd by declaring that "the replacement of nuclear power stations is... back on the agenda with a vengeance".

It's no surprise that Tony Blair backs nuclear even though he's always claimed to have an open mind. His comments at tonight's CBI dinner are though the furthest he's gone in public and come after he's read the Government's draft energy review.

He'll get a fight alright - all previous attempts to go nuclear have provoked a grassroots backlash. Politically, it plays into the battle over who is the greenest of them all.

Tony Blair presents it as part - along with renewable energy and energy efficiency - of tackling climate change. The Lib Dems see opposition to nuclear power as an ideal way to prove they're really green. What will be fascinating is to see how the Tories react. You might think they'd be all in favour but David Cameron's green guru - Zak Goldsmith - is opposed and his Trade & Industry Spokesman, Alan Duncan, is sceptical and wants answers on cost and waste disposal. If they back nuclear power they may alienate green groups. If they don't, Labour will use it as evidence that they're all talk on dealing with climate change.

Curiously, new nuclear power stations may not need legislation so there may be no direct vote in the Commons on this. There may have to be votes, however, on changing planning regulations.

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• - What's this?

There are times when you look back at your predictions and think "why on earth did I say that?" Did I really suggest that the police would simply go through the motions of investigating allegations of "cash for peerages"?

I confess I did.

Well, now we know differently. What used to be called the fraud squad (now rather more boringly called SCD6, or serious and economic crime directorate to you and me) has 8 officers investigating. They have arrested one man; interviewed many others, some under caution; they've taken possession of reams of documents and say that they need until September to finish their investigation.

The police are being very very careful not to leak information on how their enquiry is going but word reaches me that they think they could be onto something big. One of those familiar with their enquiries tells me that the paper trail had produced "pretty significant evidence".

Yesterday the officer in charge - Yates of the Yard - told MPs the parameters of his current enquiries. His team are looking into a possible link between loans and the nominations for peerages in 2005 and into links between sponsoring city academies and honours of all sorts.

This spells danger for Labour. It's true that the Met has interviewed and taken papers from the Tories and the Lib Dems too. It's true that the Tories have nominated many donors and lenders for peerages. It's true that the Lib Dems may be in real trouble after accepting over £2 million from a man who is now helping another group of police with their enquiries. But the Yates enquiry appears to be honing in on Labour's pre-election decision to take loans and then keep them secret from the Lords Appointments Commission. Unwelcome news for a man who's embarked on "change the subject" week.

P.S. - MPs on the Public Administration Committee will soon tell us whether they'll press ahead with interviewing Lord Levy - Tony Blair's chief fundraiser - and others, despite requests from the police and Crown Prosecution Service not to do so. Last night's meeting did not go swimmingly. Police and parliament are arguing about whose job it is to expose the abuse of the system - if abuse there was.

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• - What's this?

Leading a political party is a little like managing a great football club. So says Tony Blair. He knows that managers have to worry when their team questions their authority and the crowd stays silent. At Question Time today the prime minister was at a bay with a sea of sullen and silent faces behind him.

It's only fair to point out that around two-thirds of Labour MPs have been elected since 1997 and have no experience of being behind in the polls. Like football teams and crowds, politics is a rollercoaster ride of disasters followed by triumphs.

And yet, I believe that something fundamental changed in the Labour Party this week. What's more, one of Tony Blair's normally loyal Cabinet colleagues who I've spoken to agrees. The prime minister - he told me - has been forced to confront a calm, reasonable but implacable view that he has got to go. He has been forced to recognise that his advisers have been misleading him when they say that these calls come only from those who want a return to Old Labour. There is, of course, another view. That says that Gordon Brown and his friends are fatally dividing their party in their desperation for him to take over at Number 10. Whoever is right, the effect of all this was on display at PMQs.

The prime minister's friends hope that the worst is over. They say that he has got the message from his MPs that he has got to work with Gordon Brown on a smooth transfer of power. The problem though is that there is no agreement - and none may indeed be possible - on how to reach agreement or when it should come into operation.

The manager's not about to be sacked but for the first time a significant section of the Labour Party are thinking about it.

Update, Thu 10:15 AM - In the comments, a few of you said you wanted to watch PMQs. You can do so by clicking here.

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• - What's this?

First chocolate oranges, now padded bras. Today the Tory leader has extended his warning that all business is not good business.

You may recall that very early on in his leadership David Cameron criticised shops for pushing cut price chocolate on to customers when they bought a newspaper or a magazine. Why not, he asked, push real oranges, not just chocolate ones? He was criticised by some for interfering with business and talking about trivia. This has not put him off.

Today he has warned British companies to resist the sexualisation of products to boost sales.

He pointed to the withdrawal by BHS of a range of underwear for kids - which the company initially defended as "harmless fun" - after some mums objected to the fact that padded bras and sexy knickers for the under-10s were on sale.

"Like many parents I talk to, I'm concerned by the impact on children of the increasingly aggressive interface of commercialisation and sexualisation," Mr Cameron said. "I have no desire to wrap kids in cotton wool. Growing up is about finding out what goes on in the real world. But the protection of childhood innocence against premature sexualisation is something worth fighting for."

What's the politics of this? David Cameron is looking for evidence that he is "prepared to stand up to Big Business".

It's all part of his campaign to surprise voters and to convince them that his party has changed. It's a great - indeed an irresistible - talking point for newspapers, phone-ins and, yes, blogs too. It involves no policy commitment, no money, just words alone - which is about all an opposition leader has to offer

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• - What's this?

(From the PM's news briefing - which you can watch here)

An olive branch is being waved at Number Ten whilst a warning is being issued.

Tony Blair's message to his party today is easily summarised... 'Trust me, I do want Gordon Brown to follow me and I will give the time needed for a stable and orderly transition - a promise I made and will honour. But the people will not forgive us if we talk endlessly about my job and not theirs.'

Whilst rejecting a timetable for his handover to his successor, he has now stopped all the talk of "serving a full term" and narrowed the window of possible departure dates. Will this be enough for Brown or the middle ground in Labour?

Even if not, there is little they can do about it without destroying what they want to inherit.

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• - What's this?

The absence of trust. That's what's fuelling Labour's feuding. Gordon Brown and his supporters simply do not trust Tony Blair to arrange "a stable and orderly transition" (A-SOT) to the chancellor in the time needed to "renew" the party. Hence all the talk about the need for a public timetable.

This morning at his news conference the prime minister will seek to demolish the case for a timetable, arguing that it would be a gift to the Tories and Labour's enemies in the media. The Tories would present it as a "countdown to the end of New Labour" and some in the media as "only X days left for lame duck Blair". He will also, I suspect, try to be more conciliatory - reassuring his party that he backs Gordon to take over and sees the need for A-SOT.

It is perfectly possible that Tony Blair means what he says and will use the party conference, or his 10th anniversary in Number Ten, to announce his resignation and his backing for Gordon Brown. It's possible that his friends have to talk about staying on till 2008 to get that far.

It is equally possible that he doesn't trust Gordon Brown to continue his reforms, hopes that John Reid, or Alan Johnson, or even David Miliband may grow enough in their new roles to become plausible alternatives to Brown - who might shrink in popularity with the passage of time.

Of course if Blair and Brown were seen to be working together amicably and to the same agenda none of this would be a problem. There were ACAS-style talks between their two camps (led by Alastair Campbell and Ed Balls) at the beginning of the year. They ended when Charles Clarke was reported as talking about (he denies saying it) "a dual premiership". Ever since, the atmosphere between Blair & Brown has grown steadily worse.

If - and it's a big if - those talks can re-start and Gordon Brown looks happy, the much talked of letters calling for a timetable will probably never appear. If not, Labour MPs - whose survival, it's worth remembering, is at stake - may take matters into their own hands whatever they're told by Blair or Brown.

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• - What's this?

Well well. John Prescott is and bare all (an unfortunate metaphor, I grant you).

I suspect that he is unhappy at the reaction to him losing his government department but keeping his pay and perks. He was also angered by suggestions - which did not emanate from him - that he would shoulder the blame for Labour's poor electoral showing.

Pre-Tracy he would have had the status, and the authority, to call on the party to pull back from the brink and not to let divisions over the future destroy that future. No longer.

PS - Apologies to all for giving 'too much information'. I was merely trying to add authenticity. That's the naked truth.

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• - What's this?

I've just interviewed the former home secretary Charles Clarke who says that he was sacked by Tony Blair - even though he was offered other jobs in government.

It is clear that Mr Clarke is as bemused as many onlookers by the fact that one day the prime minister said he was the right man for the job, and the next that he had to go.

You can see my interview on News 24 imminently.

PS: I've often interviewed resigning ministers, but this was amongst the bizarrest. When I was called to be told the news, I was naked in bed in a Westminster hotel hoping to get at least an hour's sleep, having stayed up all night covering the local elections. The interesting discovery I've made is that you can go from being in bed to attending a resignation statement in exactly seven minutes.

UPDATE 1159: You can now watch the interview by clicking here

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• - What's this?

We made it. Just. What a bizarre night.

Less than 14 hours to go until the Ten O'Clock News and the small matter of a government re-shuffle to cover. I must eat .

If you click here, you can scroll through all the posts from overnight, from the to the .

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• - What's this?

Labour has adopted a policy of extreme candour tonight - admitting that tonight's results have been bad. On the other hand, they say it is not a meltdown - pointing out, fairly, that this result is bad but only as bad as it was in 2004 when they came third with 26% of the vote.

The key political question is how they respond to it. Do they say "we've been here before and bounced back so we can do it again"? That is clearly Tony Blair's strategy - hence his reshuffle which will begin in a few hours.

Or, do they say that something more fundamental has to change - the style, the policies and, yes, possibly the leader himself as a number of Labour backbenchers have already said.

All say that they should listen to the electorate - the problem is they don't agree about what the electorate's saying.

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The BNP's gain of 11 seats in Barking is sure to deliver them more of the oxygen of publicity which they crave.

As will the angst over whether Margaret Hodge - the Labour MP for the area - unwittingly helped their cause whilst trying to highlight the threat they posed. Our number crunchers say that although - so far - they've got 13 more councillors than before, their vote share has not increased.

Anyone with worries about the BNP should see David Dimbleby's devastating forensic interview with their leader Nick Griffin.

UPDATE 0615: You can watch the interview here.

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• - What's this?

A mixed night for the Lib Dems.

Their vote share appears to be down about 1%, and there are some particularly important places for them where they have lost control - , for example - and (the Mark Oaten factor in operation).

A lot of what matters here is momentum - or at least, the perception of it.

The problem for the Liberal Democrats is not that they've had a terrible night. They have had some successes - gaining (albeit by the pull of a pencil - ), and possibly . They may be able to claim they've pushed Labour into third place but there isn't much momentum for them to talk about.

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• - What's this?

Thankfully, we're back. With a new panel of guests.

The video on the should be working again as well - click on the 'live video' link to watch.

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• - What's this?

So we're told. But the studio lights have just gone out again...

This reminds me of another extraordinary election night - when Ken Livingstone .

My job was to fill the long hours of the night whilst David Dimbleby had a few well-deserved hours sleep. The problem that night was the new automated counting machines failed - so I had to broadcast for 4 hours with no results at all.

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• - What's this?

The search for the power cutter begins...

Labour HQ was also plunged into darkness - but mysteriously Tory HQ in the same area was not.

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• - What's this?

Following earlier comments from and , Frank Dobson says that the reshuffle will be like rearranging the deckchairs, or the ship's officers, on the Titanic (watch the interview here).

We need, he said, the party to be under new management.

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• - What's this?

The lights are slowly coming back on but will the PCs and the air conditioning?

Plans to move the whole programme to TV Centre have been abandoned. It was too much fun sitting in a pitch black studio with Stephen Timms, Oliver Letwin and Simon Hughes.

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• - What's this?

Was it something I said..?

The entire studio has just been plunged into darkness, taking the programme off air.

I am dictating this to a kindly colleague because it's not just the studio that has gone down. It would appear that all power to this building - and a large part of Westminster that we can see out of the windows - has gone.

None of us can remember anything quite like it.

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• - What's this?

All change on set.

Those of us paid by the 91Èȱ¬ sit here all night, but the politicians come and go, popping into different broadcasting outlets - 91Èȱ¬ telly and radio, Sky, GMTV, etc etc.

There's a touching solidarity between people of different parties forced to stay up all night.

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, now Martin Salter has raised the Blair factor.

The (and no serial rebel he) has just come on the programme and declared "we need a clear timetable for the transition" and said he wanted to know that the new leader would have time to bed in.

When Tessa Jowell responded by saying that wasn't necessary I could see - though viewers couldn't - him shaking his head in disagreement.

Many around the Prime Minister say it would be destabilising to say anything else on this issue, because they believe it obsesses the media.

And yet what we are seeing tonight is an MP who has supported the government in tricky patches (for example, over the education bill), saying in effect - 'I need to know when Blair is going'.

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• - What's this?

The Tories have lost a seat on the length of a pencil!

After three recounts in Wheathampstead in , the Lib Dems and the Tories both had 1132. The result was decided by whoever picked the longest pencil - and the Lib Dems picked a longer one, taking it from the Tories.

But they won won on the strength of picking an envelope.

And that's democracy for you!

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It's worth mentioning that if you're outside the UK, or not near a TV, you can watch the 91Èȱ¬ TV coverage live by visiting the and clicking on the live video link.

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Well well. It only took until ten past one for the Blair issue to come up - raised by none other than Nick Brown - friend, ally but no relative of Gordon.

"We cannot drift on" he said (watch the interview here), before adding that the party had to listen to people and to avoid looking like an out of touch elite.

When asked whether Tony Blair could repair the problem he replied with a grimace - "he will have to try".

Not the start of a revolution, I grant you - but it was significant that someone who knows that his words are watched carefully spoke out so clearly and so early.

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I'm trying my best to milk John Reid when the microphones are off about who'll be moved in the reshuffle - but he's remaining stoically and loyally tight lipped. Or maybe it's that he doesn't know.

Much talk here about whether Geoff Hoon and David Blunkett's earpieces really stopped working when they were asked awkward questions!

It's that time of the night when the mars bars and the bananas come out to boost energy...

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Geoff Hoon revealed on 91Èȱ¬ One that he's off to Downing Street first thing in the morning - and he looked rather pleased about it (watch the interview here).

Ministers never get asked to walk up that famous street in full view of the cameras only to emerge humiliated having been sacked. Hoon was an obvious candidate to be asked to 'make way for younger blood' - but he appears to sense that there may be better news on the way.

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David Cameron has had a couple of early bits of good news, including a relatively easy gain () which was on their list of targets.

It's worth remembering that before the Labour crisis began, this election was being seen as a test for David Cameron. His national poll ratings were slipping, and inside his party, people were saying "people might like you, but it's not making them vote Conservative".

If - and it's a big if - the pattern of results continues along these lines, he will be able to see off those who were preparing to tell him that the headlines weren't enough.

There are signs - 91Èȱ¬ analysts tell me - that the Tory advance is very much concentrated in what would be considered traditional Tory territory. The party's vote is up most strongly in the south of England in relatively middle-class wards and in wards with low proportions of people in poor health. Ironically Cameron's success may be in rejuvenating the core Tory vote!

There is danger in all this for the Tories. If Labour's crisis is magnifying the Tory vote - then it could all just be a deception. And remember, previous Tory leaders - William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, even Michael Howard - have allowed themselves to be deceived by nights like this.

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Tonight Labour can't do worse than expectations because expectations of their performance are so low. It means it will be hard to distinguish a poor night for the party from a dire one.

So, the question is - how do you judge tonight's results? And already the mother of all rows has begun about how many losses make a disaster.

My approach will be to look at the share of the vote the government gets - will it be worse than the 26% they got in 2004? Worse than the 25% John Major's Tories got in 1995? But those stats highlight a problem with nights like this - Labour went on to win a general election after that 26%, the Tories went on to be slaughtered.

We'll look too at the number of councillors who lose their seats. There's no science in this but two hundred is not a bad psychological benchmark. Tony Blair's pain steadily increases the higher over that figure his losses go.

With over 100 key wards now declared, the 91Èȱ¬ calculates the change in the parties' share of the vote so far as follows:

CON +3
LAB -1
LIB DEM -2

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Just as Number Ten must have wanted, reshuffle fever is fast overtaking interest in the local election results in the Westminster village.

Charles Clarke may not sleep much tonight if talk of him losing his job proves to be correct. Of course, he may say to his boss - "You can't sack me after what you've said publicly" - and, given the mess Tony Blair has made of past reshuffles, he may get him to change his mind.

John Prescott already knows his fate - probably keeping his title (Deputy Prime Minister) but losing responsibility for the office created in his name.

As for the rest, expect to read a dozen different Cabinets in a dozen different morning papers.

It is, though, not bums on ministerial seats but votes in ballot boxes which will determine the significance of the next 24 hours. Keep reading and/or watching - coverage starts on 91Èȱ¬ One at 2340.

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It certainly is going to be !

Ministers have been put on standby for a government reshuffle tomorrow morning. The way this works is that their offices are called and they are instructed not to leave London and asked where the minister will be at a certain time.

There is no official confirmation of this but Tony Blair may feel that restructuring his ministerial team will distract from what Labour themselves predict will be a bad night for the party. How bad we will find out soon. How big the reshuffle will be too. My hunch - and it is only that - is that Prescott will keep his job but in return will shoulder much of the blame for a bad night. He's on on Sunday morning for his first interview since l'affaire. I think Charles Clarke will stay too otherwise the PM will be eating his own words. There could still though be widespread changes.

Not long to wait to find out.

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It's the lull before the storm, and I'm relaxing at home in anticipation of a busy 36 hours.

Tonight, I'll be covering the local elections in England on the 91Èȱ¬ One special programme (which begins at 2340).

But as well as that, I'll be blogging here from around ten o'clock, analysing the results and responding to some of your comments on what promises to be a very interesting night.

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How does he do it? His government crashes - thanks to a lethal mix of alleged sleaze, corruption and incompetence. The wreckage is still burning. Yet the pilot walks through the flames with a broad grin on his face, blaming everyone else for what's gone wrong and pledging to clear up the mess.

Today Tony Blair claimed that the deportation of foreign prisoners was not a problem his government had created - but one that they were solving. ("Oh that's alright then" I hear you cry). Having airily dismissed his failure to implement his old policy, he turned to the future and pledged to introduce a new one. A change of the law will mean that the working assumption will be that all foreign criminals will be deported whatever their crime rather than - as now - merely considered for deportation if their sentence is longer.

Just like Margaret Thatcher before him, Tony Blair has the ability to ask what on earth the government is up to - like a caller to a radio phone-in - and then promise to sort it out.

At Prime Minister's Questions (watch it here) it proved to be a neat trick. He changed the subject, neatly sidestepping today's revelation that half of the most serious prisoners who could and should have been deported are still on the run. He put himself on the side of ordinary voters and in agreement with his most fervent critics in the press. He sought to embarrass the opposition parties for opposing many of his previous reforms to tighten up asylum policy on human rights grounds. Finally, he achieved a score draw (at worst) in the theatre that is the Commons - and, yes, that does still matter.

Tony Blair's objective is to convert this from a question of Labour's competence to yet another battle between him and the civil libertarian lobby. He relishes fights with his backbenchers and the courts. What he hates is the suggestion that, whatever he says, his ministers aren't up to the job.

An ally of David Cameron told me recently that the Tory leader and his friends are often in awe of the PM's capacity to walk free from troubles that would destroy anyone else.

I don't doubt that after what he said were nine days of bad headlines there'll be more to come. I don't doubt that the local elections will be anything but good for him. But today it could - and arguably should have been - much much worse.

Update 1700: As if to prove my point, the Prime Minister's official spokesman has just said that the new proposals amount to "the biggest change in deportation arrangements for a generation and we are quite well aware of that". He went on to say "we expect these matters to be likely to be challenged in the courts. We also expect these matters may be controversial in the media - so be it."

That's Westminster code for "please, please can we have a row about this"!

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