91Èȱ¬

So, at last, Greg Hurst's biography of Charles Kennedy is out. I know Greg well - we used to be colleagues on the Times - and the extracts of his book live up to his reputation as a journalist - it's splendidly written, well-informed, and right. There are no angry denials pouring forth from Lib Dem HQ this morning.

Based on just the , there is no new killer fact that makes you drop your toast. We already knew the former Lib Dem leader had a drink problem, we already knew there was a plot to oust him last Christmas.

But that doesn't mean the new detail isn't important. For example, when Mr Kennedy resigned in January, he said he had been fighting alcoholism for eighteen months. According to the book, he had actually had a problem since before he became leader in 1999 and his aides knew all about it even then.

This prompts a big question. Mr Kennedy led his party through two general elections, the Iraq war and many other crucial events - while trying to cope with alcoholism. Did the millions of people who voted for him and his party have a right to know? It's a difficult one.

The conclusion that the current leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, and other senior party figures came to was no. They knew about the problem in 2003 when Mr Kennedy and they came close to revealing all at a news conference that was cancelled at the last minute.

They decided the best thing to do was to offer help to Mr Kennedy in private, urge him to get treatment and hope it went away. It didn't and eventually MPs found the situation untenable and forced Mr Kennedy out in a messy confrontation last January.

Was it a cover-up? "No" says the party, just MPs behaving properly and loyally to maintain Mr Kennedy's right to privacy. In other words, it was a cover-up but an honourable one.

The other question is what difference it would have made to voters' behaviour if they had known about Mr Kennedy's drink problem. Seven months on from his resignation, the former leader is still popular in the polls, and the Lib Dem grassroots are still not quite sure what to make of Sir Menzies.

After remaining largely silent since his resignation, Mr Kennedy is in the process of trying return to the political frontline. A big speech is planned for the party conference next month, he's hinted he'd welcome a frontbench post if one came up. This book makes some form of a comeback more difficult but certainly doesn't rule it out.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

The return of the prime minister from his holidays is one of those dates that marks the political calendar. It's not a particularly significant event in itself but it sends a signal out to the body politic that the earth around Westminster is moving again and it's time to re-enter the fray. The boss is back.

And as ever, Mr Blair comes back to face the consequences of a rather mixed summer. Since the Blairs departed for Barbados, John Prescott has reportedly described George Bush's foreign policy as "crap"; John Reid appears to have taken over the war on terror single handedly; the Labour party has dropped in the polls - nine points behind the Tories according to the latest figures - at the same time as running out of cash; there's been an internal row over whether the government should scrap inheritance tax. And worst of all, the prime minister has had to face accusations that he's got man boobs.

But all this, for the prime minister at least, is of nothing compared to the one big decision facing him: what should he say about his future? Some close to him say he simply has to say something in the next few weeks or at the party conference in Manchester at the end of September.

It is, they say, the only way to close down the endless speculation, rumour and plotting that will otherwise get in the way of anything Mr Blair wishes to do. What this camp wants is not a timetable or anything so crude as a precise departure date. No, they just want a nod and a wink that perhaps this will be his last conference or some other oblique utterance that could satisfy his critics and allow him to get on with the job.

Others close to the PM disagree. They want him to say nothing. Even the slightest hint of a departure date, they say, will make Mr Blair an impotent lame duck, haemorrhaging authority, unable to do anything in his final months of power.

Few know the prime minister's current thinking on this. Distrust all who say they know his mind. What is certain is that Mr Blair's got a packed few weeks lined up, three big speeches to think tanks and the TUC before his conference address. His officials talk of big announcements on social exclusion and education, he's preparing a fresh round of diplomacy on the Middle East before a possible trip to the region next month. The aim of all this activity is to show that he's still got petrol in the tank, that he's "fizzing with ideas" (which his aides say this time every year), that he's got momentum.

The big questions Tony Blair himself would like answered are this: what is the mood of the Labour Party and Labour MPs as they return from their holidays? Do they sense drift at the top or are they prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt once again, as they have done so before.

And what of Gordon Brown? He has maintained an almost monastic silence all summer since the birth of his latest child. What is he up to? What's he planning? Answers on a postcard to No10 Downing Street, please.

It's all shaping up for a fascinating, fluid few months of politics.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

When the leader of a political party holds a news conference in the dog days of August, with minimal television audiences, with Westminster shut, with MPs away on holiday, you always have to ask why?

Today David Cameron dragged three of his most senior frontbenchers from their sunloungers to an airless room at Westminster to deliver and answer questions from the media (watch it here). So what was he up to?

It's very simple.

First, he was announcing that he was back. The Conservative leader has been sunning himself in Scotland and Greece for the last three weeks - note the tan - and he just wanted to let the world know that he was back at his desk.

Second, he wanted to say his bit on the issues of the day, about which he has been by definition silent for the last few weeks. Hence, a full exposition of his views on the Middle East and terrorism. In the process, he took on the Government and his own internal critics.

The Government, he said, was not doing enough to combat Islamic extremism in Britain - the 91Èȱ¬ Office budget should not be frozen, intercept evidence should be allowed in courts, and the government should follow through more on promised anti-terror laws and efforts to engage with the Muslim community.

As for his internal critics, Mr Cameron defended his decision to criticise specific Israeli military actions in Lebanon as disproportionate. A lot of Tories think he was wrong to say this but he's sticking by his guns.

But Mr Cameron was, third, trying to do something else - namely get the Conservative Party back onto the front foot.

In recent weeks, the polls have not looked as steady as they might. His A-list candidate selection reforms have been criticised for not promoting enough women and ethnic minorities. He's been attacked for surrounding himself with so many Old Etonians. The policy announcement of the summer appears to have been limited to a new oak tree party logo.

So, Mr Cameron was teeing us up for a bit of an announcement blitz. There'll be more tomorrow on his "Built to Last" process of consulting the party about its basic values. There'll be more over the weekend on the A-list candidate selection process - I'm not satisfied with it, says Mr Cameron - so watch out for a toughening up of the rules.

The Conservative leader told the news conference that his party still had momentum. Well, maybe, but he is still looking to pick up a bit more of it if he can.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

So, the intelligence services have judged that the threat of a terrorist attack is now "severe", and no longer "critical", as it has been since last week's foiled plot to blow up passenger aircraft.

What, you may well ask, does that mean for you and me? Can we come out from behind the duvet and face the world again? Can we fly without a care in the world?

The technical answer is that the authorities believe an attack is now just "highly likely" rather than "imminent". In other words, we are not safe, there is still a threat, but they have no reason to think there's an attack planned for tomorrow.

Confusing?

Yes, and that's why ministers have been out in force trying to make clear the subtle distinction. 91Èȱ¬ Secretary John Reid was even on the television yesterday trying to prepare the way for this even before the intelligence guys decided to reduce the threat level.

It is a challenge for ministers every time - how can you explain levels of risk to the public? How do you be open without provoking panic? Remember mad cow disease? Remember salmonella in eggs? The Government has a duty to tell the public how bad things are, to inform people about risk.

But at the same time, ministers have a responsibility not to destroy an industry with imprecise remarks. What do you say to a young mother - is it safe for her to take her kids on a flight, give them scrambled eggs or mince for tea? The Tory minister John Gummer fed a burger to one of his offspring to show that beef was safe and he has never been allowed to forget it.

Thus today, the threat level has been reduced. As a result, travellers can start taking at least some modest-sized hand luggage on flights - businessmen can be reunited with their beloved laptops, children plugged in again to their iPods. Phew, normal life resumes, airline executives breathe a sigh of relief. But we're still not safe, there's still a threat.

In other words, we, as ever, have to make our own judgements, whatever ministers tell us.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

There are many things that prime ministers would like to do to chief political correspondents, but one form of torture that's open to them is the early morning interview.

The call tends to come late at night - "could you be at Downing Street for 0630 hours tomorrow for a quick chat with the PM?"

And despite the resulting lack of sleep and the hastily re-arranged plans, it is of course an offer you can't refuse. So it was that early this morning the PM and I peered at each other across microphones in the Cabinet Room and tried to make sense of the Middle East conflict (watch the interview here).

It's his last interview before finally leaving for his holiday in the Caribbean, and his message was clear: the UN should "take account" of Lebanon's concerns that the draft UN resolution doesn't call for Israel to withdraw from its territory. But that shouldn't mean agreement on the resolution should be subject to any further delay.

But how do you get the Lebanese onside?

Well, some of the thinking in Number 10 goes like this - you persuade Lebanon that the Israelis are keen to leave and will do so in the short term, after a cessation of violence, but only if they can be replaced by a mixture of Lebanese troops and existing UN forces which are already on the ground (they are called Unifil, they number about 2000 and they've been there for years).

These troops, Downing Street sources suggest, could be "bolstered" and given a more active role. So under this scenario, there'd be no big bang withdrawal by Israel, just a slow, incremental, coordinated pull back, with no vacuum filled by Hezbollah. That at least is the theory. There are a lot of 'ifs' built into the plan and the reality on the ground, as ever, could prove rather different.

And what of that other transfer of power, following the withdrawal of Mr Blair from the Whitehall region?

Well, keen to ensure there's no vacuum at the heart of government, Mr Blair has as expected handed over the reins to John Prescott who's now "coordinating government policy" - civil service speak for sort of being in charge. But will the deputy prime minister have be dealing with the Middle East?

"I've always been in charge of this," Mr Blair said this morning. "I do that by telephone wherever I am." So, now we know.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

They are the words every child hates. "Sorry kids, the holiday's on hold for a bit, Daddy's got to work." We don't know how Tony Blair broke to his family but it's a fair bet they weren't too surprised.

It's not the first time - but perhaps may be the last - that the prime minister has delayed his date with a sunlounger. Last year he stayed on a few days to deal with the fallout from the 7/7 bombings. Yesterday Mr Blair had showed every intention of going ahead with his hols. "Whatever I may be doing in the next few days, the most important thing is to realise that, wherever I am, I have got full communications," he said. "I will be on the phone." This indeed is true. The idea that a modern prime minister can do what we all do and switch off the mobile the moment we hit the beach has always been a fallacy.

Long gone are the days when William Gladstone spent months away from Westminster chopping wood on his north Wales estate.

But some modern communications are not as good as others and it is that which has changed Mr Blair's mind. Late last night he had a conversation with the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan which, I am told, convinced him to stay in London. Today, he was told, was going to be a crucial stage in the negotiations to establish a UN resolution that might just establish a ceasefire in Lebanon. And it was today that Mr Blair was expecting to be on an eight-hour flight across the Atlantic.

Yes, as we know, we can all make expensive calls from aircraft today. But the lines aren't that good and if Mr Blair were to take a scheduled flight, they would hardly be secure. Not only might some naughty spooks pick up the unscrambled conversation, but members of the public might be able to listen in too from across the aisle in first class.

So for the next few days at least, Mr Blair will sit by his phone and focus on the diplomacy. He's already spoken to the French President Jacques Chirac, other calls are scheduled for later. Spade work of another kind will have to wait.

Two quick points: if it were Kofi Annan who helped persuade Mr Blair to stay by his phone, what does that say about his deputy secretary general at the UN, Mark Malloch Brown, who two days ago asked the PM to take a backseat in the negotiations? And we should not forget that some newspapers and MPs have been attacking the PM for planning to go on holiday, leaving John Prescott in charge, while the Middle East burns. Mr Blair's decision to stay on in London a few days might ease some of that pressure and silence a few critics.

As ever, the prime minister is covering his bases.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

Today, amid all the diplomacy, the international telephone calls, and the endless meetings with officials, Tony Blair took a meeting with a man called Lewis Pugh.

Who he, you may ask? Well, he's the chap who is currently swimming the length of the Thames to draw attention to climate change (as of today, he's as far as County Hall, just over from Westminster, and is beginning to taste salt). Now the prime minister may indeed be keen to talk to about carbon emissions and the like but perhaps too he just wanted to spend time with someone who knows what it's like to swim against the tide. For that is exactly what Mr Blair is doing with his policy towards the Middle East.

His critics appear to grow daily, including some members of the Cabinet, the Foreign Office, the Labour party, European and Arab nations, and a bevvy of former foreign secretaries and ambassadors who have described his relationship with the US as naive, foolish, creepy and out of control.

One, Sir Roderick Braithwaite, once our man in Moscow, today likened Mr Blair to a Madame Tussaud's waxwork zombie spouting White House spin who had done more damage to British interests in the Middle East than the Suez crisis 50 years ago. Ouch.

But with MPs away from Westminster, it was once again the turn of the fourth estate at the PM's monthly news conference (watch it here) to reflect some of these concerns. Why won't he be more critical of Israel's military operations? Why hasn't he pushed more strongly for a ceasefire? Why has he stayed so close to the US at the cost of alienating many Arab nations? Why is he at odds with so many people?

The prime minister's answer was intriguing. As you might expect, he defended his policy resolutely. Condemnation of Israel and calls for unconditional ceasefires would not provide a solution to the conflict in the Middle East; a permanent cessation of hostilities agreed by all sides followed by an international stabilisation force would.

But for the first time, at least, he acknowledged that his critics existed. Talk of splits with the Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, were dismissed as "complete rubbish" but as for the rest of his colleagues, Mr Blair acknowledged: "I have no doubt there are Cabinet ministers who have doubts about this or that aspect - possibly about the whole aspect of the policy."

He was, he said, not surprised there were anxieties, this was a difficult issue, he understood his critics' views and did not disrespect them. And he wasn't indifferent to the suffering of civilians both in Lebanon and Israel.

So, will this be enough to reassure the critics? No. But frankly the PM probably feels he can weather the storm for now. He doesn't have to face an angry Parliament - everyone's away on their hols - and the concerns expressed by MPs are therefore diffuse and unfocused. Outrage expressed from the comfort of a sun lounger has less moral weight than a well-timed speech in the House of Commons.

But the anger and despair voiced by some Labour MPs is genuine. The question for Mr Blair is whether it lingers long enough to have an impact when MPs return after the summer. At his news conference, the PM promised a packed domestic agenda in the autumn. After the last few weeks, there will be more Labour MPs who hope it'll include his resignation.

As for now, Mr Blair signalled that he would still be going on his own hols to Barbados. But is he leaving John Prescott in charge of Britain's Middle East policy? Er, no. "The most important thing to realise is that wherever I am, I have got full communications," he said. "I will be on the phone."

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

In the absence of Nick "Arnie" Robinson, who's off on his well-deserved hols, I'll be taking over the Newslog for the summer.

I am the chief political correspondent for 91Èȱ¬ News 24 which means I spend most of my time trying to make sense of politics as it happens on the hour, every hour. For the next few weeks I'll try to do the same here. And don't think there's no politics going on just because MPs are away from Westminster - ministries still churn out policy, committees still sit, and oh, yes, John Prescott will be in charge.

Not yet though. The summer break doesn't really start until Tony Blair's given his last news conference - which we'll see this morning - and heads for the hills. As ever, the Middle East is almost certain to dominate.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

On board the PM's plane: Part of political reporters' DNA is the ability to sniff out the faintest whiff of a U-turn.

So, when those of us travelling with the prime minister were briefed that that he'd be calling for a reappraisal of strategy in the war on terror, noses began to twitch. But on hearing the speech in full it became clear that, like the lady, the gentleman at Number Ten was not for turning.

There was no reappraisal, no re-think of the war in Iraq or Afghanistan or Britain's approach to Israel's war in Lebanon. Far from it. Instead Tony Blair painted the picture of a global struggle between moderate and Reactionary Islam, between freedom and repression, democracy and theocracy.

It is incredible to me, he said, that so much Western opinion appears to buy the idea that the emergence of global terrorism is our fault.

He criticised coverage of the war in Lebanon for not recognising Israel's predicament. In that respect, the prime minister has now left a land where his views are the received wisdom to head home to a country with, it appears, grave doubts about his analysis.

So where then was the reappraisal? Where the re-think? Not on the war on terror itself but on the need to have a "hearts and minds" strategy to match the military one. Tony Blair used his speech last night to spend the political capital he has gained for standing shoulder to shoulder with America for so long. He argued that only an alliance of moderation could take on what he has dubbed the "arc of extremism".

And that alliance would only emerge IF moderate Muslims saw that America believed in the need to create a Palestinian state. Nothing else, he said, was more important to the success of our foreign policy. In truth this is not a re-think at all. Straight after 9/11 he declared that the kaleidoscope had been shaken and that the world could and should be re-made starting with solving the Palestinian crisis.

But now he is trying again - saying, in effect, to the US and Israel there is no military solution to your insecurity. Will they listen now? After all, it is not just in the White House that Tony Blair is hailed as a hero - in hotel lobbies and restaurants people stand and clap on gaining a glimpse of America's ally-in-chief.

The doubt though - just as it was over the Iraq war - is when Tony Blair says "yes but" do they hear the "yes" but not the "but". It's a doubt unlikely to be troubling the man upfront in first class who - in his speech to Rupert Murdoch's executives - declared that his inner self-confidence was complete.

• After an extraordinary few days - you can read all my posts from the USA by clicking here - I am now heading off on my family hols and am leaving Newslog in the capable hands of James Landale, chief political correspondent of News 24. As Arnie would say, I'll be back.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

Los Angeles: Move over George. Tony Blair has a new American friend.

Yes, it's Arnie - the movie star turned Governor of California - who these days is known as the "emissions terminator". This battler against climate change today signed an agreement with the prime minister to work together to save the planet.

Arnie praised Tony as an inspiration and a great leader. Both men agree that science and technology will produce the answers to climate change. They want jointly to investigate the technology and the incentives for the private sector to come up with those answers.

Tony Blair's new American friend has a very different view from his old one. George Bush's administration still casts doubt on the scientific basis for concern. Though a Republican, Governor Schwarzenegger is scathing. He says the debate is over although, he adds, there are "people who doubt it and who think the world is flat". Arnie and Tony are agreed on the need to pursue another Bush bete-noire - stem cell research.

The prime minister says that developing links with California - which would be one of the world's biggest economies were it a country - is good for British jobs. Some wonder though whether this trip's also about his search for a job once he leaves Number Ten. Governor Schwarzenegger - the man who's already had a few careers - was asked if he could give some advice for a prime minister contemplating a career change. He could and suggested that the PM could be the Head of the UN or, if he fancied Hollywood, Terminator 4.

Mr Blair insisted that was the best job offer he'd had and then, added hastily, "the only offer".

When British reporters - including this one - asked tough questions about Israel and the Lebanon, Arnie came to Tony's aid. "It's amazing," he said, and then added sarcastically, "I like the optimism... it's very nice".

After that Californian endorsement, Tony Blair wouldn't be human if he didn't think "I'll be back".

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?