Nick Clegg at Deputy PMQs

Nick Clegg was good at Deputy Prime Minister's Questions today.

And David Cameron sat on the bench next to him, beaming like a proud dad.

David Laws's resignation: a national own goal

So unelected media can hold the elected government to ransom whenever it chooses, by skewering a minister on a technicality.

If they can do it to Laws, they'll find a way of doing it to every other Cabinet minister when it suits them.

Newspapermen are out to sell newspapers. The government has a country to run -- our country, in fact, and it's in all our interests that we have the best people available to do it.

David Laws was manifestly not corrupt.

We as a nation have shot ourselves in the foot here, by delivering up the head of David Laws on a platter to the Daily Telegraph.

The newspaper may take a profit.  But the nation will pay the price for losing the services of a talented minister.

Liam Fox in Afghanistan

"We are not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education policy in a broken 13th-century country."

So says Liam Fox, the new coalition's Defence Secretary, in an interview with The Times.


OK, so he didn't actually say that Afghanistan is a 13th-century country. But it certainly looks like that's what he thinks. This is troubling.

Con Coughlin, himself no purveyor of politicalcorrectnessgonemaaaad, puts it like this:

Liam Fox ...  managed to be gratuitously offensive to his Afghan hosts while totally undermining one of the pillars of the Nato campaign ... a classic exercise of putting a ministerial foot in an over-eager mouth. I don’t care whether or not Dr Fox was quoting Afghan President Hamid Karzai: it was an ill-judged remark, and one that immediately raises questions about his suitability for this most challenging of ministerial briefs.

We can only agree.

Cameron - Merkel press conference in Berlin

British prime minister David Cameron and German chancellor Angela Merkel hold a press conference in Berlin:

Britain's written constitution?

Look at this: "Chapter 6: Elections and Government formation (DRAFT)". 

A more self-effacing title it would be hard to imagine. But read it, and you'll see that this document amounts, more or less, to a written constitution for the United Kingdom. 

All of a sudden, Britain's famously unwritten constitution has been written down - penned quietly, without political debate or public consultation, by a single, unelected official, Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell.

Nothing much has changed, and nobody much has noticed. A very British revolution.

Coalition agreement for stability and reform

Some light reading for the weekend.

• Coalition agreement for stability and reform (pdf), published by the Cabinet Office.

• The new Ministerial Code, with a forward by David Cameron:

In everything we do – the policies we develop and how we implement them, the speeches we give, the meetings we hold – we must remember that we are not masters but servants. Though the British people have been disappointed in their politicians, they still expect the highest standards of conduct. We must not let them down.

We must be different in how we think and how we behave. We must be different from what has gone before us. Careful with public money. Transparent about what we do and how we do it. Determined to act in the national interest, above improper influence. Mindful of our duty. Above all, grateful for our chance to change our country.

Reminiscent of Tony Blair's ill-fated "we have got to be whiter than white to rebuild trust" speech?

• The Cabinet Committee System, including membership of the Coalition Committee and the Coalition Operation and Strategic Planning Group.

Cameron Sarkozy press conference in Paris

New British prime minister David Cameron goes to Paris to meet French president Nicholas Sarkozy.

Here's their press conference:

Full transcript at Number 10 website.

Video - in French:



And in English:

Lord Mandelson resigns

Peter Mandelson's previous two resignations from the Labour front bench made big bangs.

This time, he's gone again, and there's not even been a whimper. His departure yesterday from the Labour shadow cabinet went almost completely unreported by the BBC and the broadcast media.

Our friendly visiting alien might assume that there's a reason for that. Keep the resignation hush-hush, so no-one will be all that surprised when he pops up again as a minister in the new coalition government. The transition will look almost seamlessly silky-smooth, something that would please the Dark Lord greatly.

(Lord Adonis has gone quietly too - keep your eyes on the Department for Transport ministerial team page, he might just be putting in a re-appearance.)

Matt's election cartoons: Clegg'n'Cameron's march to power, in pictures

The complete set of Matt cartoons covering the general election for the Daily Telegraph is online here.

e.g.

Billboard: Samantha Cameron Expecting

Passer-by: If there's a hung parliament Nick Clegg will get to choose the baby's name.

That's number 44. There are 48 in all, each one a gem. Go have a chuckle.

Lib-Con Coalition agreement: highlights

Here are our 50 highlights from the government programme announced today by David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

We've not included the headline items - you can read about them elsewhere.

These are the little nuggets you might have missed. We've picked them because they made us say one of the following things:

1. Thank goodness! About time too! Freedom and fairness live to fight another day.
2. Wow, a Conservative government is doing that?
3. OK that's just plain weird.

We'll leave it to you to decide which policies elicited which responses. The wording of the policies given here is copied directly from the coalition document. We have resisted the urge to intersperse comments, at least until the very end.

Civil Liberties:

• We will restore rights to non-violent protest.
• We will review libel laws to protect freedom of speech.

Crime and Policing:

• We will ban the sale of alcohol below cost price.
• We will review the operation of the Extradition Act – and the US/UK extradition treaty – to make sure it is even-handed.

Culture, Olympics, Media & Sport

• We will cut red tape to encourage the performance of more live music.

Defence:

• Support for ex-Service personnel to study at university.
• A new programme, ‘Troops for Teachers’, to recruit ex-Service personnel into the teaching profession.
• Extra support for veteran mental health needs.

Energy and Climate Change:

• We will refuse permission for additional runways at Gatwick and Stansted.
• We will reduce central government carbon emissions by 10% within 12 months.
• We will encourage community-owned renewable energy schemes where local people benefit from the power produced. We will also allow communities that host renewable energy projects to keep the additional business rates they generate.

Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

• We will launch a national tree planting campaign.
• We will end the testing of household products on animals and work to reduce the use of animals in scientific research.
• We will investigate measures to help with fuel costs in remote rural areas, starting with pilot schemes.

Equalities:

• Internships for underrepresented minorities in every Whitehall department.
• We will stop the deportation of asylum seekers who have had to leave particular countries because their sexual orientation or gender identification puts them at proven risk of imprisonment, torture or execution.

Europe:

• We will amend the 1972 European Communities Act so that the use of any passerelle would require primary legislation.
• We will press for the European Parliament to have only one seat, in Brussels.
• We support the further enlargement of the EU.

Families and Children:

• We will take Sure Start back to its original purpose of early intervention, increase its focus on the neediest families, and better involve organisations with a track record of supporting families. We will investigate ways of ensuring that providers are paid in part by the results they achieve.
• We will investigate a new approach to helping families with multiple problems.
• We will review the criminal records and vetting and barring regime and scale it back to common sense levels.
• We will take steps to tackle the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood.

Foreign Affairs:

• We will work to establish a new ‘special relationship’ with India.
• We support reform of the UN Security Council, including permanent seats for Japan, India, Germany, Brazil and African representation.

Government Transparency:

• We will require public bodies to publish online the job titles of every member of staff and the salaries and expenses of senior officials paid more than the lowest salary permissible in Pay Band 1 of the Senior Civil Service pay scale.
• We will require anyone paid more than the Prime Minister in the centrally funded public sector to have their salary signed off by the Treasury.
• We will require full, online disclosure of all central government spending and contracts over £25,000.
• We will require all councils to publish items of spending above £500, and to publish contracts and tender documents in full.
• We will create a new ‘right to data’ so that government-held datasets can be requested and used by the public, and then published on a regular basis.
• We will ensure that all data published by public bodies is published in an open and standardised format, so that it can be used easily and with minimal cost by third parties.

Jobs and Welfare:

• We will develop local Work Clubs – places where unemployed people can gather to exchange skills, find opportunities, make contacts and provide mutual support.

Justice:

• We will introduce a ‘rehabilitation revolution’ that will pay independent providers to reduce reoffending.
• We will change the law so that historical convictions for consensual gay sex with over16s will be treated as spent and will not show up on criminal records checks.
• We will extend anonymity in rape cases to defendants.

NHS:

• We will give every patient the power to choose any healthcare provider that meets NHS standards, within NHS prices. This includes independent, voluntary and community sector providers.

Political Reform:

• We will establish a commission to consider the ‘West Lothian question’.
• We will fund 200 all-postal primaries over this Parliament, targeted at seats which have not changed hands for many years.
• We will ensure that any petition that secures 100,000 signatures will be eligible for formal debate in Parliament. The petition with the most signatures will enable members of the public to table a bill eligible to be voted on in Parliament.
• We will give residents the power to instigate local referendums on any local issue.

Public Health:

• We will ensure greater access to talking therapies to reduce long-term costs for the NHS.

Schools:

• We will fund a significant premium for disadvantaged pupils from outside the schools budget by reductions in spending elsewhere.
• We will give anonymity to teachers accused by pupils and take other measures to protect against false accusations.
• We will reform league tables so that schools are able to focus on, and demonstrate, the progress of children of all abilities.

Social Action:

• We will give public sector workers a new right to form employee-owned co-operatives and bid to take over the services they deliver. This will empower millions of public sector workers to become their own boss and help them to deliver better services.
• We will take a range of measures to encourage charitable giving and philanthropy.

Social Care and Disability:

• We will reform Access to Work, so disabled people can apply for jobs with funding already secured for any adaptations and equipment they will need.

Taxation:

• We will seek ways of taxing non-business capital gains at rates similar or close to those applied to income, with generous exemptions for entrepreneurial business activities.

Transport:

• We will mandate a national recharging network for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.
• Our vision is of a truly national high speed rail network for the whole of Britain. Given financial constraints, we will have to achieve this in phases.

Oh, and just in case all of the above sounds too good to be true - it is too good to be true! The small print is in large print, on the back page. Here it comes:

Postamble:

• The deficit reduction programme takes precedence over any of the other measures in this agreement, and the speed of implementation of any measures that have a cost to the public finances will depend on decisions to be made in the Comprehensive Spending Review.

Oh well. It was nice to dream.

Coalition agreement: how being in government does strange things to you

Look at this:

It's an extract from the document called "The Coalition: our programme for government" published today by the new Tory-Lib Dem coalition. (Download pdf file here.)

Just read that bit we've highlighted again. We've spread it out and put it in large type to make it easier to digest the full weirdness of it:

We will introduce a 
new 
mechanism
 to prevent 
the proliferation of 
unnecessary 
new 
criminal offences.

Good grief. A mechanism? You'd think that unnecessary new criminal offences are capable of spontaneous self-generation.

A simpler way to "prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences" would be to follow this simple two-step plan:

1. Don't dream up unnecessary new criminal offences.
2. Don't pass laws to create unnecessary new criminal offences.

We think that would work. Just stay at home on the days which you'd originally scheduled to spend dreaming up unnecessary new criminal offences.

Seriously guys. Take the day off. Take the kids to the beach. Do some DIY. Whatever. You could even try doing something useful. Just don't go into the office and dream up unnecessary new criminal offences. Do you think you could handle that?

This two-step plan, which we are happy to offer to the government free of charge, would be cheap to implement. By a quick back-of-the-envelope estimate, we think it would cost approximately £0 per year. 

A mechanism, on the other hand, sounds like it comes with a quango attached. 

Look out for SAPPUNCO (the Statutory Authority for the Prevention of the Proliferation of Unnecessary New Criminal Offences), complete with a staff of 120 and an annual budget of £27 million.

Coalition press conference - trouble at t'Home Office?

Once each minister (Nick Clegg, Theresa May, Vince Cable, George Osborne, David Cameron) had delivered their set-pieces, the prime minister took questions from the press pack.

As part of Cameron's inclusive style of government, he farmed out the task of answering to his ministers - both Tory and Lib Dem - when the questions touched on their areas of departmental responsibility.

With one exception: Theresa May. There was an immigration question - clear Home Office territory - but Cameron fielded it himself and didn't invite May to comment.

Possible reasons?

1. Cameron and May are so close that he knows he can speak for her.
   OR
2. Cameron and May are not close enough and he doesn't trust her to speak for him.
   OR
3. Immigration policy is still too woolly to be given a straight answer (still no real clarity on how the immigration "cap" is to be set), so Cameron preferred to dead-bat the question and move on.

Nick Clegg launches full coalition agreement

Better choice of background today, as Nick Clegg makes a speech giving the details of the new Lib Dem - Conservative coalition agreement:

Well done, the stage managers, for taking on board the comments we made yesterday...

Remember yesterday, with the distracting cars whizzing around?

Trees make better backgrounds. They don't move so fast.

UPDATE: You can now watch the press launch online below:

Diane Abbott runs for Labour leadership

You heard it here second: Diane Abbott has joined the race for the Labour party leadership.

Our money says she's the one to watch.

"End the War on Motorists" - a response from more enlightened times

More on Philip Hammond's promise to "end the war on motorists", which we mentioned briefly the other day.

It has been drawn to our attention that the late, great Beachcomber had robust opinions on motorists:

O fractious monster, is it not enough that whole villages are being demolished and towns replanned to please you? For you the countryside is littered with hideous garages, and the cities become car-parks. Yours is the freedom to drench the air with the stink from your machine, and to harry the pedestrian with impunity. For you are the abominable lamp-standards erected, with their ghoulish light. For your gratification landscapes are reshaped, hedges torn out, quiet valleys desecrated, woods cut down, winding lanes straightened and broadened. What more do you want, arch-fool of the world, and pest of every common man?

Will Caroline Lucas be similarly forthright? We can only hope so.

John Humphrys and Theresa May on BBC Today: an Aesopian take

We've finally had enough of John Humphrys' interviews on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4.

At his best he can be a thoughtful and knowledgeable journalist.

But as an interviewer: stop it, John.

His interview this morning of Theresa May is just the latest example of his counter-productive interviewing technique in action.

1. It's annoying to listen to. It should be the politicians who make us shout at our radios. But these days, more often than not, it's Humphrys.
2. It is poisonous to good, open political discussion because it makes interviewees determined to say nothing at all rather than say something that will later be paraded as a trumped-up "gaffe"*.

Remember Aesop's fable of the Sun and the Wind?

The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said: "I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveller to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin." So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveller. But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveller wrap his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair. Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.

Let's translate this into the Today Programme:

John Humphrys and Evan Davis were disputing which was the stronger interviewer. Suddenly they saw a politician coming down the road, and the Davis said: "I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that politician to take off his cloak of lies shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin." So Davis retired behind a cloud, and Humphrys began to blow as hard as he could upon the politician. But the harder he blew the more closely did the politician wrap his cloak round him, till at last Humphrys had to give up in despair. Then Davis came out and shone in all his glory upon the politician, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.

Congratulations to Theresa May -- not a politician for whom we have an instinctive liking -- for standing up to Humphrys this morning.

 *Footnote: an Act of Parliament should be passed immediately, forbidding the use of the word "gaffe". Journalists would then be forced to think a little harder, and find a word or phrase which actually means something. They could choose from, for example:

• "honest mistake", 
• "change of mind", 
• "straight answer to a straight question", 
• "embarrassing faux pas that any of us could have made", 
• "slip of the tongue of no real consequence", 
• "an attempt at humour which, while perhaps not particularly amusing, could not have caused offence to anyone except the most determined professional offence-taker", 
• "outright duplicity", 
• "blatant deceit",

as appropriate.

Nick Clegg's speech

No-one seems to be telling us where Nick Clegg was when he delivered his speech on political reform.

All the news outlets seem content just to say that he made his "first major speech since being appointed deputy prime minister". Let's emphasise that: his first major speech since being appointed deputy prime minister. This should be a big moment.

But no-one tells us where. Who was in the audience? Was there even an audience?

Look at this screenshot from the BBC:

It looks like he's doing it in his front room. We're all in favour of cutting out the spin doctors, but this doesn't mean you can sack the entire back-stage staff.

Politics is theatre, and you can't run a theatre without stage managers. The actors can't do it on their own. Watch the clip. The passing traffic is more than just a distraction - it becomes more interesting than the speech itself.

Political reform is a nerdy, boring thing for most people. But it's important. It would help if the setting for the speech helped impart a bit of gravitas. Standing in a suburban bay window doesn't do the job.

What's going on? A visiting alien might think that Clegg is being deliberately humiliated by his master Cameron, though in this case our visiting alien would probably be wrong. (He's normally right.)

Who should sit in a reformed House of Lords?

Clegg and Cameron want to reform the House of Lords.

Where do we start? Do we pick an electoral system and then see what kind of Upper House that gives us?

Or should we decide what kind of Upper House we want, and then invent an electoral system that will give us what we want?

Here's who we think should be in a reformed Second Chamber*. Feel free to add your suggestions in the comments.

• scientists
• trade unionists
• engineers
• historians
• businessmen
• charity workers
• teachers
• doctors
• farmers
• nurses
• social workers
• bankers
• policemen
• volunteers
• fishermen
• philosophers
• inventors
• soldiers
• lawyers
• prison governors
• economists
• self-employed people
• artists
• diplomats
• journalists
• railwaymen
• town planners
• probation officers
• ordinary citizens

Of course, politicians being politicians, they'll want to add politicians to that list. And they'll justify it on the grounds that politicians have some special skills that would be needed in a House of Parliament.

Bollocks. Ordinary people will manage just fine. Just watch.

We don't need a government minister for paperclips in the Upper House. A handful of experts on paperclips would be welcome, though.

*There's a strong case to be made for abolishing the second chamber as a legislative organ altogether. But that's for another post.

Now that's what I call a good press

Listen to this: 

"He is fresh-faced, energetic, sincere, whole-hearted, well-mannered, public spirited, amiable, humorous, decent. That's how he appears, and there's no reason to doubt that it's what he's like. There's no reason to think he's fabricating any of it to make himself more attractive."

That's The Independent talking about David Cameron. Wouldya believe it? 

Stalin would have killed for PR like that.

Truly, people, we live in strange times.

Making something very clear

Who said this?

So I want to make something very clear today.

Will I ever join a Conservative government?

No.

I will never allow the Liberal Democrats to be a mere annex to another party's agenda.

You guessed it. It was Nick Clegg, in 2008.

Verily, the past is a foreign country.

Lunchtime entertainment: watch the Deputy Prime Minister speaking Dutch

Isn't this great?

We find it strangely comforting that Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats and now Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingom, can hold forth in the language of Erasmus, Eddie Merckx, Rubens and Herman Van Rompuy.

Simon Hughes - conspicuous by his absence?

Not much has been heard from senior Lib Dem left-winger Simon Hughes since his party tied the knot with the Conservatives this week.

Here's how he describes his political position: "all my adult life I have been on the progressive left or centre left of British politics".

So, how will he respond to this Lib-Con deal? Will he go into guerilla opposition mode, hiding in the political forests to lay ambushes for the new centre-right / progressive / liberal coalition?

Apparently not. He's posted a long article on his website explaining the spiritual gymnastics he's put himself through in order to support his party's position.

Obviously he feels he's got a lot of explaining to do - his article runs to 2,412 words.

Key quotes:

It was clear that the Conservatives were still willing to move further and faster in our direction than Labour.

*

In many ways not being associated with the Conservatives would have been an easier option, and one more natural given our very different political traditions.

*

the result of allowing the conservatives to form a minority government would be quite simply that we would have unqualified and unaltered conservative policies for the whole of the government's term

 *

The final proposals agreed with the Conservatives went much further than any of us could ever have expected. Each of our four major priority areas were agreed - with one exception. Conservatives would not support an immediate move to a fully fair voting system, but they did support a referendum on moving to the Alternative Vote (where people express their preference for candidates rather than just putting one single cross) which is a step in the right direction.

Sounds like he's going to be loyal to his leader and support the coalition. We've not heard a pip from him - or from anyone else - about his absence from the list of ministers in the new Clegg-Cameron government.

Astonishing, really, that such a senior Lib Dem is going to be on the back benches.

So, is it for life? Not quite:

Our ambition is to be in government on our own and we will fight the next general election to win as many seats from all the other parties as possible.

Watch this space.

Ending the war on motorists - a family business?

New Tory transport secretary Philip Hammond's first pronouncement: "We will end the war on motorists".

Is he by any chance related to Top Gear's Richard Hammond?

I think we should be told.

Vince Cable is going to be where the trouble starts

Vince Cable was unable even to begin his sentence when asked if he was looking forward to working with George Osborne. Eventually the interviewer had to supply an answer for him.

The little micro-fractures are there already.

If the Lib-Con deal is all going to fall apart, it will start with Vince. Watch this space.

The only metaphor in town - Clegg & Cameron's great marriage/gay wedding/civil partnership/love-in

The press have joined in the spirit of consensus government. They've become even more unanimous than the Tories and the Lib Dems.

Hark at 'em:

"David Cameron and Nick Clegg finally tie the knot" - BBC Newsnight

"Love-in", "Love-fest" - Daily Telegraph

(Although Benedict Brogan, elsewhere in the Telegraph, claims not to like all this sort of talk:

"The immediate reaction consisted largely of gags about Gilbert and George, civil partnerships and what one Tory described as "the apotheosis of metrosexual, public-school nonsense". There was something about two smoothies in nice suits flaunting their new-found closeness that invited some pretty lowbrow, junior common room humour."

But for all that, he still headlines his own piece with the words "the happy couple", and further down talks about "chatting up" and the "bloke they'd always fancied".)


"not so much a love-in as the exchanging of vows", "the couple who got married the day after meeting in Las Vegas" - Nick Robinson on the BBC

"The No10 love-in" - Daily Mail

"Mock pouting, misty gazing. This was pure Mills & Boon" says Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail. "The Prime Minister said he had thought about forming a minority government. But once he and Nick had talked about it they had realised how much more inspiring it could all be if they went the whole way. Ahem."

"Happy couple Dave and Nick pledge conjugal devotion", "one side for the groom, the other for the other slightly more boyish groomette", "love-in" - The Times


"David Cameron and Nick Clegg: a marriage" - The Guardian


"In the spring garden the Clegg-Cameron civil partnership looked magnificent" - Polly Toynbee in the Guardian


"A shotgun wedding" - Michael White in the Guardian


"This may have been a shotgun wedding, but the couple were determined to convince us that they really have fallen in love", "The posh golden indoor seats outside made it look like a wedding", "the happy couple" - The Independent

"The very closest of mates", "quickest marriage in political history" - The Sun

"An awfully civil partnership" - headlines the FT. "Downing Street’s rose garden was tastefully arranged as if in readiness for a wedding; though in this case it was more of a civil partnership.  The grass was verdant; the sun shone; the blossom was in full bloom. The two young men were nicely turned out and full of sweet things to say about each other. Oh yes, this is going to be a very civil partnership."

"It's love" - says the Express headline.

And then of course Boris Johnson has to go and spoil it all by calling the deal "a kind of cross between a bulldog and a chihuahua".

Matt cartoon on the Clegg-Cameron marriage

Matt, in the Telegraph, has it perfectly, as so often.

UPDATE: the cartoon I wanted to link to has moved. It's now here.

Clegg and Cameron's piece of luck

Never before in the history of British governments have so many ministerial jobs been distributed among so few MPs.

Out of 55 Lib Dem MPs, 20 will get government jobs.

Had Lembit Opik not lost his Montgomeryshire seat, it would have been difficult not to give him a job. He is, after all, one of only three Lib Dem MPs that more than 10% of the public would recognise. (The other two being Nick Clegg and Vince Cable - though Nick Clegg is a latecomer to that list.) (At a pinch we'd give you Charles Kennedy as a fourth - his profile, like that of Lembit Opik, is boosted by regular appearances on Have I Got News For You.)

In many ways we'll all be sad to see Lembit go - but Lembit the in the Ministry? I don't think we're quite ready for that.

Cameron and Clegg will be grateful that in this way, as in so many others, their electoral stars were in perfect alignment.

Matthew Parris says in today's Times that the election worked out perfectly for Clegg and Cameron.

We'd be tempted to say they must have fixed the result - if only we could believe they were capable of fixing something so big and complex as a general election.

A design disaster at the heart of government

Good grief. I thought David Cameron's Downing Street armchair was bad.

Have you seen the Home Office website?

Same designer, I think.

Can anyone tell me - was it orange and blue before, or is this colour scheme all part of the new Lib-Con love-in?

Let's hope Theresa May, with her well-publicised sense of style, can sort this out.

Cameron and Obama on the phone: basic semiotics

Does your body language - or your surroundings - matter when you're on the phone?

Here's Obama talking to Cameron from the Oval Office:

And here's Cameron taking the call in Downing Street:

(from the Prime Minister's Office Flickr Stream)

If the second photo wasn't from the Prime Minister's Office Flickr Stream, you'd think it was some kind of Photoshopped spoof put out by the Labour Party.

I mean, it's not just the dodgy armchair upholstery (though someone ought to give that some thought).

It's the little wobbly table with the trailing phone cable.

It's the biro.

And it's just the general feeling that if is the best Britain can do, who's going to take this country seriously?

If I were a visiting alien chief, I think I'd know which of these two people I should be talking to.

Policy proposal: increase national prestige by scrapping Trident and spending the savings on a better-looking office for the prime minister.

First Prime Ministerial press conference in Downing Street

Cameron is talking.

Clegg is standing next to him trying to look suitably grave.

But Clegg must be pinching himself. Can he really believe he's just one Samantha-Cameron-Going-Into-Labour away from being Prime Minister?

In my previous post I wondered how Nick Clegg's wife must be feeling.

But Clegg himself must be feeling pretty up-ended, too.

Mrs Clegg

Do you think that when Miriam González Durántez woke up this morning she was surprised to find herself married to the Deputy Prime Minister?

I would have been.

PS This post wasn't originally supposed to be about John Prescott. That link just popped up when I Googled "Deputy Prime Minister". My original point was going to be: I bet Miriam González Durántez didn't reckon on waking up to find herself married to the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

"Big, open and comprehensive offer" Mark II

Who said this today?

"We would therefore like to make a big, open and comprehensive offer to Lib Dem supporters to come now and talk"

 David Cameron?

Wrong.

It's those cheeky Greens.

Here's a fuller quote:

"The Lib Dems have made themselves known as a party of dirty tricks in election campaigns. But now, Nick Clegg has carried out the biggest Lib Dem dirty trick so far, betraying all those people who voted Lib Dem because they honestly thought it would bring about electoral reform.

"Many explicitly campaigned as the best way to keep the Tories out of power, as a party of radical change and a party of principle, and they have now been completely let down by Nick Clegg and his top team. These members and supporters did not work hard over the last weeks and months to see their party become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Tories.

"We would therefore like to make a big, open and comprehensive offer to Lib Dem supporters to come now and talk to the Greens instead. Many former Lib Dem members have already found a long-term home with the Greens, including former Lib Dem councillors. Thousands of Lib Dems will be unable to stomach this decision to put David Cameron's Tories into power, and it's time for them to consider coming home to the Greens.

Do you think any Lib Dem MPs will take up the Cheeky Greens' offer? Any names?

Missed punning opportunity for Menzies Campbell

It's a shame Menzies Campbell is no longer the Lib Dem leader.

Think of the fun we could have had talking about a "conmingling" of Tory and Lib Dem policies.

(That said - had Ming Campbell still been running the Lib Dem show, we'd probably not have a Lib-Con coalition today. It was the personal chemistry between Clegg and Cameron that made it happen.)

On legitimacy

The new Cameron-Clegg government will claim democratic legitimacy based on a combined 59.4% of the vote (36.46% Conservative, 23.03% Liberal Democrat).

That's one way of looking at it.

Of course, it's also true to say that not one single vote was cast for a Tory-Lib Dem coalition: there were no ballot papers with that option available, and no party manifesto explicitly offered it either.

0% of the vote looks a lot less legitimate than 59.4%.

What we don't know, and can't know, is how many people were "secretly" hoping for a Lib-Con coalition, while actually voting Tory, Lib Dem, Labour, or none of the above.

List of Old Etonian Prime Ministers

Of the 52 British prime ministers since Walpole, 18 (including David Cameron) were educated at Eton. That's more than 1 in 3.

1. Robert Walpole 1721-1742
2. John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute 1762–1763
3. William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham 1766-1768
4. Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guildford 1770–1782
5. William Grenville 1806–1807
6. George Canning 1827
7. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington 1828–1830 & 1834
8. Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey 1830–1834
9. William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne 1834 & 1835–1841
10. Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby 1852, 1858–1859 & 1866–1868
11. William Gladstone 1868–1874, 1880–1885, 1886 & 1892–1894
12. Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury 1885–1886, 1886–1892 & 1895–1902
13. Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery 1894–1895
14. Arthur Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour 1902-1905
15. Anthony Eden 1955–1957
16. Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton 1957–1963
17. Alec Douglas-Home 1963-1964
18. David Cameron 2010-

UPDATE: a nickcleggsfault visitor enquires if Nick Clegg also attended Eton College. The answer is no. He attended Westminster School.

@HMQueen tweets Brown resignation!

Marina Hyde in the Guardian today:

Happily, we have yet to reach that landmark in human civilisation where the Queen tweets "PM just offered me his resignation & I totes accepted!!! ;-)". But it's presumably just the one election away. 

Cameron's dream, Tory & Lib Dem nightmare

So the Lib Dems have given David Cameron what he has long dreamed of, and what he could never quite achieve on his own: an entrenched leftward shift of the Conservative centre of gravity.

The bedrock of the Conservative party, though, the quiet heartbeat of the Tory shirearchy, will wake up this morning with the terrible realisation that their worst fears about Cameron were justified. He isn't really one of them. Cameron has swept their party out from under their feet.

And the Lib Dems find that their bad dream about finding themselves accidentally in bed with their worst enemy isn't a nightmare at all. It is real.

The Lib Dems will get used to this. It's easier to be a vegetarian among carnivores than a carnivore among vegetarians.

The quiet Conservatives of the Shires, the people who saw in Ian Duncan Smith a reflection of themselves, are going to find it a whole lot harder. They are the ones with the real nightmare.

Tories drop flagship policies

From Benedict Brogan in the Telegraph:

More intriguing are reports that Tories have offered policy concessions to sweeten the deal, including parking recognition of marriage in the tax system and inheritance tax. Can’t see it myself, but that’s the word around the rented trees of Port Ho.

 I can see it clear as daylight.

Cameron doesn't give one hoot, let alone two, about recognition of marriage in the tax system, and, narrow self-interest aside, I don't suppose he gives much of a hoot about inheritance tax either.

These policies were there to keep his right wing happy. That, the Daily Mail, and nothing else.

Now, with a 70-odd majority thanks to a Lib Dem coalition, Cameron can leave his right wing to the dogs. A couple of dozen old unreformables could rebel and they still won't bring down a Lib-Con coalition government.

Cameron will ditch these policies without a moment's regret.

So the Tories knew all along. Did anyone tell Gordon?

It's being suggested on the Telegraph news ticker that the "secret talks" with Labour yesterday were never anything more than going through the motions (for the reason suggested in a previous post).

the Lib Dems had already decided to form a coalition with the Conservatives and were merely "going through the motions" in opening talks with Labour

Malcolm Rifkind clearly didn't spot this.

But maybe Cameron knew. That's why he, Michael Gove and others, were able to take it with such equanimity.

The question though: did Gordon Brown know?


The tantalising possibility: Peter Mandelson knew (or guessed). But he didn't tell Brown. Did he let Brown believe that by resigning as party leader, a Labour-saving deal was possible? 


And so Brown fell on his sword. 


And the Dark Lord chuckled.

Tory policy: what a difference a few days make

Who'd of thunked it?

Conservative government policy is about to contain great chunks of the Lib Dem manifesto.

You've got to hand it to the Lib Dems - however cack-handedly they've handled these negotiations (and maybe there was no other way), they've squeezed the Tories by the gonads and, by god, they haven't half squeaked.

Simon Hughes on PM just now

Simon Hughes has just been speaking to Carolyn Quinn on BBC Radio 4's PM programme.

He confirmed what I said yesterday, that the Lib Dem's "two-timing" talks with Labour were a necessary step. Nick Clegg needed these talks to happen, simply so he could show his MPs and activists that he had explored every option. The fact that talks with Labour took place should be enough to allow a deal with the Tories to get through the Lib Dem's "triple lock" - however much some Lib Dem grandees may want to hold their noses.

Winners and losers

So it looks like it will be Lib-Con after all.

Back, in other words, to where we were 23 1/2 hours ago.

Who has gained, and who has lost, from this apparent Lib Dem flip-flop?

Loser #1: Nick Clegg. See below.

Loser #2: Gordon Brown. He has lost his job without winning the prize for the Labour Party.

Winner #1: The Labour Party has probably emerged a little stronger.

The Conservatives will probably be going into this little coalition feeling a little less charitable towards Clegg and their other new Lib Dem colleagues than they were feeling this time yesterday.

The Lib Dems might have squeezed a little bit more out of the Tories - but there's no guarantee they'll get AV, let alone PR.

On the other hand, the Lib Dems have emerged from the last 24 hours looking a little grubby. The other two parties have emerged quite well.


Nick Clegg's perceived two-timing - however much it may have been forced on him by the elder statesmen within his party (Ashdown & co.) - will have tarnished his image, and this will hurt him and his party at the next election.

Desperate times for Peter Mandelson

Labour MPs are waking up to the fact that the Labour side of the Lib-Lab talks is being controlled by an unelected cabal with the "Dark Lord" Mandelson at its heart.

They're not liking it, and they're starting to turn against the idea of a Lib-Lab minority coalition. Kate Hoey, Diana Johnson, Michael Meacher - the list is growing. Jack Straw is palpably not keen. Blunkett and Reid have been against it from the start.

Looks like Mandy's coup is beginning to fall apart.

But don't expect him to accept defeat and walk away.

Could he take Lord Adonis and Miliband Snr over to the Orange Side and join the Lib Dems?

Or might David Cameron be in for a surprise when he heads to the Palace tomorrow to kiss the Queen's hand?

Her Majesty slips off her mask and, beckoning him close, and whispers into Dave's ear: "It's me - Peter. I think you'll agree this is for the best. Just let's keep this between ourselves for the time being, shall we? Don't worry - I've arranged for Charles to be dealt with."

The (Labour) Party's over. We'll have a Lib-Con deal within 24 hours

This blog's call:

Lib Dem MPs will now bow to the arithmetically inevitable, tuck in behind their leader Nick Clegg, and - reluctantly - back a Lib Dem - Tory deal.

If they'd done this 24 hours ago there would have been a lot of goodwill on the Conservative side. The shenanigans of Clegg's last-ditch flirtation with a de-Browned Labour Party have will have soured things, though - with who-knows-what consequences for the long-term stability of the coalition.

And so it came to pass: Peter Mandelson's coup

Back on 22nd April, this blog was telling you that Mandelson was buttering up Nick Clegg for good reason.

Mandelson reckons Clegg will never agree to support a Brown-led Labour minority government. But by buttering up Clegg now, Mandelson is preparing the ground for his own post-election coup

And, whaddyaknow, yesterday Brown resigns, and suddenly a Labour - Liberal Democrat coalition minority government, with Brown out of the picture, looks the most likely outcome.

A triumph for Mandelson? Wait, there's more. Back in April, this blog went to far as to suggest that Mandelson was sweet-talking Clegg so that he (Mandelson) would be able to seize power as soon as Brown was dispatched.

Fanciful?

Here's what Guido's got to say this morning:

With David Miliband as Labour leader Mandelson could rule by proxy as regent. 

You heard it here first...

When is a resignation not a resignation?

When it's a Gordon Brown.

A visitor from Outer Space would be surprised to learn that the man who has supposedly "resigned" this afternoon could well still be Prime Minister in September.

I suspect quite a few Earthlings will find this strange, too.

Lib-Lab vs Lib-Con: a Lib-Con coalition is the "progressive" choice now

If you want to see a broadly "progressive" outcome to all this, you should be praying for a Lib Dem - Conservative coalition now.

Why?

Because that way you'll get a two or three years of broadly centrist Lib-Con government.

Back a flimsy Lib - Lab coalition now, and you'll see both Labour and Liberal Democrats annihilated in an autumn election. Then a right-wing Tory government with a convincing majority will get in, and stay in.

Nick Clegg will be ancient history, no-one will agree with him any more, and yes, it will indeed have been all his fault.

As predicted...

Brown pitches in: he's resigning.

Who'd have guessed it?

Brown's last gasp?

Seems like Clegg + Cameron are hours away from announcing their deal.

Is there anything left that could scupper it?

How about this? Some time this afternoon, BEFORE any Lib-Con announcement, Brown announces he is resigning as Labour leader, with immediate effect.

Media limelight swings instantly to 10 Downing Street. Left-wing Liberals' hope rises again. Everything back up in the air. Lib-Con pact put on hold.

Gordon Brown's parting shot: one final swing of the wrecking ball. Don't bet against it.

This is Cameron's big opportunity to break free from his right wing

The Conservatives' failure to win an outright majority suits Cameron very nicely.

With a tiny majority, Cameron would have been held hostage on every vote by a squad of trouble-making Tory right-wingers.

With a Lib-Con pact, Cameron can afford to ignore his right wing - the Lib Dems can bail him out even if a dozen right wing head-bangers turn against him.

I think this suits Cameron very well. He's instinctively much more liberal than the bulk of his party. I don't think he gives two hoots about promoting marriage through the tax system - that policy was a sop to his right wing which he will now be able, and more than happy, to ditch.

Lib Dem "Secret Meetings" with Labour

Who gains from the leaking of "secret" talks between Lib Dem and Labour?

Boring answer: Lib Dems - helps strengthen their negotiating position with Tories, by showing that they've always got a Plan B available.

Right answer: Nick Clegg wins, because he can use these meetings as evidence to persuade his reluctant party that every effort to find common ground with Labour has been made. "Alas," says Nick, "these meetings came to nothing."

And so Clegg can lead his reluctant party into bed with Cameron.

Which is exactly what Cameron wants, too.

Nick Clegg on PM with Eddie Mair

Mair asked several questions which I bet Clegg hadn't rehearsed for.

Including:

Q. How many zeros in a billion?

Q. When did you last cry?

Clegg answered the first one correctly.

 

A nickcleggsfault badge for your Twitter

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Now I'm saying it again.

You'll be wanting one of these:

You can get one at http://twibbon.com/join/nickcleggsfault.

Why not pop along? They're ever so nice.

Lib-Con?

Reasons to read Matthew Parris in today's Times:

• He's always interesting
• He's often plausible

On the other hand:

• He's often wrong
• He writes for Murdoch

On balance, I'd give it a read.

Not pretty

Have you seen this picture? You should.

"You're offering slogans, not solutions," it says at the top of Brown's crib-sheet.

And then:

"Oh boy, the Iranians are going to love you, Nick"

"You can phone a friend, you can ask the audience, or you can go 50:50 with Nick"

Sometimes Brown really sickens me.

Other times, I just think he's a nasty thug.

A modest proposal

Last week Cameron said that if Clegg gets in the Chinese will come and nuke our Tridentless ass.

The trouble with Trident is that it's very expensive. (It may also be immoral and make the world less secure, but let's put that to one side.)

If we really need a like-for-like replacement for Trident, I think we can do it. For pennies.

Just look here. It's still called Trident. It's secret anyway so no-one needs to see it. No-one needs to know that it's less intense. It doesn't matter that it can't flatten Shanghai in an instant. Nukes aren't for using, anyway, are they? That's what deterrence is all about, right?

Chinese General 1: Hey I'm bored, let's nuke those English bastards.
Chinese General 2: Yeahbut they've got Trident, innit?
Chinese General 1: OK let's nuke someone else then.

Sounds daft? Well, let's take it one step further.

Have you ever seen, with your own eyes, one of our Trident missiles? Know anyone who has?

No?

Let me put it this way. There is no budget deficit. We just pretend there is, so that the Chinese think we're spending billions on nukes, not pennies on chewing gum.

It's called Realpolitik, comrades.

"Nick, you're a risk to our security"

And so it came to pass.

As I predicted yesterday, Brown didn't play Mr Nice Guy with Nick Clegg.

"Nick, you're a risk to our security," said Brown. That's pretty rude. Absurd, too, but it might resonate with some.

The really interesting thing is the contrast between Brown's attack on Clegg, and Mandelson's impassioned defence of Clegg.

Keep watching for Mandelson's post-election coup. It's coming, and Brown knows it. And he's not going to go quietly.

Mandelson's charm offensive: a disguised dagger in Brown's back?

Will Brown follow Mandelson's lead and try to take the heat off Clegg tonight?

Mandelson's line at lunchtime was basically: Nick Clegg is as infallible as the Pope, or perhaps a little more so.  Anything else is just Tory smears.

Why is Mandelson quite so keen to shield Clegg?

Theory 1 says that Mandelson wants to puff up the Libdem vote simply so Labour can do its arithmetic trick: 3rd place in the share of the vote, first place in terms of seats. Labour stay in power, propped up by 100 Lib Dem MPs.

Theory 2, though, says that Mandelson reckons Clegg will never agree to support a Brown-led Labour minority government. But by buttering up Clegg now, Mandelson is preparing the ground for his own post-election coup:

Here's how it works:

• The election produces a hung parliament, with Labour the largest party in terms of seats.
• Clegg says no to a deal with Brown.
• Brown resigns as PM.
• Clegg lets it be known that a deal with a Mandelson-led Labour government would be acceptable.

Couple of problems:

• Mandelson doesn't have a seat in the Commons. He'd find a way around that. An immediate second election would find him a seat, and the Lib-Lab coalition would romp home.
• Labour MPs wouldn't like a Mandelson + Clegg stitch-up very much. But if that was the price for keeping the Tories out of power, perhaps forever - well, I think they could just about live with that, don't you?

Brown surely knows what Mandelson is up to. So how's he going to play Clegg tonight? 

Let's watch.

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