Taking some time off
I'm away for a few days but back when MPs go on their hols - why is everyone's Easter holiday different this year?!!
Archives for March 2008
No 'one-night stand'
Well now we have the official answer.
"I don't think it's a matter of a one-night stand. I think we now go into the next day's breakfast" said the president in answer to my question about how we would feel on the morning after the heady night before. And, what's more, Gordon Brown agreed.
In fact, Nicolas and Gordon - this was an all "first name terms" affair - agreed on pretty much everything when and if they could.
There were mere hints of disagreements still there on agriculture, the EU budget and NATO. Even on the one topic where they did split - in protest at China's crackdown in Tibet - the two men were careful to explain why they disagreed. Brown, Sarkozy said, was the host of the next games whilst he would be in the EU president's chair and would have to consult the other members.
I spoke to Arsenal's manager, Arsene Wenger, after the summit at the Emirates stadium. He'd been invited to join the leaders for lunch and was struck by how well they worked together and at how Britain no longer looked exclusively across the Atlantic and France no longer across the border to Germany for friends.
This then did represent a concerted effort on both sides to put the bitter rows about Iraq, "our money" and their farmers behind us.
Let's though see how we all feel at breakfast time or - at least - the next time there's something real that divides the two nations.
French flattery
Emirates stadium, Arsenal, North London
We've been flattered. We've been charmed. We've been wooed. And I'm only talking about the French president and not his photogenic wife, Carla.
Nicolas Sarkozy's mission on this trip has been to seduce the British public as he did the French electorate and, of course, Carla too (but has been ). This, I confess, leaves me feeling rather - aware of where I am and yet somehow feeling lost.* At every Anglo-French summit presser I've attended my job's been simplicity itself - simply light the blue touch paper and watch the differences explode in a mixture of Gallic indignation and British exasperation. So, now what are we to do?
- not just for our role in two world wars, not just as the founders of parliamentary democracy but also as a model since - go way beyond what any previous president has said. Sarkozy and Brown have a shared history of waiting impatiently for the top job, of soaring and then plummeting in public esteem and of genuine mutual admiration. Today they are announcing co-operation on immigration, the economy, defence, development and nuclear power to illustrate the rhetoric about a new Franco-British fraternity". And yet and yet...
Britain has always seen France's concept of European defence co-operation as a potential threat to NATO and not something that underpins it.
Britain continues to promote free trade whilst France under President Sarkozy continues to talk about protectionism.
Britain wants radical reform of the CAP and European budget whilst France will fight to protect her interests.
Now, you may say, countries will always have differences and they will always pursue their national interests. What matters is the mood with which they approach the problems that emerge. Certainly, this visit feels very very different from the icy Chirac/Blair summits - at least the ones in later years.
However, the question hanging over this "entente amicale" is how will we feel the morning after the heady night before?
* Hats off to my colleagues at ITN who noticed the Queen waiting for Mr Brown to arrive at last night's Windsor banquet and remarking that "Well the prime minister got lost. He disappeared the wrong wayâŠat the crucial moment".
Bye Bye Barnett?
The skids appear finally to be under the - the Treasury formula, which some allege, ensures that Scotland gets more than its fair share of public spending. And all because of an announcement barely noticed South of the border.
Yesterday the Unionist parties in the Scottish Parliament with the backing of the UK government. Now if you live nearer Acton or Accrington or Aberystwyth than Aberdeen you may wonder why this matters to you. The answer is that the Commission will examine not just the powers but the finances of the Scottish government.
Labour's Scottish leader has argued that the Scotland government needs to take more responsibility for what it spends - in other words, having to raise taxes when it wants to raise spending or, indeed, being able to cut them if it wants to stimulate the Scottish economy. This will inevitably raise questions about our old friend Barnett.
Not nearly soon enough for a growing number of ministers in Whitehall whose fear is focussed more on the threat of the Tories in England and less on the threat of the SNP in Scotland. They fear that the Shadow Chancellor George Osborne may do to Barnett what he did to inheritance tax ie make a vote winning pre-election announcement that he is handing cash back to hard pressed English voters. Thus, they are urging that the Treasury paper setting out the way Barnett works due later this year should be the beginning of the end for the formula.
Expenses battle goes on
Curiouser and curiouser.
The Commons authorities have now changed their minds - not once but several times it seems - so I must change my story.
Having been advised there were no legal grounds for appeal, the Committee chaired by the Speaker has now been told that, after all, they can appeal on two legal grounds - the security of MPs and the legitimate expectation of MPs that their information would be kept secret.
Thus, the battle is far from over and goes on and both the final outcome and the timetable for it cannot be predicted.
Read all about it ....
After years of fighting demands that they should account for the public money spent on MPs expenses, the House of Commons is about to reluctantly accept defeat.
Today is the deadline for an appeal to be lodged against a ruling ordering the publication of a detailed breakdown of claims to fund and furnish the second homes of . An all party committee chaired by the Speaker has been advised that there's no legal basis for this and so they must accept the verdict of a recent Freedom of Information tribunal.
Thus we may learn - if we care to - what Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and John Prescott spent on everything from their mortgage to soft furnishings and how that compares with the amounts spent and the items chosen by David Cameron, George Osborne, William Hague or Sir Menzies Campbell.
More significantly, this decision will signal that the Speaker and representatives of all parties now accept that, however deep their misgivings (and they are deep), they accept that further moves to block publication are either impossible or would cause further damage to Parliament's reputation.
Today's decision will open the floodgates to demands for more information although, in theory, those floodgates could open very very slowly. The Speaker's Committee has been advised that they could drag their feet on each new request for information. The law limits the amount of time which the Commons authorities is obliged to spend compiling an answer to a Freedom of Information request.
They've been advised that in the maximum time allowed (three and a half days) the expenses of just four MPs could be produced. The law also prevents what could be seen as concerted attempts to reveal data by, for example, dozens of requests for the expenses of groups of four MPs.
Furthermore, the law allows six weeks for the Commons to respond to orders to publish whilst they decide whether to appeal. Thus, in theory, it could take 20 years until all the expenses of all MPs made it into the public domain.
However, as I reported, a couple of weeks ago, the Speaker's Committee will soon set out plans to publish all the expenses of all MPs for the past three years. This is likely to happen in October.
The one issue which has yet to be resolved is the question of whether MPs addresses can be protected even when they are not considered terrorist targets. The tribunal rejected this in the case of the 14. However, the authorities are hopeful that they can still make a case that MPs' addresses should be withheld in case they or their families become targets for attack at some future date.
Along with reforms to their system of expenses, MPs hope that their belated conversion to openness will - eventually - limit the stream of stories on what they spend on themselves and return the focus to what they do for everyone else.
I hope so too.
Update 11.55
The Freedom of Information Tribunal has just said it is giving a two day extension - until Thursday at 4pm - to the 14 leading MPs to argue against details of their expenses being released.
One more thing. Before anyone cries "hypocrite", let me draw your attention to the ±«Óătv's refusal to publish my expenses. You can read their reasons in the letter sent to Guido Fawkes which is .
I hope that I have never got on my "high horse" about MPs' expenses. I am aware that there are many, many more pressing issues to cover. However, I have chronicled the attempts of MPs to deny the public information which they are now going to have to publish and to defend a system of expenses which they are now committed to reforming radically.
Incidentally, a ±«Óătv request for the full expenses breakdown (as against only "second home") of six MPs and former MPs - Messrs Blair, Brown, Prescott, Howard, Kennedy and Jonathan Sayeed - passes its deadline today. We wait to see how the Commons authorities will respond. Hypocrisy-watchers may like to note that the request was made three years ago when I worked at ITN!
Just visiting jail
"It's like a holiday camp". So said one "old lag" (though just 25 he'd already spent 10 years inside) to the justice secretary on a in Surrey. Jack Straw was showing me round a new block at Highdown prison. It's one part of a prison building programme which he hopes will avert a prison crisis.
Houseblock 5 at Highdown is much much nicer than the rest of the prison. If you're in "5" you get a cell to yourself with a TV (prisoners have had TVs since a decision taken by Mr Mr Straw a decade ago when he was home secretary) and there's even a socket for a PC - although, the justice secretary is quick to say he won't sanction that luxury.
Elsewhere in the prison life is far from being like a holiday camp - three men have to share small cells built for two. All parties agree that prison overcrowding means that prisoners cannot do the courses and do not have the space to prepare for a successful return to the real world.
The new cells are part of what's meant to be a solution to the prisons crisis. Figures out today show that the number of spare prison places in England and Wales amounts to just one half of one per cent of the total - that's 470 out of more than 82,000. If it weren't for the use of police cells and the controversial policy of early release the prison system would already be in meltdown.
The problem is that as quickly as ministers build new prison places, the courts have been filling them. The block I visited and one next to it which opens soon cost ÂŁ60 million to build. Each could be filled in just a week by the extra prisoners coming from the courts. As a result Mr Straw says that he cannot rule out extending the early release scheme in the future. He told me that:
"Nobody in my position can rule out emergency measures but, by God, I'm working very, very hard to avoid that because this is all about maintaining the confidence of the public."
And, though wary of telling the courts what to do, he has this piece of advice for them: "Short sentences are a matter for the courts to decide and it has to be for them. What I am saying, however, is just think about whether community punishments in appropriate circumstances, which can be very tough, and on average can work better than short sentences, should not be used."
The justice scretary was speaking to me ahead of a major speech on penal policy which he will deliver next Wednesday.
Team Brown's a-changing
Out goes the first member of Team Brown since Gordon made it to Number 10. , who's been at Gordon Brown's side for a decade and fought for him to get to No. 10, is just as many senior figures from that world have headed in the other direction.
In first came - formerly of JWT, NTL, OFCOM and Brunswick. He then brought in Nick Stace, former director of campaigns and communications at Which?, David Muir, of WPP empire and the co-author of The Business Of Brands and the former investment banker, Jennifer Moses. of the new arrivals is worth a read.
Who's next for the revolving door?
Expense account
The detailed expenses of every Member of Parliament are likely to be made public for the first time. An all party committee chaired by the Speaker looks set to recommend that the claims made by MPs over the past three years should be published later this year.
Sources have told me that there appear to be no legal grounds for an appeal against a recent Freedom of Information tribunal ruling, which orders the publication of the expenses of 14 prominent MPs and former MPs including Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and John Prescott; David Cameron, George Osborne and William Hague; and Sir Menzies Campbell.
Within weeks the Commons will publish the receipts and bills submitted by those MPs and the authorities are already preparing for a flood of other FOI requests. In theory, they could delay granting each of these requests, dragging out the process of publication over many years. However, sources have told me that senior MPs on all sides of the House now believe that it would be better to publish the claims of all MPs by the end of this year.
Earlier today the Commons published the so-called of items that could be paid for using MPs allowances. Later this month the House of Commons Members Estimates Committee will publish options for replacing the allowances with either an increase in salary; a daily allowance - which could amount to ÂŁ160 to cover accommodation and food; or a mixture of the two. Whichever of these systems MPs agree to would end a system which allows MPs to claim up to ÂŁ750 for a TV, ÂŁ200 for a nest of tables and ÂŁ10,000 for a new kitchen. It would also end the possibility of further embarrassing FOI requests.
Spending before saving
Britain's most effective pressure group appears at first glance to be... the Conservative Party.
Want cuts in inheritance tax?
. .
Want a tax on non-doms?
then .
Want a tougher crack down on incapacity benefit claimants?
Yes, you've guessed it, the Tories called for it and today .
Now I did say "at first glance" because the truth is, and the Tories privately acknowledge it, that many of the ideas they've called for have originally come from the Labour Party or - to be more precise - from Blairites.
Take today's example. It was Blairite John Hutton who, as minister for welfare, commissioned the which recommended new medical tests for all existing incapacity benefit claimants. The Tories took up the idea when they saw Chancellor Gordon Brown resist it.
Their claim that they could cut taxes with the money saved convinced Prime Minister Brown that he was, after all, in favour of it.
So it is with the more important part of today's welfare announcement which is a dull-sounding accounting change but which has huge significance. It's called AME-DEL - not after the names of two benefit claimants but as an acronym of two budget headings - Annual Managed Expenditure and Departmental Expenditure Limits.
Benefits - a whopping ÂŁ37 billion for those of working age - are paid for under AME which are controlled annually as the name suggest. Back to work programmes are, however, paid for from the much smaller three year departmental budget set aside for them - around ÂŁ420 million in 2006/7 - covered by DEL.
David Freud - who was commissioned by John Hutton - had the idea - which he borrowed from America - and - and which the government will today announce pilot schemes for.
The idea is to make money from AME and give it to DEL. In other words, to change the rules to allow ministers to spend some of the money they've set aside for future benefit payments on getting people back to work now.
Simple sounding but a truly radical step for the Treasury as they'll be spending money before they've saved it.
Dull and grey
The man was the message. Alistair Darling, the chancellor mocked for being dull and grey and lacking charisma delivered a Budget which was, well, a wee bit dull and grey and lacking anything very much to get political pulses racing. That, though, was the point. Indeed, it had been the advance billing from the Treasury.
That is why Mr Darling dubbed his own statement "the responsible Budget". That is why he repeatedly pledged to maintain "stability".
Starved of funds and still paying the price for producing too many rabbits from his hat in last year's pre-Budget Report, Mr Darling posed today as the unflashy man who you can trust to maintain a steady course as fierce global economic winds batter Britain.
The chancellor did, however, make two big choices today - one political, one economic.
First he dared to force people to "think before they drink before they drive" - by raising taxes on alcohol and cars to pay for a renewed effort to cut child poverty and to subsidise pensioners soaring fuel bills.
His second choice was, you might think, rather out of character - to gamble that Britain's economy will weather the storms and that the country's soaring borrowing will eventually take care of itself.
Benefit tests
A little noticed announcement in the Budget today indicated that all long-term recipients of incapacity benefit will have to undergo new tougher medical tests - called work capability assessments. The tests are designed to ensure that more IB claimants return to work and have already been introduced for new claimants.
The chancellor said today that the tests for existing claimants would begin in 2010. He was adopting an idea first proposed by , the investment banker who's advised ministers on welfare reform, and which is already Conservative party policy.
This move will allow Labour to claim that the Tories will not be able to make any savings from a more radical approach to welfare and, therefore, that their public spending plans don't add up. That's why James Purnell is the minister being put up to open the Commons Budget debate. He's likely to ask two questions of the Tories - would you spend the money we're spending on cutting child poverty and, if so, where will you get the money from since you won't make any savings on welfare and you've already promised much more than you can afford?
Financial hangover
If you're a binge drinker you've got one more weekend to do it before it hurts your wallet as well as your liver. Beer's up 4p a pint, wine 14p a bottle and spirits 55p but not till this Sunday. So, as predicted, booze and gas guzzlers are paying to help poorer families and pensioners struggling to pay their fuel bills.
Overall this Budget ensured that heavy drinkers will get a financial hangover whilst promising that the British economy need not suffer one even as the world does.
Daily Mail victory
The chancellorâs announced not a tax on plastic bags but the threat of a new law which could force supermarkets to charge for them if they don't do enough to cut their use. We don't need to wait for the Daily Mail headline proclaiming victory - they were given the story yesterday. How long can it be before it's "Arise Lord Dacre."
Small measures
The clearest sign of how tight the public finances are is the small sums the chancellor's announcing. A few tens of millions of pounds may sound a lot but in Treasury terms they're a spare fiver and that's the sort of sum he's announced for many of his measures.
The big exception is measures to tackle child poverty costing around three quarters of a billion pounds. A lot but a fraction of the estimated ÂŁ3.4bn required to get the government back on course for its target. We will soon discover how much new cars, pints of beer and bottles of wine and spirits will go up to pay for that.
Benefit rules
Changes to benefit rules (to allow people to earn more before they lose housing and council tax benefit) together with increases to child benefit and child tax credit are designed to get the government back on course to meet their target to halve child poverty by 2010.
Revised forecasts
âŠ.The chancellor comparing every one of his own revised forecasts - for growth, borrowing and debt - with those under the last Tory government. His message - it maybe tough this year but nothing like as bad as âŠ.
We've just had the first small surprise of the Budget - the chancellor's increasing petrol duty in 2010 above that already announced for "environmental reasons". He announced this while confirming that the 2p duty rise this year will be postponed for six months.
Not much of a boast
"We are better placed than other economies to withstand the global economic slowdown". That is the key claim at the heart of Alistair Darling's budget today. He boasted at the top of his speech that the economy will grow this year and next - not much of a boast.
In one sentence
What you'll see is what you'll get. That's the message coming from the Treasury this morning. They insist that even after the experts have thumbed through the Red Book of figures and forecasts and got their calculators out they will not find a hidden tax rise. So what can you expect from the man who has no money to give away and dare not raise much in taxes?
I'll try to sum it up in a sentence : Booze and gas guzzlers pay to cut child and fuel poverty.
Safe pair of hands
It's official. A Treasury official that "this is not the time for a pulse racing budget". This, they did not add, is hardly the chancellor to deliver a pulse racing budget. That though may, curiously, help Alistair Darling on a day when he wishes to reconnect his name with the phrase "safe pair of hands".
After the groans and jeers that followed his "Anything you can do I can do better" Pre-Budget Report (not to mention Gordon Brown's last "2p or not 2p" budget) last year, Darling is promising that this time there'll be no rabbits pulled from hats and no pyrotechnics.
What can you expect instead? Much talk of the charting a steady course through stormy global waters. Mr Darling's told colleagues at the Treasury about a visit to his Edinburgh supermarket when he heard two old ladies talking about the "sub prime crisis". His aim today is to make sure that when people worry about the squeeze in their finances or their falling house price or whether there'll be a recession that they're talking about that and not about a government that got good headlines on budget day only to see them unravel a day or two later.
UPDATE, 08:55: We now know the title of today's Budget and it sure ain't catchy. It's "Stability and Opportunity - building a strong sustainable future". Earlier in the week I set out my idea for a title. Can you do better?
Celebrating Britishness
Is it really un-British to celebrate Britishness?
That's the question which has been triggered by that schoolchildren take part in citizenship ceremonies including, perhaps, an oath of allegiance to Queen and country.
Much the same reaction was triggered when Gordon Brown mused aloud about whether there was a British equivalent to the pride Americans took in flying their flag, leading many to fly them in their gardens.
Baroness Kennedy's called today's idea "silly" and "an empty gesture". The SNP government in Edinburgh have said . Even Team Brown sound rather lukewarm - welcoming the report as a contribution to debate.
However, no-one should be in any doubt that the prime minister believes that government can and should play a role in helping shape people's sense of what it means to be British. Before he moved to No. 10, many suggested that this was simply a ruse by Gordon Brown to distract from his Scottishness.
That was always too simple and too cynical. Brown is worried about social cohesion and he's also concerned about the threat posed to what you might call social democratic values by the growing sense of "unfairness" felt by many voters in response to mass immigration.
It is oft asserted that only "new" countries such as the US or post-war West Germany or those who've been through revolutions such as France can enjoy the simplicity of a national slogan - "Liberty, equality, fraternity" - or a written constitution or a national story like the "American Dream".
Not so, argues Brown, pointing out that the famous slogan at the base of the Statue of Liberty - "Bring me your huddled masses" - was added 17 years after the statue was erected as part of America's developing national story.
Thus, this government has introduced citizenship ceremonies, has just published proposals on so-called "", is working on a consultative process to write a British statement of values and is committed to a British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.
The debate about Britishness isn't going to go away even if the idea of schoolchildren swearing allegiance to the Queen does.
Oh, and by the way, the Goldsmith Review contains much more than just that - it proposes, amongst other things, that Westminster, like Holyrood, should have a Public Petitions Committee to give proper consideration to public lobbying and a pre-election Deliberation Day to invite all parts of the community to participate in publicly sponsored debates and discussions about the issues facing the electorate.
(pdf)
PS: I see that MPs are beginning to reform themselves. A new ÂŁ25 limit for unreceipted expenses and a promise of a new audit system have followed the register of family members in employment today.
Naming the Budget
Journalists can't resist giving budgets titles. Already many have, rather absurdly in my view, started to call this week's offering a "Green Budgetâ.
Unable to resist the temptation, let me suggest a better title - the âRepairs Budgetâ (yes, I know you can do better so please let me have your suggestions). Why? Since the aim of this Budget will be to make a number of crucial repairs:
âą The hole in the government's finances. Alistair Darling has made clear there'll be (that's what he means by saying that fiscal policy will back up monetary policy). However, he's likely to set out policies that will increase tax revenues over time. Don't expect these to be labelled tax rises (deary me, no). They will, instead, be heralded as measures to tackle climate change and the binge drinking culture.
âą Gordon Brown's reputation for economic competence. This took a knock thanks to Northern Rock, last autumn's "Magpie Budget" (in reality the pre-Budget report) which "stole" Tory proposals to cut inheritance tax and tax non-doms and the bungled handling of capital gains tax changes.
âą Alistair Darling's reputation. Damaged by all the above and by replacing a successful well known chancellor at the very time the economy turned, Mr Darling will want to restore his connection to the phrase that followed him throughout his ministerial career - "a safe pair of hands".
âą The government's relationship with business. The poor handling of the announcements on non-doms and capital gains tax has led to a loss of faith in ministers in the business community. Gordon Brown's business Goat, Lord Digby Jones, has almost said as much. His old chums at the have said so explicitly. The Tory vultures are waiting to pounce.
âą Labour's reputation for tackling child poverty. Ministers will not meet their target of with their current policies. Campaigners accuse them of putting tax cuts for the rich ahead of meeting their promises to the poor in the pre-Budget report. So, whether through changes to tax credits or measures to tackle fuel poverty, expect action here.
Lib Dems get noticed
Get noticed. That is always the first challenge for any new Lib Dem leader.
Itâs unlikely that before he got the job, Nick Clegg would have planned to get noticed in the way he did this week: by accepting the and presiding over a .
Nor, one suspects, would he have chosen to do it whilst taking the some of the blame for on Europe.
So why did he order his MPs to sit on their hands, to vote neither yes nor no in this weekâs referendum vote in the Commons? That is the question being asked not least by those heading today to the in Liverpool.
The answer is that he feared something much worse. Given a free vote, a vast majority of his MPs â some suggest as many as 50 - would have voted with the Tories to try and force a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and to defeat the government.
The problem is that a number of key figures would have refused to join them. The former leader , the man Nick Clegg narrowly beat, and above all, himself.
All passionate pro-Europeans, they believed it would have been irresponsible to risk derailing the EU treaty by forcing a referendum which the government might well have lost.
There was one other big problem. Those voting with the Tories may well have been led by one Vince Cable. The man who made his name thanks to , to and to being acting leader and whoâs proved such a .
So Nick Clegg couldnât vote Yes to a referendum on Lisbon and most of his MPs wouldnât vote No. So the parliamentary party agreed to vote neither and to live with the consequences.
It was though, his decision to pick a fight with the other parties and the Speaker of the Commons for the only Euro referendum he says the country should have: one on whether to stay in the EU or to get out.
It was also he who sanctioned the decision to stage a walkout from the Commons chamber in protest at the refusal of a debate on that option.
A decision described as a student prank by some of those very high up in the Liberal Democrat party.
The result: That Nick Clegg first got properly noticed for that split in his party.
He hopes though this week that the public may also have noticed one other thing â that he took a principled stand on something he cares deeply about despite the obvious problems.
ID cards
Highlighting the gains, limiting the pain. That is what seems to be about. Ministers are aware that when Tony Blair mounted his pulpit to proclaim the virtue of ID cards and "biometrics" he looked like a man with blind faith in the latest technological wheeze rather than someone with a practical case about how the cards might help change all our lives for the better.
Thus, today's strategy:
âą Targets foreigners (or, at least, those from outside the EU) and people working in sensitive locations, such as airports, for the first compulsory ID cards. You can hear ministers at the next election asking their opponents - "Would you rather we didn't know who was coming here and we didn't check on those with the access to place a bomb on a plane?"
âą Lures young people to apply for a card to help them apply for a bank account, accommodation or a loan. I await publication of the strategy to see if it answers the question "Will you be able to get a student loan without being finger printed and, if so, how much harder will it be?"
âą Seeks to convince the rest of us that ID cards will be a "stronger, safer, more convenient way" to protect our identity.
âą Reassures people that we won't have to carry the card and, indeed, could do without the things altogether if we're happy to use our passport (or something else carrying our fingerprints) as an identity document instead.
Postpones any discussion of making ID cards compulsory for all a long way into the future - probably after the election after the next one
Opponents will insist that "it's the database, stupid". In other words, what matters is not the card itself but the storing of your fingerprint and other data by the state and the growing demands that you should produce them to go about your ordinary business.
The polls - once overwhelmingly in favour of ID cards (on the "I've got nothing to hide" argument) recently tipped over to opposition ("You can't trust them with your data").
By stopping the preaching of her old boss and adopting the reassuring tones of a bank manager Jacqui Smith is hoping to tip those polls back again.
Update: Fascinating new insight into last night's Commons vote from the team at . Cameron suffered a big rebellion last night with Eurosceptics marching into the lobbies with Bill Cash ignoring their Master's Voice.
The party splitter
Europe is a party splitter - always has been - perhaps always will be. What no-one could have guessed before today was that it would be the over calls for a referendum.
Gordon Brown's decision to reverse Tony Blair's U-turn on the issue of letting the public have the final say has met with no resistance at the top of his party. His explanation that it is the treaty - and not just his own position - that has changed has not convinced a sizeable number of his backbenchers but this is a rebellion he'll live with.
The Tories are - bar a Clarke-ite handful - united on the call for a referendum. However, their Euro divisions could very easily and painfully re-occur if the is ratified and when David Cameron faces calls from within his party for a wholesale renegotiation of Britain's membership of the EU.
There is no position that Nick Clegg could have taken on a referendum which would have united the Lib Dems who are torn between a desire to proclaim their credentials as the most pro-European party and the fear of many of their MPs, particularly in the South West, that that position would cost them their jobs.
However, the new Lib Dem leader did not have to choose to have a very public row about this and, indeed, his first as leader. His gamble is that the public will have seen him take a principled stand for an IN/OUT referendum on Europe. The risk is that the public may recall another Lib Dem split before remembering what it was that caused it.
Spending when money is tight
Today David Cameron announced that he was setting up a commission on restoring the between the armed forces and society as a whole.
Curiously he omitted a line from his prepared speech about Labour cutting defence spending. It's yet another sign that he is struggling to control the pressure coming from within his party to spend more and tax less.
A battalion of former generals and admirals argue that a big increase in defence spending will be needed when the Tories come to power. Privately many of his own MPs agree.
Earlier this week but no extra spending. This followed, I'm told, a behind the scenes row about the need for more cash for more prison places and bobbies on the beat.
Last week his health spokesman stumbled into suggesting that there would be .
In addition the Tories have made promises to , to and to . It's far from clear that taxing non doms and cutting welfare bills will produce the necessary cash.
The Shadow Chancellor George Osborne is fighting hard to maintain discipline and to insist that no new spending pledges have been made.
The issue here is not whether this or that individual sum adds up. In truth, governments spend and waste many billions of pounds that they have not budgeted for in advance. Those old election time debates about whether the opposition's "sums add up" are usually sterile and breathtakingly dull for voters.
No, the issue's a much simpler one. How credible is it to give the impression that you'll do more on defence, law and order and tax cutting at a time when money is very, very tight? And if there's not more money to spend what will give?
Curbing binge drinking
As you listen to ministers and, indeed, their opponents talk about curbing binge drinking, pause just for a second to remember the gap between intentions and results, rhetoric and reality.
One idea that sounds attractive is so-called alcohol disorder zones "designed to provide a short period of targeted activity in a very small number of areas to clean up the alcohol related problems which blight the lives of local residents". So says the ±«Óătv Office.
The licensees of premises in these zones would pay for a council and police action plan to clean them up. . Since then guess how many ADZs have been established?
The answer's none. Nil. Zero.
A ±«Óătv Office spokesman helpfully informs me that:
"Revised regulations were laid on 8 January 2008. The revisions were made to take into account technical legal points made by the House authorities. No dates have as yet been set for discussion of these regulations. As with all affirmative statutory instruments, the timescales are subject to the Parliamentary timetable and Parliamentary procedures".
Quite.
Oh, and another thing. Back in 2005 ministers said that pubs in ADZs would be given a âyellow cardâ warning before being shown the âred cardâ which would force them to pay up for the costs of binge drinking. ?
PS: informs me that David Cameron supports "the staggering of closing times". Does he support the slurring, puking and mooning too? We should be told.
Stirring rhetoric
Government targets have got a bad name but they don't half focus the minds of politicians. Labour's ambitious child poverty targets are making life hard for the chancellor in the days before his Budget. A good thing too, child poverty campaigners will no doubt retort.
Today the published a report pointing out, as others have done before, that the . The Committee says the target is likely to be missed by one million children (1.5 million on an after housing costs basis) if nothing further is done.
Clearly, though, something further is about to be done. Why do I say that? Because the prime minister himself said so in which I have just got around to reading:
"This government must end child poverty in this generation and in the next few weeks we will move further towards our goal".
This came after some stirring rhetoric about the importance of tackling poverty:
"Child poverty is the scar that demeans Britain. When we allow just one life to be degraded or derailed by early poverty, it represents a cost that can never be fully counted. What difference could that child have made?
"What song will not be written; what flourishing business will not be founded; what classroom will miss out on a teacher who can awaken aspiration? Because just one child's life wasted haunts us with the thoughts of what might have been.â
The chair of the , Barnado's chief executive Martin Narey, has claimed that Alistair Darling's pre-Budget report used money set aside for helping poor children to cut inheritance tax for the rich.
The PM appears to be signalling that he won't be doing the same again. Not, of course, that he is has very much money to splash about.
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