Timing of the next general election…

So, we’ve had Q3 GDP results around 23rd October. The (as below) inflated Q4 figures will, I suppose appear around 23th Jan 2010. These should be (falsely) encouraging. I expect Gordo anticipates this will be a good (least worst) time to be launching an election campaign.

If I’m right about the negative results likely in Q1 2010, these will appear around 23rd April 2010. But by then, we’ll have long since had enough corporate Q1 results to know that things are grim.

So Gordo’s window for launching a campaign and holding an election is from 23rd January until roughly 15th April (year end returns will be known for a lot of firms) when corporate results start seeping out prior to full ONS GDP results on 23rd April.

So, announce an election, and launch a campaign on 25th Jan. ‘Good’ economic news from Q4 gets Gordo off to a (falsely) encouraging start. He’ll be planning as long and tortuous a campaign as possible, because he’ll want maximum opportunities for the Dib Lems and Blue Labour to fuck up. As I’ve said before, Gordo really has nothing to lose.

All these things considered, I reckon if Gordo remains in charge, we’re looking at an 8th April election.

We shall see.

AJ

The Spam Effect…

Looks like Davey boy pulled it off yesterday…

Well, I said last week they’d be hoping for 22 points… I guess 17 isn’t a bad base to build on over the next 6 months. That said, we’ve seen over the last week or two how volatile these YouGov daily polls are.

I shall campaign tirelessly against Dave and his illiberal, bullying tripe.

AJ

Things I want from the next government…

All of which are things the Tories will manifestly not deliver.

• Scottish Independence. Brutal, but the most appropriate way to solve the Barnett and West Lothian problems.
• Replace Royal Mail with fully commercial operation
• Stop sucking Obama’s cock
• Raise personal allowance to £10,000
• Reduce National Insurance
• Withdrawal from climate change concensus
• Parcel up and privatise the NHS
• Repeal of all Anti-civil-liberties laws written since 2001
• Ditch the smoking ban
• Withdraw from the EU & repeal all UK laws passed due to EU directives.
• Abolish the Health & Safety Executive
• Limit Union donations to political parties to £50,000p.a.
• Ditch the hunting ban
• Remove all speed cameras & disband speed camera partnerships.

I’m sure there’ll be more…

AJ

Boris vs Paxman…

Worth a watch…

Via Paul Waugh on the Evening Standard.

AJ

A thought experiment…

What would be the impact on the Tory party conference if Gordo were to announce tomorrow evening that he’s stepping down and triggering a leadership contest?

I think it’d sink the Tory conference, in terms of media coverage, and turn the focus back upon Labour and the chance to pick a new leader to take them into the election. Fresh geysers of hope would be tapped amongst the unwashed and Labour faithful.

No one would be listening to the Tories then. Especially not those who only crossed over to the blue side because of Brown.

Hmmm.

AJ

Laugh while you can…

 

… because the boot will be on the other foot soon enough.

AJ

Striking the Brown Note…

Yesterday the criminally deranged Labia faithful were crowing about cutting the Tory lead to 7% in the You Gov daily poll.

Today, that lead is back to 14pts… lol.. way to lift your party out of it’s slump, Gordon you feckless Scotch monomongulate. Fuck off back to Kirkcunty and give us our country back.

Not that I’m predicting it will happen, but the Tories probably want that lead to be circa 22% next week.

AJ

A vote for Cameron is a vote for the EU…

It really is now as simple as that…

The Tory leader’s signal could antagonise eurosceptic Tories who want a popular vote on the document whether or not it has taken legal force.

…

Mr Cameron is in a political quandary over his pledge to hold a British vote on the treaty.

It has now been ratified by 23 of the 27 EU states, including the UK.

Ireland, Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic have not endorsed it yet, but are likely to do so before the British general election next year.

In that case, a new Tory government would have to decide whether to hold a British referendum on a ratified treaty, something that other EU leaders say would effectively be an in-or-out choice on Britain’s entire EU membership.

…

[Cameron] said:

"If this treaty is still alive, if it is still being discussed and debated anywhere in Europe, then we will give you that referendum, we will name the date during the election campaign, we’ll hold that referendum straight away and I will lead the campaign for a No," he said.

"Now, if those circumstances change, if the Germans ratify, if the Poles ratify, if the Czechs ratify, if the Irish vote Yes to the treaty, then a new set of circumstances [apply], and I will address those at the time."

…

"I want us to be in the European Union. We are a trading nation, we should be co-operating with our allies and friends in Europe over things like the environment and crime, of course we should."

Oh dear oh dear… so we aren’t going to get a referendum, unless we can persuade the Czech republic to stall, while they are under coercive pressure to ratify.

Plus c’est la meme chose…

I’m really, really not going to be able to vote for Cameron.

AJ

Gordon’s not going to make it to the election…

This all serves to make the prospect of televised debates most delicious…

It continues…

He said Boulton, Sky’s political editor, seemed to “obsess” about the Labour leadership and snapped: “You have not given me the chance to talk about the economy.”

Mr Brown’s angry morning was fuelled by learning that The Sun has withdrawn its support for Labour. Today, during a round of interviews on Sky, GMTV and the BBC, he kept complaining he was not being allowed to make his case or answer questions in full.

Asked about a comment from Lord Mandelson that the public could not see through a “filter” at the Prime Minister’s real character, Mr Brown commented acidly: “He was probably talking about the media.”

At the end of his Sky interview, the Prime Minister looked furious when the cameras turned off and he tried to walk away. However, he still had a microphone clipped on and did not realise he was supposed to remain in the same seat for his next interview, this time with the BBC’s Sian Williams. Mr Brown complained to Boulton: “Look, Adam, we are going through a recession — I don’t think you asked about that at all.”

Asked to guarantee he would not step down as Premier before the election, he said tersely: “I have got a job to do and that’s the job I’m going to do.”

The retirement on health grounds is looking more and more certain. He just isn’t up to the punishment he’s going to rightly receive over the next 9 months.

AJ

Why it may still make sense to vote Tory…

Much comment has been passed of late, regarding the sameness of the 3 main parties, in terms of policies, personalities and presentation.

John Demetriou is the latest, with this:

Here’s my advice for the next election: Don’t Vote Tory

I’m being serious here, whoever you are and whatever your political leanings, unless you are a tribal Tory or someone who works for them (in which case, this piece is a waste of your time): please don’t bother voting Tory when the election comes.

This Torygraph piece says it all: Clegg has refused Cameron’s overtures for some sort of alliance, or prospective pact, with the election coming up. Cameron has made it clear that there is ‘barely a cigarette paper’ between the parties on most issues.

On a purely opportunistic basis, Cameron has his eye on the target number of seats he needs to win and he is worried that unless he makes significant inroads on the electoral map, he’ll need to team up with the Limp Dems for victory over Labour.

Read on…

Now, I’m going to be devil’s advocate for a moment here.

This is the truth that no Conservative official wants to be uttered. In fact, I’m expecting to receive a rude email from Tamzin Lightwater.

I think that, as right as JD et al are about Spam’s heir-to-Blair-ness, there’s more to it than this. Let’s dig into the parallels between Spam in 2009 and Blair in 1996.

Leader of a party, who is succeeding in turning around the electoral fortunes of his party. But he’s not exactly representative of the party’s MPs, let alone the grass roots. When the moderate and mealy-mouthed leader wins power for his party, no matter how he tries to arrange his government, for reasons of realpolitik, he’ll have to let those with whom he’s in ideological disagreement run some departments.

So for the last 12 years, in spite of the fact that 10 of these years were under a rudderless, slippery, centrist prime minister, old Labour socialist values have been woven into the fabric of British society by the likes of Harman, Prescott, Brown et al.

It is therefore my expectation that whatever Spam does, the likes of Redwood, Davis, Hannan et al are going to get their hands on enough of the levers that in 10 years, conservative core values will prevail, simply because Spam is a pragmatic opportunist, interested in power for its own sake.

So long as they can win a 2014/15 election. I’ll give Spam 12 months in power before he’s looking for military adventures, egged on by David Davis. I wonder if there’s any more mileage to be wrung out of the Falklands, or Gibraltar.

AJ

Nice one, Billy Vague…

Excellent speech, highlighting and re-inforcing the points I made here…

• Prime Minister: Gordon Brown – Unelected by the Labour Party, unelected by the English.
• Deputy Prime Minister (First secretary of state): Mandebum – Unelected. Brought in by giving him a peerage.
• ‘Enterprise Tsar’: Alan Sugar – Unelected. Brought in by giving him a peerage.
• Europe Minister: Glenys Kinnock – Unelected. Brought in by virtue of her marriage to life-peer Neil Kinnock.
• Transport Secretary: Andrew Adonis – Unelected. Brought in by giving him a peerage.

AJ

A flutter…

On the basis that I won money from hedged but pretty much blind bets on the FA Cup final, this weekend I put on the following bets. The first three are mutually exclusive but anyone of them will cover my stake to a degree ranging from adequate to spectacular.

Given that the recess is approaching, I’m thinking that since Postman Paddy is now neutralised, Gordo is in a position to carry on long enough to call an October election. In which case the 4th bet will pay off.

Next Labour Party Leader Who will be the Next Leader of the Labour Party? 07-06-2009 22:00 Next Leader of the Labour Party? Charles Clarke @ 66/1	Win Single: Charles Clarke @ 66/1 1 line at £9.73 per line Total stake for this bet: £9.73 Potential returns: £651.91
Next Labour Party Leader Who will be the Next Leader of the Labour Party? 07-06-2009 22:00 Next Leader of the Labour Party? Harriet Harman @ 13/2	Win Single: Harriet Harman @ 13/2 1 line at £10.00 per line Total stake for this bet: £10.00 Potential returns: £75.00
Next Labour Party Leader Who will be the Next Leader of the Labour Party? 07-06-2009 22:00 Next Leader of the Labour Party? Jack Straw @ 12/1	Win Single: Jack Straw @ 12/1 1 line at £17.30 per line Total stake for this bet: £17.30 Potential returns: £224.90
UK Politics When will Gordon Brown no longer be Prime Minister? 07-06-2009 22:00 When will Brown no longer be PM? September to November 2009 @ 8/1	Win Single: September to November 2009 @ 8/1 1 line at £12.97 per line Total stake for this bet: £12.97 Potential returns: £116.73
	Total stake: £50.00

Even if none of these come in – and I think at least one of them will do – I’m still ‘up’ after the FA cup.

Chin chin.

AJ

MP have broken tax law?? Nah… they exempted themselves!

Via EUReferendum, I now understand why MPs and HMRC are so very relaxed about what appears to us to be an evasion of capital gains tax on properties and income tax on benefits in kind.

They’re relaxed because Blair & Brown wrote an exemption, specifically for MPs, into the 2003 Income Tax act.

Parliament has voted itself an exemption from tax laws that hem in every other business and individual (even the Queen!) in the UK.

Richard puts the egregiousness more politely than I’d care to:

However, while one can accept in principle that MPs might need to be paid more than their current headline salaries, it is totally unacceptable that they should then specifically pass an Act of Parliament which excludes them from paying tax in circumstances where everybody else would incur a very substantial tax liability. These people have quite deliberately placed themselves above the law.

He also points to the attention this arrangement is receiving from tax lawyers:

There’s more to this scandal than has so far become apparent. And as this is the TaxBuzz blog I will focus here on the tax issues. I’ve identified 15 tax related questions below. I think these are simply a sub set of those that demand answers.

Read on…

This Labour government have, once again, wrought utter havoc upon the country; the economy, jurisprudence, education, our image abroad, our enveloping subservience to the EU.

Utter fucking bastards. Talk about more equal than others.

Election. Right now.

AJ

Hey – It’s not all bad news…

Brown set for election wipeout

 

GORDON BROWN, battered by revelations over ministerial expenses and a series of embarrassing climbdowns, is heading for a humiliating third place in next month’s local elections.

An analysis for The Sunday Times by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, the election experts, shows Labour is trailing the Liberal Democrats as well as the Tories as it heads into the June 4 elections in 34 English local authorities.

They predict Labour will lose all four of the councils it controls and half the 500 seats it is defending. Senior aides have warned Brown that if Labour comes third in the elections next month, a challenge to his leadership is almost inevitable.

It comes as more Labour ministers and backbenchers faced embarrassing disclosures about taxpayer-funded expenses. Hazel Blears, the communities secretary, faces questions over the sale of a flat she had designated as a second home. She made a profit of £45,000 on the sale but paid no capital gains tax.

Oh this summer is going to be fun… Euro elections, followed by Irish referendum and Broon’s demise.

AJ

Because there are still people who think Broon was a good chancellor…

 Gold: Does Gordon Brown’s regret selling half of Britains’ gold reserves 10 years ago?

A decade ago Gordon Brown started to sell-off Britain’s gold reserves – at the time the price of gold was $282 an ounce, today it is $900-plus.

And another graph I like that tells of the same period….

And Wat Tyler reminds us of a useful rubric:

Why Do You Always Forget?

This used to be an economy

EVERY SINGLE LABOUR GOVERNMENT WE HAVE EVER HAD HAS LEFT OUR ECONOMY IN RUINS:

• MacDonald – ruins
• Attlee – ruins
• Wislon -ruins
• Callaghan – ruins
• Bliar/Broon – ruins

See?

See the pattern?

Now WTF can’t you just remember it?

Is that so much to ask?

Remember all of this when you’re next in a polling booth, if you’re thick (or heavily invested in the state) enough to even consider voting for these useless bastards.

AJ

Post boxes must become as socially unacceptable as chair legs.

A very similar sentiment was expressed by Ed BonzoDogDooDahBand yesterday when he said:

The Government needs to be saying ‘It is socially unacceptable to be against wind turbines in your area – like not wearing your seat belt or driving past a zebra crossing.

???

His comments were made at the screening of new climate change documentary The Age Of Stupid.

Oh, that’s right… The Age of Stupid is being pitched as a documentary. In the same sense, I hope, that Spinal Tap was a documentary. Anyway, back to the point.

Teddy’s words were but a clumsy wielding of a technique known as ‘denormalisation’. There’s a rather good paper on the subject here, which I was lead to from Taking Liberties.

Basically, denormalisation is the modus operandi of the meddling Righteous classes, when they want to put a stop to something they don’t like. Smoking, drinking, junkfood, speeding, 4×4s, flying, global warming ‘denial’, cash economy, tax avoidance, unregulated freedom – you name it. Rather than tackling the object of their meddling, the approach is to demonise those people who partake of the unapproved activity – paint them as pariahs and social outcasts. Thanks to the collaboration of the fourth estate, and the collusion of the many agents of righteous and the gullible in society, the vision can become the reality – look at the way smokers are treated now.

Anyway, the X is as socially unacceptable as Y formula works like this:

1. Let X equal something we want to ban.
2. Let Y equal something that is already egregious in the public mind.

An extreme example would be:

Derek Draper said, “Guido Fawkes’ blog should be made as socially unacceptable as child pornography.”

A real world example would be:

Road safety experts believe speeding must become as big a social taboo as smoking and drink-driving.

The divisiveness of this strategy and the insidious, fragmenting impact it has on society are dealt with nicely in the above paper – here’s a quote:

These campaigns dehumanise whole categories of people, which is arguably the most damning conclusion possible. Whatever one may or may not think of the smoking habit and of smokers, themselves, one unavoidable truth is that the smoker’s social status (or lack thereof) in the modern era foreshadowed the current, lowly social status of the fat Briton, and it sadly foreshadows, with equal accuracy, the descending social status of the responsible adult gambler and drinker.

So, have you spotted the obvious flaws in Ed’s statement? Let’s look at it again:

‘It is socially unacceptable to be against wind turbines in your area – like not wearing your seat belt or driving past a zebra crossing.

• X = Opposition to wind farms

This is not a social group you’re going to marginalise easily, because it’s not a social group at all – opposition to windfarms comes from rural folk, NIMBYs, bird enthusiasts, climate change deniers realists, hikers and people who have calculated the energy lifecycle of a wind turbine, including manufacture and erection and realised that the thing would have to run 24×7, in a force 9 gale for 400 years before it generated the same amount of energy used in putting it there.

• Y = Seatbelts

I may not have my finger on the pulse here, but I’ve never been upbraided by a righteous for not wearing my seatbelt (that said I have been ticketed by a 9 year old copper). In fact, the argument for seat belts starts to fall apart under scrutiny, since the theory of risk compensation shows (and road safety statistics back this up) that drivers take less care the more safe they feel. Which is why, when seat belts became compulsory, the number of RTA casualties inside cars fell by the same amount that pedestrian and cyclist casualties rose. The casualties were not reduced – they were displaced from inside the car to outside of it.

The optimum pattern for seatbelt usage is for all passengers to wear them, but not the driver.

But there’s another value that Ed offered for Y:

• Y = Driving through a zebra crossing.

I doubt Rodney King shares your view, Ed.

AJ

Tory tax dilemma laid bare…

While I’ve been busy calling Osborne Piers Fletcher-Dervish and Cameron a Tefal-headed cunt, more level headed sorts have been scrutinising and arguing the issues.

In this case it is Danny Finkelstein (Times leader writer) and Tim Montgomerie (ConservativeHome).

Mr F, writes, in an extraordinarily pusillanimous open letter to Mr M:

If the Conservative Party announced that reversing the 45p would be a priority, they would be running in the election saying the following:

We’ve looked at the books. We can see that there is no money. Gordon Brown has left us with unimaginable debt and his forward plans are unaffordable. We have hard decisions for years to come. We have abandoned many of our plans for public spending. We are going to cut Labour’s plans down and services will feel the pinch.

We’re sorry, but we can’t help it. We’ll get things going when we can.

Oh, but just as a start we don’t need the £2bn that Gordon Brown was going to raise from people who earn more than £150k. We will find that by cutting spending even more. Vote Conservative.

Can’t you see Tim that this isn’t an election winning position? I believe you can. You may not, ideally, want this new rate. And you have, understandably expressed your frustration and anger.

But the politics are surely compelling.

Aren’t they?

I don’t think the politics are compelling – I think the presentation put on it would be significantly different from that Mr Fink offers, but I think it’s time the British Public hears it loud and clear. It seems Mr M agrees:

It wasn’t until twenty minutes into a conversation with a member of Team Cameron at the weekend that we got into the economic arguments for 45p.  For twenty minutes all I got was the politics of why the position had been changed.  Last week I was briefed that the party was backing away from forcing the BBC to share the licence fee because we needed broadcasters on side.  A month ago a frontbencher told me that we couldn’t upset Muslim opinion by questioning the ban on Geert Wilders coming into Britain. Of course, of course, of course politicians have to make tactical political decisions but I worry that tactics are now too dominant.  Voters may actually vote for some authentic truth telling!

The 45p tax won’t raise much or any money.  It may damage the recovery.  It won’t stop Labour attacking us as the party of the rich.  I’m sorry, Danny, my mind is unchanged.

Read the whole thing – I have to say I agree pretty squarely with Mr M, but perhaps I’m just not being as pragmatic (cynical?) as Mr F.

AJ

Aspiration vs Desperation

There was a line in the West Wing, which if I could be bothered to trawl through 6 seasons of scripts I could find for you [it was S3-E3]. It was spoken by the (Democrat) President Bartlett, and went something like this:

The trouble with the American Dream is that no-one likes taxes on millionaires, because they’re all dreaming of the day they’ll be millionaires.

Although this is obviously a fictional line, from a fictional president, it beautifully demonstrates the difference between the aspirational Yanks and the bitter, hopeless Brits.

It also demonstrates one of the reasons why I don’t fit into the defeatist pussified shithole this country is becoming & despair of its feckless and coddled inhabitants.

I don’t earn £150k – but I’m getting there and I will get there, so I’m damned if I’ll support Cameron’s pledge to keep the 45p tax. Yeah – pragmatism. He’s playing to the audience. But instead of giving them what they think they want to hear, how about this:

Labour’s punitive tax on high earners is symbolic of one thing: They don’t like people who do well for themselves. They don’t want you to do well for yourself.

We, on the other hand, are committed to building a Britain where aspiration, determination and success are valued, applauded and appreciated. Where you can succeed, freed of the deterrent effects of an anti-success government and a welfare system that binds the poor to a life of welfare, hopelessness and worthlessness.

I won’t inherit anything and I don’t intend to leave anyone behind to inherit anything I may accumulate (the Cats’ Protection League will be pleased to learn). But how about this, Cameron:

A Conservative government would be a fair government, which is why we will raise the threshold for inheritance tax to £3 million.

For why? Because that £3 million has been accrued over a lifetime of commendable hard work and prudence. Tax has been paid upon the original earnings and upon the interest earned by the savings. Why should tax be paid again on the same money?

But it won’t happen, because Cameron isn’t intent on leading this country. He’s interested in obtaining power for his own purposes, like every other one of the troughers in Parliament, and leaning whichever way the wind blows**. Just like Blair.

What a choice we won’t have at the next election.

AJ

** UPDATE: As if to underline my point, via Burning Our Money, I see that Tebbit reckons policy is being driven by focus groups. All we need to hear now is that Cameron has brought Philip Gould in.

What fresh fuckbaggery is this?

What is Cameron talking about?

David Cameron warns wealthy taxpayers will foot bill for recession

I’m not sure how he can say that when death tax thresholds will be increased, but anyway.

Mr Cameron gave his strongest hint that the Conservatives would retain the 45p in the pound tax rate on those earning £150,000 or more, due to come next year, saying: "The richest in our society must bear a fair share of the burden."

Is that how one defines rich? You can come from the gutter, via a decent university and end up earning £150k while you’re still paying your student loan and the rent on your mother’s council flat for her, because her pension’s fucked. Is that rich, you trust-fund munching silver-spooned cunt?

"I am a Conservative who believes in lower taxes. But in today’s fiscal circumstances, the priority must go to debt reduction. Put simply, our overriding objective will need to change from sharing the proceeds of growth, to paying down our debt.”

Obviously ignoring the significant potential for a tax cut to provide an economic stimulus there, Dave. If Darling had previously resisted Broon’s pleas for a tax cut in next month’s budget, I bet he won’t be able to resist now. An election within a year. Cameron says no tax cuts, Broon cuts taxes. It’s classic.

Instead of tax cuts, Mr Cameron promised a full-scale review of public spending to cut out waste and inefficiency, including slashing high salaries earned by "quango-crats" running public bodies.

Don’t give me that Gershon bullshit. Dave, you don’t have the cojones for it. Sir Humphrey had total control before you were born and he’ll outlive you too.

The drive against debt would not, however, prevent a Conservative Government from introducing measures to heal what the leader described as "broken Britain".

Paying off debt would be coupled with a focus on "socially responsible" spending measures, such as improving schools and hospitals, which would have economic benefits in the long run.

Mr Cameron went on: "We are not going to behave like flint faced turbo-charged accountants, slashing spending without regard to the social consequences.

"We are going to behave like progressive Conservatives, pursuing our aims of a fairer society, an opportunity society, a safer society and a greener society in all that we do.

"But we will pursue these progressive aims through Conservative means – including proper control of public spending.”

And do you really want a brain drain? After all, the productive members of society have been waiting for a conservative government for 12 years now. Is this how you plan to repay them? Tax the earners, rather than the inheritors? Very ‘progressive’, Dave.

I don’t think I’ll be voting for you, you tefal-headed cunt.

AJ

What’s Mandelbum’s agenda?

It’s coming to something when Peter Fondlebum is the voice of common sense. But then, I suppose it depends on who he is being compared with. In this case, it’s Harriet Hormone. So there we are. (H/T Bella Emberg)

With all the duckings and weavings since his return to office (and accession to the green benches) – one has to wonder what the flying lentil-grass is going on.

There has been, prior to this latest outburst, his reminder to displaced workers that they can always go and get jobs in other EU countries, his vigorous defence of the UK economy against NuLab major funders Unite and against the bloke who launched Starbucks.

So what does the lizard-king want? Leadership of the party? I think not – he is a creature of the shadows, his love of attention notwithstanding. Kingmaker is more like it. It has been his role in the past, with the making of Blair. It seems to have given him everything, with so few of the downsides that it’s laughable.

But if he’s playing games to position himself as Kingmaker again, why all this publicity that is antagonistic toward the left? I can’t help thinking he’s planning something more public and he knows (or judges) something about Gordo that others at the top of the party either don’t know, or are in denial about.

Suppose that, as the architect of Blairism, he figures that people do in fact miss Blair – who was pretty right wing as far as the Labour Party is concerned – and his plan for Labour hanging on at the next election is to show that centre-ground politics (an area Broon has never been comfortable in) are still in the purview of the party. That will involve two things – 1st will be replacing Brown with a Blairite – I don’t know who just now, but Balls and the Millipedes are out. 2nd will be 1994 all over again – the crushing of the left wing animals currently being roused from their comfortable slumber on the back-benches (and as ministers).

The betting markets seem to indicate that most are assuming the next (permanent) leader of Labour will be selected after a general election defeat. Which is why Harriet Hormone is favourite at 10/3 against. If there’s a poisoned chalice I’d like her to have, it would be this. Interesting that William Hague, who picked up that mantle for the Tories in ‘97, is effectively shadowing Hormone – they do so at PMQs in the absence of Broon.

But I’m increasingly convinced that there is a chance of a change of leader this year. The strategy, if Mandelbum’s signals mean anything, is a drastic reversion to Blairite centrism, in time for a fighting chance at an election next June. It would never be possible if Broon’s grip on power and reality wasn’t loosening so obviously – but it is, and it is.

So who? Purnell is in the frame (9/1) – he’s bright but he’s wet behind the ears. I seem him up for a realistic stab at Labour leadership in the situation where Labour lose the next election and Harriet Hormone spends 3 years being lampooned and lambasted as the hand on the tiller of the Mary Celeste. Of course, I think Purnell is a prime candidate for defection to the Tory benches if pragmatism is in his grasp. He’ll need to get a proper fucking haircut first, though.

So who? Well, there was recent press mention that Blair wanted Charles Clarke (50/1) to succeed him, but that won’t wash. I think Jack Straw is the most likely option (12/1), followed by Alan Milburn (33/1), who has been conspicuously absent recently.

We will see – the only thing for sure is that the wheels are falling off Gordo’s wagon. Which brings us to a more fundamental question: What on earth made Gordo bring Mandelbum back? Perhaps it was the price he had to pay for calling off the leadership challenges last year.

Hmmm.

AJ