And another thing…

HAVING written only recently about how the Tories’ claim to be “progressive” lacks credibility, my attention has been drawn to this story from conservativehome.

Tory PPCs were asked to state what job they would like when Dave takes his rightful place as Master of All he Surveys in Number 10 (Tory Hubriswatch?). And after years of spin assuring us that they have changed – that caring for the world’s – and Britain’s – poor is, well, golly, soooo important, yeah? – it turns out that the number of aspiring ministers who want Douglas Alexander’s job at International Development is… well, zero.

International Development, housing and Scotland (surprise, surprise!) were at the bottom end of the ministerial wish lists.

You’d think Central Office would have briefed them on what the correct answers are to these surveys, wouldn’t you?

I WAS tempted to write about this last night and decided not to bother. But then Iain Dale decided he was so impressed with Paul Goodman’s “story” that he’s reproduced the whole thing on his blog.

Essentially, this is Goodman’s attempt to move his party’s obsession with quangos forward a tad. And he recounts this brilliant conversation which he claims “a friend” had with “a Labour-appointed and Labour-supporting Quangocrat”. And just in case you were tempted to pour withering scorn on the likliehood of a conversation anything like this actually happening on this planet, Paul reassures his readers that “This is a true story.” So shame on you for thinking anything different…

A friend of mine recently met a Labour-appointed and Labour-supporting Quangocrat.

“Is the Government asking you to make cuts in your budget,” asked my friend, “and if so, what are you doing?”

“It’s very difficult,” the Quangocrat replied. “Obviously, we don’t want to make cuts in our budget. But my first duty is to the Ministers who appointed me. I’m drawing up a plan for savings that won’t make headlines – a recruitment freeze, more early retirements, back-office savings, that sort of thing. No cuts to politically-sensitive projects with a high public profile.”

“And if a new Conservative Government asks you to make cuts in your budget,” asked my friend, “what will you do?”

“It’s very simple,” the Quangocrat replied. “Obviously, we don’t want to make cuts in our budget. And my first duty is to the organisation I serve. I’m drawing up a plan for savings that will be made in a way that the public will notice.”

“Cuts to politically-sensitive projects with a high-profile?” asked my friend.

“In a way that the public will notice,” repeated the Quangocrat.

Anyway, Goodman’s post prompted The Daily Politics to invite the Shadow Chief Secretary, Philip Hammond, onto the programme yesterday to talk about Tory plans to cull the quangos. I was alerted to this entertaining piece of TV by one of my regular commenters, Mr Mxyzptlk, who kindly supplied the transcript to what can only be described as a televisual car crash.

Andrew Neil: So how many do you think you’ll get rid of?

Phillip Hammond: Well this isn’t a crude bonfire of the quangos. What David has said this morning is there are some quangos which we will need to keep because they do jobs which are properly at arms’ length from government. There are others which will need to be radically reformed and there are some which can be scrapped altogether..

AN: So how many will you get rid of?

PH: We’re working our way through that process.

AN: So how many will you get rid of?

PH: I don’t have a total number, we don’t know yet at this stage…

AN: You’ve been in opposition 12 years. Has it only just dawned on you to cut quangos?

PH: All my spending departmental colleagues are looking at the quangos that answer to their departments and categorising them into these three categories.

AN: How many will you create?

PH: Well we haven’t said that we won’t create any new bodies, for example the Office of Budget Responsibility…

AN: So that’s a new one you will create.

PH: It’s a key part of our plan to create a fiscal…

AN: No I understand the purpose, but it’s a quango. Office of Tax Simplification?

PH: Er, the Office of Tax Simplification also a key part of our plans.

AN: So that’s two. An Australian-style sports commission?

PH: An Australian-style sports commission?

AN: You promised that too.

PH: Er, ok. But…

AN: So that’s three.

PH: OK, but Andrew but the point is every body whether existing or proposed will have to pass the test that David has set out this morning…

AN: Yeah but you propose them. A Skills Advisory Service?

PH: They will have to pass the test that David has set out…

AN: So that’s another quango.

PH: …this morning. Do they perform a technical function that happens to be done at arms-length from government, do they perform an allocation function which needs to be politically impartial or do they perform a transparency function like the Office of National Statistics…

AN: A Defence Export Services organisation, that’s another one you’re going to create?

PH: Well that’s a body frankly that existed that existed until very recently…

AN: So you’ll create another quango?

PH: the government has folded it in to another body and we’re saying that it needs to continue to operate in order to support our…

AN: I’m sure there’s good reasons for it all, creating these 17 new quangos that you promised…

PH: Andrew we’re talking about 1,100 quangos in total…

AN: Yeah but you can’t…I’ve got 17 here you’re going to create if you get into power. You can’t give me 17 you’re going to get rid of.

PH: I can promise you it will be a lot more than 17.

AN: Well give me 17?

PH: Well David’s announced two this morning…

AN: Right, so far you’ve got net 15?

PH: I can’t promise you about the Potato Board because we haven’t looked in detail at that yet but we all know there are hundreds of quangos that we know no longer need to operate independently, at arms-length from government.

Fantastic. A party ready for government indeed.

UPDATE: As has been pointed out in the thread, this was not, as I originally assumed, an interview from yesterday but a rather older one. Sorry about that. Careless of me.

Still funny, though.

FASCINATING to watch the Conservative Party convulse over the prospect of all-women shortlists. Been there, seen it, done, it, bought the tee-shirt…

I admit that as a young man with parliamentary ambitions in the early 1990s, I was not a strong vocal supporter of all-women shortlists in the Labour Party. Even today, I’m resigned to their inevitability rather than enthusiastic about them.

Faced with the prospect of losing my chance even to put myself forward as a Labour candidate on account of the fact that I was born male, various male comrades and I started to discuss what could be done – within party rules, of course – to frustrate the party’s aim of imposing all-women shortlists.

The key, we concluded, was mandatory reselection. Once in each parliament, every Labour MP hoping to continue in parliament must be reselected to fight the subsequent election. It was suggested that, in a seat where the (usually male) MP was intending to retire, and where there might be a prospect of the national party imposing an all-women shortlist, then a “mock deselection” could be organised. Instead of announcing publicly that he intended to retire, the incumbent would instead announce he was planning to stand again. An aspiring young (male) candidate would then mount a challenge to the MP’s continuing candidacy, a challenge to which the incumbent would mysteriously succumb. No retirement, so no vacancy, so no imposition of all-women shortlist.

Genius, eh?

Undoubtedly, there will be those in the Conservative Party who will consider pursuing such cynical strategies. But they’re wasting their time. What did for all-women shortlists in the 1990s was the fact that employment law made them illegal. That’s no longer the case.

I still don’t support all-women shortlists. On the other hand, I can’t see any alternative to increasing the numbers of women in the Commons. And there’s no doubt that, in Labour’s experience, whenever an all-women shortlist is announced, a much wider range of female candidates are encouraged to apply, secure in the knowledge that it won’t be a carve-up to the advantage of a favoured son.

I’ll be interested to see how this debate pans out in the Conservative Party.

AFTER some conspiring with comrade-in-blogs Jonathan Isaby over at conservativehome yesterday, we agreed that our campaign to persuade returning officers to count votes on the same night as polling might be helped by the tabling of an Early Day Motion (EDM) to that effect.

The fact that Chairman Pickles himself added his name as one of the top six supporters undoubtedly encouraged others of his party to support it. By the time it was tabled last night it had attracted 69 names (the clerks couldn’t read Chris Huhne’s signature so it will be added belatedly today) and many more have been added to the list today.

The EDM reads:

That this House is concerned at reports that growing numbers of Returning Officers are considering postponing the counting of votes cast on the day of the General Election until the day after polling; believes that in the 21st century it would be a regressive move not to announce constituency results as early as possible; further believes that public confidence in the results could be undermined by delays in the counting of ballot papers and that fewer voters would be able to watch the results being announced if this were done on a Friday afternoon; and calls on local authorities throughout the United Kingdom to ensure that all ballot papers are counted immediately after the close of polls on General Election night, as has been the practice in previous General Elections.

There’s already been a bit of media interest in the subject; I’m giving a couple of interviews later this afternoon. If we can get the numbers up as high as possible, that’ll send a clear message that when there’s an election, the voters, as well as the parties, have a right to know the result as early as possible.

YOU know that something’s up when Jonathan Isaby of conservativehome calls you late on a Sunday evening. News of a developing political scandal, perhaps? An invitation to one of his frequent and excellent parties?

No, but a subject of import, nevertheless – specifically, how to save general election night. As The Sunday Times reported yesterday, an increasing number of killjoys council chiefs are planning to postpone their local counts until the day after polling, thereby killing any sense of excitement that traditionally surrounds the most important night in the political calendar.

Jonathan gives his own excellent reasons for opposing this move in the Facebook group he has set up (and I would urge you to join). But my own reasons for wanting the counts to happen as soon as the polls close are:

• personal – no candidate wants to be forced to wait an extra excruciating number of hours before finding out his fate. It’s just not fair; and
• spectacle – how many people have been turned on to politics by the drama and tension of a Thursday nigh election count? That would be utterly lost if we couldn’t find out the results until the following afternoon while everyone’s at work.

In fact that last reason is why I’m also opposed to electronic counting in the National Lottery style: can you imagine how dull it would be if, when the polls closed at ten, David Dimbleby, instead of giving us an exit poll result, told us what the precise actual result of the general election was?

General election only happen every four or five years. Is it really too much to ask that counts actually take place in the same way they’ve been carried out for generations?

DAVID Cameron has given a world exclusive to The Sun, according to ConservativeHome.

Hold tight for this one, folks! Because Dave has only gone and revealed…

That’s comletely thrown the news agenda for the day, then, hasn’t it? But that’s Dave for you — completely unpredictable; he’s a rebel, that lad — a maverick who doesn’t play by the rules, if you will.

I can imagine the moment when this devastating nugget was revealed to the editor:

Editor: So what’s Cameron saying, then? The usual stuff about not being ready to govern?

Reporter: Well, actually, boss, quite the opposite.

Editor: What do you mean?

Reporter: Well, he’s said he’s ready to govern.

Editor: Jesus H. Christ! You’re sure?

Reporter: At least, that’s what my notes say — my shorthand isn’t what it was. But I remember doing a double-take when he said it. I was shocked!

Editor: Let’s think straight here. Has any other paper got this?

Reporter: I don’t think so…

Editor: You don’t think so? You’d better be sure, because when this comes out it’ll be the biggest political story since Major announced he watched Morse.

Reporter: Really? you think it’s that big?

Editor: There’ll be an award in this for you! Okay, tell the desk to drop that story about Madonna and Peter Andre’s wedding — we’ve got our scoop!

CONTINUING my lone crusade to convince someone — anyone, in fact — that David Cameron’s detoxification strategy has been 100 per cent cosmetic and zero per cent substance, here’s the latest piece of evidence.

Louise Bagshawe, the novelist and Tory candidate for Corby, has Twittered that Sarah Palin is her "heroine". And no, I don’t think she was being ironic, judging from some of her subsequent Tweets.

Bagshawe is one of the Tories’ most high profile candidates, frequently appearing, presumably at the request of Central Office, in media articles profiling the Tories’ "next generation".

And Sarah Palin is her heroine.

Sarah Palin, who made an international, as well as a national, laughing stock of last year’s Republican presidential campaign.

Sarah Palin, who the Alaskan state legislature concluded had abused her powers as governor by persecuting her sister’s ex-husband.

Sarah Palin, who actually believes  that dinosaurs and humans co-existed because she believes in the literal interpretation of the book of Genesis.

Sarah Palin, whose good ol’ fashioned folksy charm just wasn’t enough to hide the fact that she was one of the least qualified vice-presidential candidates in modern political history. You betcha!

John McCain, by all accounts a decent and principled man, holed his own bid for the Whitehouse below the waterline by appointing her as his running mate, while simultaneously prompting the world to reassess whether he had the political judgment after all to be elected to his country’s highest office. After all, someone who thinks it a good idea to put Sarah Palin within a heartbeat of the presidency can hardly be trusted to make other, less important decisions in government.

As an Obama supporter, I obviously would like to see Palin become her party’s standard bearer in 2012. But even the Republican Party, I strongly suspect, don’t have that much of a death wish. They might opt for her if Obama looks like being unbeatable by then, in which case she’ll be rendered as harmless as Bob Dole was against Clinton in 1996. But if Obama’s looking remotely vulnerable, I expect the party will want to nominate a credible candidate instead.

The interesting question is: how many other Tory candidates and MPs actually take Palin seriously and want her to become president (other than Nadine, obviously)? An interesting survey of Tory candidates today at ConservativeHome reveals that as many supported Obama as opposed him. We know that Dave himself supported McCain (although his endorsement came before Palin’s nomination for VP).

Bagshawe has since Twittered that she doesn’t agree with Palin on gay rights but she does on abortion. Well, throw a stick into any Southern Baptist church in America and you’ll hit someone with the same views — surely Palin’s got more going for her than that? Apart from the glasses, of course, which I admit are very fetching.

Palin is an extremist. She is also a fool. I would question the political judgment, therefore, of anyone who describes her as their "heroine". 

UPDATE at 11.00 am, 4th July: Louise herself has replied by Twitter, suggesting that the accusation that Palin thinks dinosaurs and people walked the earth at the same time is a smear. If what I wrote above is untrue, then I apologise. But again, most people don’t believe this either and it doesn’t qualify them to be president. Can anyone provide a link to a direct quote by Palin denying the whole One Million years BC scenario?

THERE is a big difference between “attack” and “smear” when it comes to blogs. And there is a difference between smearing and negative campaigning.

Let me make my own position clear: negative campaigning is a necessary and inevitable part of politics. You have to attack your political opponents. For a start, you owe it to the electorate to expose your opponents’ failings. Secondly, if you don’t attack them, they will attack you first.

A lot of guff has been written and spoken in recent weeks about how we have to lift political debate up out of the sewer, and other such plumbing-related metaphors. We’re now in danger of being accused of “smearing” whenever we raise a word of criticism about our opponents. Smeargate has been awful to behold, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater (continuing with those plumbing-related metaphors). 

A commenter contacted me in the last week to point out that in his recent successful presidential campaign, Barack Obama spent more money on negative campaigning than on positive campaigning. That does not mean that he bought advertising space to attack Cindy McCain for her history of drug addiction or to smear Senator McCain for fathering an illegitimate child (the tactics of McCain’s Republican opponents during the presidential primaries in 2000). Had Obama done so, he would have proved himself unworthy of the office he now holds. But he didn’t; he did what all candidates have to do and exposed the weaknesses of his opponent’s policies. And thank goodness he did.

So I think Iain Dale was wrong when he equated the attack blogs A Leaky Chanter and Aneurin Glyndwyr with the late and not-very-lamented Red Rag smear blog.

I genuinely have no idea who set up either site (it wisnae me, in case you’re wondering), but there is clearly a place for blogs which concentrate on the weak spots of their political opponents. A Leaky Chanter has a link to the very funny “Richt Honourable Alex Salmond” Twitterfeed, featuring such memorable updates as “wants a G183 so he can go to big important meetings too. Not fair.”

Most of the stuff on A Leaky Chanter is in the same vein — irreverent, funny and merciless (although I do think it’s completely unfair and unwise to attack Salmond on his expenses — a cheap shot which can be aimed — and will be, no doubt — at any MP of any party. But then, as an MP, I would say that, wouldn’t I?).

The half-hearted attempt by the SNP to add a tartan fringe to Smeargate can be easily dismissed.  SNP MP Angus MacNeil’s claim that A Leaky Chanter is a “Labour-linked blog” is based on nothing more than the fact that it’s on my blogroll! Based on that logic, Guido, Iain Dale, Dizzy Thinks, ConservativeHome and Gallifrey One are all “Labour linked” sites…

An “attack blog” is a completely different animal from the kind of smear blog that McBride and Draper were planning to set up. By all means attack your opponents’ policies, but when you attack our families, or invent stuff to attack, you’ve crossed the line. And you’ve exposed yourself for having nothing of substance to attack on. And that means you’ve lost the argument, and deservedly so.

ACTUALLY, I can’t be bothered going through the details. See for yourself. I’m off to watch The Office and eat some Chinese food.

IS PETER Mandelson about to start a Tom Harris tribute band?