And another thing…

A GEM from this week’s Now Show on Radio 4:

A spokesman for the Prime Minister said: "The Prime Minister’s thoughts are with Michael Jackson’s family at this time."

They’d better bloody not be! He’s supposed to be busy!

THE GREAT thing about having a reasonably well-read political blog is that I have a platform for correcting any inadvertent mistakes made by others when referring to me personally. So I’d like to point out a small  mistake carried by The Daily Record this morning:

Former transport minister and Glasgow MP Tom Harris asked the PM to step aside. But he was swatted away by an increasingly confident Brown

For the record, Gordon made no reference in his response to anything I said to him at the meeting.

I DON’T intend to allow this blog to become an anti-Gordon Brown platform, so I’ll say what I have to say in the hope of not having to return to the subject.

I made a contribution to tonight’s PLP, along these lines:

If there’s one thing that unites this PLP it’s a determination to win the next election.

And those of us who have come to the conclusion, by an entirely objective and logical process, that you cannot lead Labour to victory, would be doing a disservice to our country and to our party by staying silent.

The results from last night have confirmed in my mind that the electorate aren’t yet sold on Cameron, but they have made their minds up about you, Gordon, and it’s not going to change. We can win the next election, but only if we have a new leader.

So answer me this, Gordon: Why do you think Cameron wants you to remain in post?

I have no intention of becoming a media tart on this issue (on any other issue that would be fine, obviously). I’ve done some media this evening but after today, that’s it.

SO, to sum up…

The SNP won 700 more votes in Glasgow South, my own seat, than Labour.

The SNP beat Labour into a poor second place in Scotland, one of Labour’s “strongholds”.

The Tories and the SNP beat Labour into third place in East Renfrewshire, the seat of Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy.

The Conservatives beat Labour in the the popular vote in Wales (and no number of exclamation marks after that sentence could do that statement justice).

Voters chose two fascists to represent them in Strasbourg.

Labour looks like coming third, behind Ukip, with less than 16 per cent of the vote.

Now, I don’t want to sound alarmist or defeatist or anything, but I’m willing to stick my neck out here and suggest that this was not the best Labour performance of recent years. Or am I being too pessimistic?

JANE Kennedy suspected she might be heading out of government when I spoke to her over the weekend.

And so it has proved.

The last time I blogged on a good friend who resigned over the question of Gordon’s leadership, I found myself comparing P45s with him a few days later. At least I can’t be sacked again.

Jane, an environment minister until this morning, was asked to declare her personal loyalty to Gordon as the price of remaining in government. She is far too principled and honest, however, to say one thing in public and another in private just for the sake of hanging on to her ministerial car. She chose the honourable course, and my opinion of her has rocketed as a result.

I RECORDED a four-minute “diary” on the last week for BBC Radio Scotland yesterday. You can listen to it here. It starts 23 minutes in.

I JUST COULDN’T bring myself to agree with the leader of the opposition. 

“What’s clear is that the government is falling apart and can no longer govern. I am calling for a general election,” he told the TV crew.

The Prime Minister had been formally challenged to step down to make way for an alternative leader. Unlike the current crisis, however, the leadership crisis in the Conservative Party nearly 20 years ago was based, not just on the personalities of Margaret Thatcher and her challenger, Michael Heseltine — but on real policy differences, namely the poll tax and Europe.

The programme on which the Conservatives had been elected three and a half years earlier was in disarray. MPs who had been elected on a mandate to introduce the poll tax now campaigned ferociously against their own party leader. The case for an early election was a strong one, and one which Neil Kinnock tried to exploit.

But even as I stood a few feet away from him (he was visiting Howwood as part of our campaign for the double Paisley by-election in Paisley in November 1990), I had my doubts. Parliaments can run for up to five years, provided the party in power can muster a majority. That remains my view.

David Cameron is calling for an election. Fair enough — that’s his job. But he also says he’s open-minded about the prospect of fixed-term parliaments, which would mean a governing party could change their leader a dozen times during any parliament without having to go to the country.

Strange times. But no time to panic.

I WISH I had an inside track to share with you, I really do.

But I had no idea Hazel was going to resign today, just as I had no idea about yesterday’s departure announcements. And, like every other colleague I’ve spoken to today, I had no idea about the mysterious letter until the BBC called to tell me.

All I will say is that such shenanigans should have been indulged in after polling day in the European and local elections. I feel so sorry for al our candidates, sitting councillors and MEPs included, who have every right to feel let down by their Westminster colleagues, for more reasons than one.

Next week at Westminster should be interesting. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: who says politics is dull?

CAROLYN just finished reading through some of the latest comments on this site and asked me: “Is this the latest thing?”

Naturally, I knew immediately what she meant: the latest “line” from anti-Labour commenters. It’s been decided that this weekend it should be “Where’s Gordon?”

Genius, guys, honestly. And subtle too. Really.

I’VE SPENT quite a lot of time in the past couple of days mocking those who think that calling for electoral reform is an appropriate response to the expenses scandal.

But what about the other well-worn reaction — calling for a general election?

It’s no surprise the media want an election, they always do. And oppositions tend to be in favour if they’re confident of winning or if they want to appear so (I seem to recall William Hague using “bring it on”-type language in 2001. Bless).

But is the middle of a scandal the right time to go to the country? There are plenty of other issues that will have to be debated during the campaign and at the moment, they wouldn’t get a look in.

On the other hand, the 1997 campaign was almost entirely dominated by “Tory sleaze”. But does anyone really believe that if Major’s mandate had had another year to run, he would have still gone to the country?

With Labour miles behind in even the most optimistic polls, no-one can blame Gordon Brown for holding on for the time being. Apart from Attlee’s baffling and disastrous decision to call an election in 1951 when there was no need, there’s no precedent for Brown to do likewise.

We’re still looking at next May, folks. Have patience.