And another thing…

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 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?

AN AWFUL thought, I admit, but could Daniel Hannan be right?

In this post over at Three Line Whip, the Conservative MEP takes issue with my post on Hazel Blears’s now infamous “YouTube if you want to” article. I asserted that, in agreement with Hazel, broadcasting yourself on the interweb was no substitute for knocking on doors. Daniel reminds me that I actually described YouTube’s impact on political campaigning as “miniscule”.

So, yes, I mis-spoke (or mis-wrote? Mis-blogged?). 

The point I was trying to make is that as far as my own electorate is concerned, I will reach more of them through a morning’s door-knocking than by blogging or gurning away on YouTube. But Daniel’s piece has forced me to admit that even that point may not be accurate. And the fact is I have no way of knowing exactly how many of my constituents, for instance, read this blog, or would watch me if I did produce anything remotely worth watching on YouTube.

Certainly, as happened with Gordon’s “MPs’ expenses” video, a YouTube video usually only becomes big news when the mainstream media pick up on it. Yet Daniel was a beneficiary of an entirely different phenomenon: a YouTube video that gained a massive audience in its own right long before being noticed by the main TV news programmes.

What really excites me about web broadcasting is that it provides a platform that doesn’t depend on either the subjective judgment of a news editor or the rules that prevent parties and candidates paying for advertising on TV. It’s free, so it creates a far more level playing field than a commercial environment where the richest candidate or party has the advantage. 

Perhaps not at the next general election (though things are moving so fast, so who knows?), but at some point, web-based coverage could be the deciding factor in a UK general election. Today, right now, the chipmunk Hazel is correct: if all our efforts were invested in new media and none in on-the-ground campaigning, we would suffer badly. But that won’t be the case for much longer.

On this one, Daniel Hannan is way ahead of the game, and way ahead of me. I hate it when that happens.

HAZEL Blears is right when she says that for politicians, using YouTube is “no substitute for knocking on doors or setting up a stall in the town centre.”

To most political activists, such a comment is a statement of the bleedin’ obvious (as Basil Fawlty might say). YouTube broadcasting has its place, she might have gone on to add, but its impact is miniscule compared with on-the-ground campaigning.

But the fact that Hazel has herself used YouTube extensively in the past is justification, it seems, for The Spectator Coffee House blog to brand her “a massive hypocrite” (not sure if “massive” can be used to describe Hazel, but let’s put that to one side lest I’m accused of size-ism). Someone calling himself Small Man has jumped to the odd conclusion that because she has used the internet video platform herself in the past, she has no right to suggest that there are better, more effective ways of campaigning. Hazel wrote that there are better ways of campaigning — she absolutely didn’t claim that we shouldn’t use YouTube at all. Yet another case of the media insisting on painting things as black and white because a nuanced argument is beyond them.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think Gordon’s YouTube video on MPs’ expenses was wise; he’s clearly less comfortable with the medium than, say, John Prescott, and someone at Number 10 should have had the good sense to tell him that before it was posted.

But he doesn’t need to use YouTube — he’s the Prime Minister, for goodness sake! He has access to a wider range of conventional media than any of the rest of us will ever have. YouTube democratises broadcasting in the same way blogging can offer a platform to those who wouldn’t normally have access to the print media. YouTube is useful because it’s accessible and instant, not because it’s “cool” and “down with the kidz”.

CONGRATULATIONS to Iain Dale, who has (not for the first time) stuck up for Communities Secretary, Hazel Blears.

This time, Hazel is under (legal) attack from Daud Abdullah, deputy general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain. He has taken issue with a letter she wrote to The Guardian in which she accused Abdullah of tolerating, if not advocating, violence against British naval forces. This stems from his signing the so-called Istanbul Declaration, at least one part of which unequivocally advocates violence against “foreign warships” in “Muslim waters”. Such “sinful aggression” against the sovereignty of the Muslim nation “must be rejected and fought by all means and ways”, according to the declaration.

Abdullaha, rather than apologise and/or resign from his position on the MCB (which, incidentally, has since distanced itself from the declaration) has decided to sue Hazel in her role of Communities Secretary. Iain has reprinted her lawyer’s full and robust response to this action. And he asks a good question: why hasn’t the MCB dispensed yet with this man’s services?

This isn’t the first time Hazel has stood up against Islamism in Britain. More of us in public life need to do the same more often, and to stop worrying about who we might offend in the process. Islamism is a cancer in our communities, entirely distinct from Islam itself. Indeed, the vast majority of ordinary Muslims distrust Islamists and their pedalling of simplistic, naive and dangerous politics.

We have to challenge Islamism wherever it raises its head.  I would no more consider marching arm in arm with Islamists as I would with the BNP; both represent aspects of fascism. And fascism is fascism, whether promoted by the BNP or by Huzb-ut-Tahrir. Both are ugly, intolerant and repugnant to ordinary Britons.

Islamism should not be tolerated, either here or anywhere else. If you’re an Islamist, why don’t you practice it in some other country where it is tolerated? Or, better still, in a country where it’s not tolerated…

ACCORDING to Guido, Douglas Alexander has followed Hazel Blears in delivering a “rebuke” to those positioning themselves for a post-election defeat leadership contest:

The many party staff I have met this week who, with our members, will be on the front line of that campaign, want the direction and focus of the Cabinet’s efforts to be getting Britain through the downturn and working together to secure a Labour victory. All of us should remember the words from our party’s constitution, on the back of our membership card: ‘By the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone.’ When the general election comes, securing a fourth term will be difficult but do-able. The task of securing that fourth term will require unity, effort and innovation.

Well, they’ll be quaking in their boots after that tirade, eh?

It seems that my definition of “rebuke” is different from Douglas’s. But then, that’s probably one of the many reasons why he’s a cabinet minister and I’m… well, not so much.

So with that preamble, here’s my own contribution to Labour’s ferrets/sack interface scenario, drafted last night, before Douglas’s excoriating contribution:

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A FRIEND and party colleague living in London emailed me yesterday to let me know he has resigned from the party. I won’t go in to too many details, but he said that the recent briefing against Harriet Harman was, for him, the last straw.

Also yesterday we had the wonderful Hazel Blears telling the Cabinet to “get a grip” and warning colleagues to stop positioning themselves for a post-election leadership contest.

To serve as a minister at any level of government is an incredible privilege and it is – or should be – a humbling experience. To serve as a Cabinet minister is a rare and magnificent opportunity, one that should be used to do good, and nothing else. It should not be used to brief against any other member of the Cabinet or, indeed, any other member of the government. When the media report that this government is defeatist, we should point the finger of blame at those “comrades” who would rather tear colleagues down in off-the-record briefings to journalists than make sure their departments deliver for the people they represent.

I count as friends many journalists, some of whom have told me – privately, of course – the names of those “Labour Party sources” who have briefed against ministers. One reporter even offered to show me the shorthand notes he had taken down during one such conversation.

Now, apparently, we have cabinet ministers doing the same. Pathetic. 

But there is a very real danger in this for all of the current cabinet. I’ve no idea if reports abour Harriet “positioning herself” are accurate; I do happen to know who has been briefing against Harriet and other ministers. Not every MP has this information, so they will make a guess. They may get it wrong. The wrong ministers might be identified as culpable and will pay the price in terms of back bench support.

I genuinely believe that Labour is still in the game as far as the next election is concerned. But that is despite the activities of these colleagues, certainly not because of them. 

To those who imagine that their personal ambitions actually matter to anyone other than themselves, who put their own success above the success of this government, I have this advice: sod off out of my party.

In a piece of wisdom that should be framed and hung in the office of every government minister, Hazel Blears said:

Our first loyalty is to the British people. If they think we are more interested in our own jobs than theirs, they will not forgive us.

Nor should they.

I feel sorry for Hazel Blears following the loss of her laptop. I know that I would be absolutely mortified if I lost mine. It doesn’t have any government information on it, but it does have my iTunes library, and I can’t even begin to imagine the embarrassment that would be caused when a member of the public handed it over to the BBC (not the police, obviously – that would be so 20th century). Apart from my Kylie albums, there’s Barclay James Harvest and Beverley Craven, for goodness sake! Resignation would inevitably follow.