Cameron on Europe

David Cameron responded well to Tony Blair's European swansong in the House of Commons yesterday. The issue was the outcome of the recent European summit and, in particular, if that outcome should be endorsed by a referendum. Tony Blair's position was an unequivocal 'No'. David Cameron was equally unequivocal:

All three main parties in the House signed up to a referendum at the last election. The Prime Minister has broken that promise, but within two days he will be gone. We will have a new Prime Minister, one who has promised, unlike his predecessor, to be humble, to be a servant of the people and to listen. If that new Prime Minister, like us, really believes in power to the people, he must hold a referendum and let the people decide.

This is not Tony Blair's issue any more, but it is very much Gordon Brown's, and the scenario that played out in the House yesterday had already caused some unease in the Brown camp, hence the pre-summit manoeuvring. Now the issue is upon them and Brown appears to be ruling out a referendum. With the Conservatives in favour, and with the bulk of the popular press supporting them in this, he has an issue where he in on the wrong side of the public and the media and which will run and run, especially as other countries hold their own referendums. His best bet is to do what he threatened and call a British referendum. Otherwise, look forward to many instances of a Gordon Brown government trying to claim the treaty is inconsequential, when many members of foreign governments are already on record as saying exactly the opposite.

This is not good politics, except for the Conservatives that is.

Back to Europe

The Labour line is that Tony Blair held on to all of the key British interests as the recent EU summit, therefore the new treaty is harmless and should be signed without delay, and without a referendum. Not every country agrees though. The Irish will probably have a referendum, as may the Danes. Both are right to; as the small print of the treaty is analysed in becomes apparent that not only would a great deal more power flow to the EU, but also that the process of centralisation in the future would be greatly facilitated. Now, Brown's calculation is probably that leading the Conservatives into their comfort zone of Euroscepticism works for him, and that it allows him to paint Cameron and his team as unreconstructed Tories and shoo them off the much-prized centre ground. On the other hand, he does risk being on the wrong side of the argument if the other countries do vote against the treaty, and if the Conservatives can pull of the trick of opposing it while not appearing as foam-flecked weirdoes. Most interestingly, it is a clear point of division between the parties and it will mean that politics will start to adopt a different tone in the coming months. It will be more difficult to claim that these days all parties are the same.

It's Harman

It looks like the last-minute betting was from those in the know. Harriet Harman is the new Labour Deputy Leader. This is not good news, her campaign centred on the fact that she was a woman, which while true is not a minority talent. Worse still, I sat opposite a former advisor of hers on a train to Bristol a few years ago. She noticed my Conservative Party cufflinks, a little sad I know, and we got to talking. She had joined up with Harriet before the 1997 election expecting to make the policy for a future Labour government, but what she found instead was spin and media management and she eventially quit in disgust. This is a good indication why when Labour won the election they wasted most of their first term in substituting the next day's headlines for sustainable public policy, but the point is that Ms. Harman was that sort of operator. Now she is a heartbeat from being our Prime Minister. Wonderful.

Der Tag

Brown becomes Labour leader today, though not Prime Minister until next week. We also find out the result of the Labour Deputy Leadership race, the latest odds have Alan Johnson in pole position, though there have been reports of a late surge of bets on Harriet Harman.

There also appears to have been a 'Brown bounce' in Labour support, which is reflected in the Sunday papers' opinion polls and in the projection if they were translated into a General Election. Depressingly, this gives a Labour majority of 4, though Labour still lose the Basildon South and East Thurrock seat, which is the the target for my particular arm of the Conservative Party. The question is can Brown sustain his new-found lead as John Major did when he took over from Margaret Thatcher, or will the nation fail to warm to our rather dour new Prime Minister.

We shall see.

Basildon Rebuilding

We are off an running for the Basildon Town Centre procurement process, and we have had a decent amount of coverage in the specialist press. The aim is to find a partner for the planned £1bn redevelopment of the Town Centre, using the mandatory OJEU process, and if you are genuinely interested in that then I suggest you Google it. If you are interested in Basildon Town Centre, on the other hand, the link is here.

It is early days for this project, but so far it has gone well. Most encouraging has been the co-operation from the different public agenices, not lead the Communites and Local Government department, which is funding the procurement process, and the support from across Basildon's political divide. If you know Basildon politics, then you know what an achievement that is.

Brown's Dirty Tricks

Brown has said that he wants to form a government of 'all the talents'. This is a lie, and it is the sort of lie that gives politics a bad name because everyone knows that it is a lie, but everyone, commentators, politicos, journalists has to act as if it isn't. It really is not the case that Brown cannot fill up his ministerial ranks with those available on the Labour benches. It is certainly not the case that the Liberal Democrats have people of such 'talent' that they would be a unique asset to any government. What the Liberal Democrats would bring to the government would be votes for the Labour party at an election. The problem from the Liberal Democrat perspective is that they would mainly be switchers from the Liberal Democrats to Labour, something that worries Brown not one jot. From his perspective a few Liberal Democrats in his coalition plants him firmly in the crowded centre ground, while the LibDems take all of the electoral risk. There are relatively few people who wouldn't vote Labour if they associated with the Liberal Democrats, but there are plenty of people who would be turned off a Liberal Democrat party in bed with Labour instead of in opposition to them. And if it all goes pear-shaped, which of course it has, who gets hurt? Not Brown, but Ming Campbell, who now looks weaker than ever.

So, tonight Brown and company are probably pleased with their scheming, but they really shouldn't be. In politics it is possible to be too clever; integrity matters and if people don't trust you then they tend not to believe you, at which point it doesn't matter what you are saying or what message you are trying to deliver. After this, quite a lot of people won't trust Brown. Some of the them will be Liberal Democrat politicians, which doesn't matter unless there is a hung parliament. Some of them will be his own back bench MPs, which doesn't matter, unless there is a close vote in the Commons. Some of them will be ordinary members of the public, which doesn't matter, unless, of course, there is an election some day.

Minger

Labour and the Liberal Democrats have been talking about a coalition. This was this morning’s revelation, that the two parties of the Left have been cosying up to each other behind closed doors with a view to including such talent as can be found on the LibDem benches in Brown’s first government. Then someone blew the gaff, and it’s not quite clear who. Was it Brown wanting to clear the decks after failed negotiations, or was it a LibDem insider who thought the whole idea mad? The latter seems more likely. If Basildon in Britain in microcosm, our experience suggests that it is the Liberal Democrats who suffer by getting too close to Labour. We used to have 17 Liberal Democrats on our Council, but then they made the tactical error of supporting a Labour administration that was already pretty unpopular with their own voters. This was pointed out at some length by the local Tories and a few elections later we are now down to 3 LibDems. A Brown/Ming deal could see that scenario writ large. With the only opposition to the government falling to the Conservatives, the result could be carnage for LibDem MPs and it is not surprising if one of them showed a few vestiges of a survival instinct.

This fiasco doesn’t hurt Brown, but it really hurts Ming, who wasn’t exactly smiling Mr. Popular anyway. The LibDem leadership stakes is increasingly looking a worthwhile punt.

Postcode Lottery

There is a new drug to treat Myeloma, somthing that I am quite interested in as I am currently in remission from that ghastly disease. Revlimid - or lenalidomide - has been given marketing approval by the European Medicines Agency, which is great as trials suggest that it markedly increases the survival chances of people who have already had treatment but where the disease has returned. One of the fun things about Myeloma is that the disease usually returns, so this is a very likely scenario. The trouble is that for England and Wales NICE, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, or Cost Effectiveness as it is wryly known in the medical profession, now has the ball. Their past record is not stellar, delaying or denying drugs that are available almost anywhere else in the developed world because of some arcane actuarial calculation. They did this with Velcade for Myeloma, and Herceptin for breast cancer to name but two. Let's hope their process doesn't end up with doctors having to tell patients that it isn't a good use of resources to keep them alive. Let's hope that in the interim NHS trusts don't refuse to prescribe Revlimid while they wait for NICE count the beans.

Law and Order

Fred Thompson is tooling up for a run at the Republican nomination for President. Here he is speaking at the Policy Exchange in Stories Gate London on the 19th of June. He may look vaguely familiar...

One Last Row

It seems that predictions of trouble at Tony Blair's last act as Prime Minister being a major EU negotiation have been borne out. Geoff Hoon, the Europe Minister and noted Brown loyalist, has suggested that an unfavourable outcome from the forthcoming Brussels summit could lead to a referendum in Britain before any agreement is finally ratified. As the Daily Telegraph puts it:

Both Downing Street and officials representing Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, reacted furiously, believing Mr Hoon was suggesting that Mr Blair and Mrs Beckett may meekly sell out British interests in a cowardly late-night deal at the summit.

The threat seems to be that if Beckett and Blair land Brown with any kind of political problem then there will be a referendum. Since that would almost certainly see both the then PM Gordon Brown and the Conservative opposition advocating a 'No' vote then such a referendum would almost certainly be lost. So, what Brown is saying via Hoon is that he reserves the right to abrogate any deal that he doesn't like. This puts Blair in a pretty humiliating position when it comes to actually trying to conduct negotiations with the other EU leaders. No wonder he is miffed, but he only has himself to blame. He shouldn't be out representing Britain at negotiations for a binding treaty with only 5 days left on the job, and if he is then he should have squared his position away with the incoming Prime Minister. That Brown feels that he has to do this says all that needs to be said about the working relationship between the two men who have been running our country for the last 10 years.