Interesting encounter with a Labour MP, carrying a copy of the latest literature on MPs allowances. He's an interesting man with a reformist bent, so we started to chat about the whole expenses issues.
He said that he and other MPs were close to concluding that nothing they did or said on pay and allowances would ever be acceptable to the public. The general view of being an MP was that it was a vocation and the public didn't really think that they should get any recompense.
The public would think they were freeloaders on the take pretty much whatever they did.
He wondered whether MPs shouldn't just make whatever arrangements they thought reasonable and just and not even start to propitiate public opinion, since such an effort was bound to end in failure.
Some MPs, he said, had concluded that "they may as well take the money" although he didn't elaborate on what that meant.
A few years ago, sitting in a taxi, I received a telephone call I will never forget.
It was a colleague at Conservative Central Office ringing to tell me that he wasn't completely sure if the staff's wages would be paid on time at the end of the month. They probably will be paid, he said, but I thought I ought to warn you.
I thanked him for the information and began thinking through the consequences of not being paid for my own bank balance and that of my team.
Then he added that he wasn't really telling me because he wanted me to know about my wages. He was telling me because, he said, although I may not realise it, I was, as a Director of the Conservative Party liable for the entire sum if the party couldn't pay it.
Really, don't worry about it, he said. Bye, he said.
Well, it didn't come to that in the end. And the fact that it didn't is one of many reasons why I respect and have affection for Michael Ashcroft. But it wasn't a nice moment.
I thought about it when reading Rachel Sylvester's column this morning on Labour's financial problems.
Despite all the fuss there has been, I think the issue is being underestimated.
First, there is insufficient understanding that the long term funding problems are associated with acute short term cash problems. At the end of any given month the party will be scrambling round looking for some live cash to help them through.
Michael Ashcroft was extraordinarily good about giving - he didn't impose political condiditons of any kind. I am in a position to be certain about that because I was director of policy.
Do we think the unions will be equally self-denying?
Second, when the auditors sign off the accounts they will have to certify that with all their staff and loans, but hardly any guaranteed income, the Labour Party is still a going concern. They had big doubts about doing this for the Tories, and I believe that this (guarantees) was another area where Michael helped out.
I think the auditors are having precisely this problem with Labour's accounts now. Who will come to their rescue. Anyone?
Meltdown in the Labour Party has reached that stage, only too familiar to me, when MPs don't mind what they say or who they say it to.
Politely talking to one Labour member, while in the presence of a member of the Shadow Cabinet, I asked him gently to what he thought we owed Labour's decline in the polls.
Instead of giving an involved explanation he replied: Oh that's easy to explain. Our Leader is utterly useless. If you asked him which of the two doors from this room he was going to exit from he would be incapable of choosing. And if someone else chose the door for him he wouldn't be able to make his way there.
Yesterday, chatting with one of his colleagues, I learned that Gordon Brown was not the only one to earn contempt: The one good thing about global warming is that as the waters rise, Hazel Blears will drown first.
 Iain reports on Chris Smith's appointment to head the Environment Agency. He is not impressed and his instinct is correct.
But oddly, I am rather in favour of such cosy political appointments.
There are too many quangos. They are accountable to no one, with so called independent heads, established on the entirely bogus idea that they will not be taking political decisions.
If the Government appoints one of its own former ministers to head up the agency it will be more difficult for them to escape some of the political consequences of the decisions.
In this mad world, absent of long overdue proper reform, such cronyism actually increases accountability.
Fabulous little story for Guido, the tale of Phil Collins's arrival in the Brown Government in his departure. James Purnell's appointment of Collins demonstrated just how ambitious Purnell is. But also just how ideological a Blairite, because outside Lord Adonis there is no more resolute Blairite in the party than Collins.
It is fascinating that he appears to have been pushed out. They have lost a big talent. But perhaps, since that talent was going to aid Purnell, losing it was the objective.
 A great post on Iain Dale's Diary this morning. Here's Jacqui Smith talking to the Mirror:
Asked if she finds any fellow MPs dishy, she replies with a hearty laugh, "Yes! Most of my cabinet colleagues, and especially the Prime Minister." So could she ever fancy a Tory? "No"
Setting aside the injured feelings of Tory politicians (let's hear it for sexiest MP Jeremy Hunt), Dale goes on to make the following point: There are double standards at play too. Imagine a male Tory Shadow Minister saying that he fancied most female Tory MPs. Then imagine the likes of Harriet Harman reacting to it. "Same, nasty sexist Tory Party," she'd no doubt say. Yet a female MP can say things like this and people are amused by it.
Alice Fishburn
A fantastic reminder from Political Wire on the era when political parties discovered the Internet.
We've only given you a taste below (check out that youthful grin and the slightly strange link for 'women').
But you can click here for a complete trip down memory lane
Listening to the Today Programme a thought struck me that had never entered my head before. Could Harriet Harman be the next leader of the Labour Party?
Yes, I know, but hear me out.
What makes Ms Harman seem an unlikely successor to media pundits is that media pundits wouldn''t pick her. I most certainly wouldn't. But we don't have a vote in any leadership election.
There are two reasons why Ms Harman stands a chance.
The choice of leader will be partly determined by the analysis party members have of the reason why Labour is doing badly. This analysis need not make any sense to outsiders. Labour turned to Foot and the Conservative Party to Hague and later to IDS partly because they saw things differently to everyone else.
The Tory Party after 1997 did not understand how it was seen. It believed it had lost because it was not robustly and consistently right wing enough. Hague appealed because he was young, lucid, and acceptable to the right. At the same time he represented the future because he hadn't a factional (wet v dry) past.
I think it quite likely that Labour members will be looking for a more left wing candidate as leader, not another straight moderniser. That makes it hard for Purnell and even for Miliband.
The second reason that Harman stands a chance is that she has personal appeal to Labour members. She is good on television (her answers aren't great but she presents well) and she has real politics (there are issues she cares about and she has made a difference on them).
We don't need to speculate whether this is the case. We know that it is because Ms Harman won the deputy leadership against what seemed to be the odds. The Blairite came last.
After Gordon Brown, a photogenic southern woman, on the left but not of it, with the unions but not in them, would be a very strong contender I would have thought.
After a particularly dreadful by-election defeat I recall asking Mike Thomas - the talented former Labour and later SDP MP and one of the best political observers I know - what his strategy was now for the failing Social Democratic Party.
"Travolta Micawber," he replied. Uh?
"Staying alive and hoping something will turn up."
After Crewe and Nantwich Gordon Brown's strategy is Travolta Micawber too.
As the SDP discovered, however, the "staying alive" bit is harder than it looks. So Brown needs to turn his attention to it. He needs to think how he deals with the leadership issue.
A fellow survivor from the top team in the terrible years for the Tories put it rather well to me last night. He said that what we have learned about leadership speculation, the two of us, is that once it reaches a certain point it will always come to a head in some way.
It did in the case of Major, IDS, Kennedy, Ming, Blair. And in the old days it did in the case of Thatcher and, going back a bit, Heath and Wilson.
Oddly Hague isn't on that list. However bad things got, serious leadership speculation really didn't take hold.
So, although the leadership speculation ended differently in different cases, there is always some dramatic, climactic moment.
All Brown can choose is how it comes about. If he doesn't choose (quite likely given his personality) the choice will be made for him. He would be much better deciding for himself how to confront an issue that won't simply go away.
Will it be a resignation (unlikely), a back me or sack me speech (might not be enough), a Major type stand-off (very risky) or a fresh device of his own invention?
Who knows? But it's coming, somehow it's coming. Travolta Micawber won't work without it
Andrew Cooper, the polling guru and one of the owners of Populus, has sent me this fascinating graph (click on it to enlarge). The red line is the current Government's opinion rating starting after the election in 2005. The blue line is the Major Government starting after the election in 1992.
The red line represents an average of Populus, ICM and You Gov while the blue line uses only ICM, because they were the only pollster using a properly adjusted measure during that period.
It is immediately obvious that Labour is on the same path as the Tories in the run up to their spectacular defeat in 1997.
There is one departure - that little spike in Labour's rating was the Brown summer, when he could have called the election but didn't.
Andrew notes the point where the red line stops. At that moment on the blue line, John Major was under such pressure that just two months later he called a leadership election and told his party opponents to put up or shut up.
Ben Brogan sets out Labour's four point plan for recovery on his must-read blog.
Step one is to put the 10p thing behind them, step two to get past the memoirs, step three to do better than expected (having set the bar ridiculously low) in Crewe and Nantwich and step four to avoid defeat over the 42 day proposals.
As Ben points out these are internal objectives, all about survival and keeping the Parliamentary Labour party (PLP) onside. There is no hope of recovery if this is their plan.
 So suddenly we can find £2.7 billion of extra borrowing without any trouble can we?
This is surely the end of any possibility that Labour can run a black hole campaign against the Tories in the next election. They've just shown they don't mind borrowing almost £3 billion for entirely political reasons.
 The Labour campaign in Crewe and Nantwich rang a faint bell and I've been trying to remember what it was. And then it came to me.
Algernon.
The boy with the silver spoon in his mouth.
In December 1976 the Labour Party televised a broadcast making a nakedly class based appeal. It satirised "Algernon" a boy who went to an expensive school, who doesn't need social security and doesn't need to work.
Voiced by Joe Ashton and Helene Hayman (now Lords Speaker) the broadcast was extremely controversial. Even Jim Callaghan the Party leader was critical.
The broadcast was seen as a disgraceful class slur and an antiquated message. That was more than 30 years ago.
Some Labour figures (Party General Secretary Ron Hayward for instance) thought the broadcast a triumph, the best thing the party had ever done. Others understood it was a disaster. Now all these years later the same mistake is being made again.
I don't imagine Tony Blair would ever have sanctioned such a campaign - he would realise it was both irrelevant and a negation of new Labour. Blair wanted everyone inside his big tent. Toffs included. And he wouldn't want to signal that Labour was at all a class vehicle.
Which raises these questions - did Brown approve this fiasco of a campaign? Or is he so out of the picture that he wasn't consulted?
What should Labour do now?
They have, broadly, two options. The first is, essentially, to do nothing. Here's the rationale for what seems like an odd course.
A mild change of course will achieve little. Talk of listening will be scoffed at by voters and doesn't sit well with what they know of Gordon Brown. What he should offer instead is a Prime Minister proposing to stay focused, keeping his head down, weathering the storm.
What he would offer us is the story of relentless, robust, bulldozer Brown. And if the economy picks up he can present it as a triumph.
Here's the alternative.
Recognise that the phrase "disappointed with the results" is a laughable misunderstanding. Last weekend local Government expert Colin Rallings said: The Tories need to register 200 or more gains on May 1. Anything above that level would indicate the Government was in meltdown.
Labour's losses have just passed the 300 mark going south.
What you then need to do is think what you would change if you lost the election. And start changing it now.
There is an obvious problem with this. The first thing you would change is the leader.
I do not think Labour will follow either of these alternatives. And even if they did there is only a slim chance either would work.
ALSO: What should they do next...The Conservatives
 The one and only Michael White points out the following:
As a conscientious Guardian reader you may well have seen on Monday's news pages that David Abrahams, the Tyneside property developer at the centre of last winter's "Donorgate" uproar, has been told by the police that he has been cleared of any wrongdoing.
He feels the Guardian's story deserved more attention than it got.
He is quite right. This decision by the police follows one in which they decided not to pursue Peter Watt Labour's General Secretary. And it is intriguing.
Surely deliberately using third parties to give donations in order to disguise the origin of the donation must be against the law. If it isn't the law is badly broken. Parties will be able to do what they like.
If the law is not broken in this way it means the police determined that Watt and Abrahams had not deliberately disguised the origin of the donation. I am quite happy to accept this but it turns on its head what was reported at the time. We need to learn more.
I have a huge amount of respect for my fellow Newsnight political panellist, Peter Hyman. Formerly Tony Blair's chief speechwriter and very much part of the inner circle, Peter has a very good political brain and a strong moral sense.
He offers Newsnight viewers a frank view, while clearly sympathetic to Labour's cause.
And his excellent Labour contacts provide a view of what MPs and key advisers are saying to to each other.
Which is what makes last night's panel contribution so interesting: Hyman: The big danger now is that a lot of people are saying we've had a good innings, we've had our ten years... it wouldn't be so bad if we have a spell in opposition...
As soon as you start talking like that saying well, 'Would Cameron be that bad a Prime Minister?' I'm hearing that on our side...
It's a defeatism, which I think is incredibly dangerous. It's played out at the moment by people arguing in public in a way we've never done before.
Paxman: Can the party get out of it?
Hyman: I think it's very very difficult.
If you want to watch the panel debate click here.
The UK Office of Government Commerce is: Responsible for improving value for money by driving up standards and capability in procurement
Now, let's see, how would you improve value for money? I know! An expensive branding exercise. That'll do it.
So FHD, the prestigious London branding agency, has been brought in to devise, among other things, a new logo. And here, courtesy of The Register, it is:
When it was presented to OGC staff it didn't take long for them to look at the new brand logo (emblazoned on mouse mats and so forth) from all angles:
Apparently they are pressing ahead with it anyway. A spokesman for the OGC said (I kid you not) this: We concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters 'OGC' - and is not inappropriate to an organisation that's looking to have a firm grip on government spend.
What do fraudsters and Patricia Hewitt have in common?
Well, according to an old email doing the rounds, she's incredibly eager to give away £6 million to anyone who wants to get in touch. Provided you send in your bank details, of course.
One has to give credit where it's due. This inspired aping of a government minister makes a nice change after hundreds of "Dearest beloved, I am the orphaned daughter of..." spam emails.
The Register offers up the attempt in all its glory. I particularly like this important caveat: You could get personal info. on me via the Parliament sites or on my official website, but do not try to contact me via any personal information you may lay your hands upon on the internet as almost all my contact info are connected to the British House of Parliament data base except the ones I personally sent to you; as I don't want our effort and my reputation, jeopardized
Well, quite.
Still one question stands out. What are people more likely to delete? An email from the Labour Party or one from an exiled doctor in Nigeria? Perhaps these conmen aren't so clever after all.
Alice Fishburn
The political world is aflutter about the "leaks" taking place to PR Week. This is thought to be a symbol of the political unwordliness of the Prime Ministers new team and a fight.
So I have collected together these stories as a service to Comment Central readers.
Viewed as a group, they don't really look like leaks in pursuit of some sort of internal war or a blundering clique giving away too much so much as good political journalism. Why should it only be lobby journalists for national newspapers who get these stories?
Here they are in date-order, earliest first:
-- David Singleton: Brown turns to Brunswick boss
-- David Singleton: Editors back Brown's plan to revamp comms
-- Clare O'Connor: Brown brings in Which? director as special advisor
-- David Singleton: A new-look comms team for Brown
-- David Singleton and Clare O'Connor: Comms rejig at Number 10
-- David Singleton: Carter continues his Number 10 overhaul
-- Clare O'Connor: Number 20 ushers in web guru for revamp
-- David Singleton: Number 10 in talks with Mark Penn
On Sunday Martin Ivens drew a parallel between Brown's new man Stephen Carter and former Tory MP Archie Norman. And it is an instructive one.
I have frequently seen it written that Archie was a top class business operator but not a good politician. But I think this misses the point.
In fact it could lead to exactly the wrong conclusion - to the idea that the new Brown team should yield to the old one.
It wasn't that Archie Norman could not be a good politician. It is that he did not wish to be a good politican.
He thought playing the game was stupid. Arriving from outside he found, for instance, the joy shown by Tory MPs when they kept Labour MPs up all night incomprehensible. He thought the traditions of Parliament ridiculous.
And he realised immediately that the Conservative Party was talking to itself not to voters.
At Central Office he brought together a group of executives - including myself, Andrew Cooper and critically George Osborne - and encouraged us to begin to think differently. It was a slow process, but as Deputy Chairman Archie Norman started the modernisers on the path to changing the party.
And he did this because he was an outsider and could see things more clearly.
Stephen Carter and his team could make the same impact, provided that they are unflinching and continue to provide the outsider's perspective rather than just adapting to political norms.
That is their choice.
Guido and Iain have noticed the highly amusing web logo for the Progressive Governance conference.
But at the conference itself the logo is nowhere in sight. Instead there is an impressive gathering of left politicians and policy makers grappling with the problems globalisation poses to the right. The US contingent is small, perhaps because of course of the election there. But the rest of the developed world sent high level delegations.
The intellectual gains from such meetings are small but they serve a strong political function. The aim is to spread the new Labour idea to other parts of the Left. Something like it on the right, with the aim of developing and spreading modernising ideas would be welcome. Anyone?
The brilliant Boulton & Co blog points to this fantastic photo of Ed Balls and Andy Burnham letting off some steam.
Just play nicely, boys.
Alice Fishburn
The Foreign Secretary made that rare thing yesterday - a ministerial speech that needs to be read in full.
I thought it a superb effort - well written, coherent and best of all right.
James Forsyth complains that Iraq is swept aside in only a few words. While I understand this criticism I think it is harsh.
The purpose of the address is to rally those who can be rallied to the standard of democracy and Miliband does this by deliberately decoupling his arguments from the everlasting row about Iraq. Other speeches can be made about that.
This is exactly the same stance as adopted, with reason, by the Euston Manifesto Group.
 Over on Sam Coates's excellent Red Box, there's a captivating conundrum involving a cabinet minister and a hairdryer.
Find out more here.
 Plenty of talk on Friday's Any Questions about how politicians think they are better than the rest of us.
What would happen to one of us if we failed to file our tax return on time? This has become the question of the hour.
And we know the answer, don't we? Because lots if people fail to file on time every year. People who get caught, which not everyone does by any means, are mostly asked to pay a medium sized fine.
Peter Hain on the other hand had to resign his job and was publicly humiliated. Quite rightly.
But what the incident shows is not that politicians get away with things the rest of us don't get away with but the opposite. What it shows is not that political life in this country is corrupt but the opposite. Not that funding laws are failing but the opposite.
 The question on everyone's lips. Who would you put in Peter Hain's place, if you were Gordon Brown?
We whipped round top Times writers for their opinions. Here they are:
1) Camilla Cavendish: Tommy Thompson, the ex-governor of Wisconsin who slashed state welfare. Failing that, I'd take Bill Clinton although we won't know if he's available until later in the year.
2) Tim Hames: Kim Howells, an uber-moderniser and Welsh.
 3) Sam Coates: Vince Cable. I bet he would give it a second thought.
4) Alice Miles: John Hutton, Alan Milburn or Charles Clarke (although he might be too bullish)
5) Matthew Parris: I challenge Jon Cruddas to do it
 Who would you put in Peter Hain's place if you were Gordon Brown? Actually strike that question. Who would you put in Peter Hain's place if you were thinking strategically?
I think you would use it as an opportunity.
You would want to be seen to be broadening your team and listening to outside voices. What, then, about Charles Clarke?
There are just the faintest signs - the appointment of Stephen Carter, the return of Jeremy Heywood - that Brown realises that he has to broaden his team, make it appear more heavyweight, give the appearance that he wants a Cabinet of big players.
So I think there has to be a chance that the bearded one will be back.
UPDATE: Who should Brown replace Hain with? Some Times suggestions
Yesterday I reported speculation that Shaun Woodward wouldn't see the year out as a Cabinet minister. The Telegraph hazarded that a Secretary of State of the Nations might be created doing away with Woodward's job.
Now I've had some inside dope on the Northern Ireland Office that allows me to elaborate a little on this.
Apparently the NIO has been working on a merger with the Department of Justice.
While there is no firm timetable for this, it might be difficult to do it until policing and criminal justice are devolved. But under the St Andrews Agreement that is supposed to happen this Spring.
The fly in the ointment. The Rev Ian Paisley. The devolution of power requires cross-community support and it seems the Rev wants the IRA Army Council disbanded as part of the deal.
Paisley or Woodward. Who will Brown lose patience with first?
Over on the Telegraph's Three Line Whip there's a rather good piece of speculation by Rosa Prince.
Here it is: My own tip for the first member of Gordon Brown's Cabinet to bite the dust in 2008 - Shaun Woodward.
Appointing a former Tory might have seemed like a good idea back in the summer, when Mr Brown was feeling all inclusive and big tent, but my spies say the PM has come to regret his decision.
Deeply tribal, with a gut hatred of all things Conservative, I hear Gordo has become increasingly irritated with Woodward's "insights" into life under John Major - hardly relishing the comparison.
And Number 10 insiders are giggling up their sleeves at the millionaire's boasts that he has been asked to help run the General Election campaign.
Rumour is the PM will take advantage of the disquiet over Des Browne's dual role as Scotland and Defence Secretary to create a new Secretary of State for the Nations -thereby politely removing the Northern Ireland post from the turncoat Woodward.
Somehow this has the ring of truth about it.
The impatient Brown and the garrulous Woodward are not a match made in heaven.
When William Hague launched his Listening to Britain campaign under Peter Lilley, we used to hold the organising meetings over lunch at Shaun's house in Queen Anne's Gate. A white-gloved butler used to serve us sandwiches from the local cafe, still in their paper bags.
Shaun's verbal contributions, ahem, often constituted a central part of proceedings. I came to call the campaign Listening to Shaun.
It wouldn't wholly surprise me if it transpired that Gordon Brown was less tolerant than Peter Lilley of such contributions.
There is yesterday's Times: I think it’s the different challenges over the last few months have both been interesting and I hope people will look back and – whether it was floods, or foot and mouth or avian flu or the financial turbulence – feel that we dealt with them in the right way
And there is today's Times
Over on Boulton & Co, Joey Jones asks these questions of Harriet Harman: How was her £5000 donation from Janet Kidd arranged? It's my understanding that the money was to compensate for her overspend during the campaign (that's why it came in after the campaign ended...)
But who made Kidd/Abrahams aware she was short of cash....? Or who indicated to her that Kidd/Abrahams might be a useful source of funds. Surely this can't have been done completely blind?
Interested in the Labour funding issue? You have to read this.
The breaking news that Hilary Benn refused to accept money in the name of Janet Kidd makes the Harman donation even more extraordinary.
If Mr Benn's campaign knew that there was a link between Kidd and David Abrahams then Ms Harman's campaign was almost certain to have known as well.
Wasn't it?
 Yesterday the Labour Party appeared bewildered about the Abrahams donation. A Labour spokesman said yesterday:
It is important that the Labour Party is beyond reproach in this matter.
The general-secretary has therefore been asked to investigate this issue and report his findings to the party's treasurer.
Now, almost a day later, it turns out that the General Secretary was investigating himself.
Peter Watt says he only resigned because he realised that he had not complied with reporting instructions. I am afraid this won't do.
It must have been blindingly obvious to him that he was disguising the real donor's name and therefore deceiving the public. It is hard to believe but, I suppose, just about possible that he didn't realise he was acting outside the letter of the law.
But he surely realised that he was flagrantly abusing it.
This is what Peter Watt had to say when it was announced that no one was to be charged over cash for honours: We can build towards a future with trust restored in our political institutions and the creation of a level playing field within a more transparent system of funding for political parties.
Transparency, eh.
Peter Watt has been Labour's leading spokesman on party funding, arguing that the Unions should be exempt from the proposed cap. I think this episode reveals his true approach to a cap.
What a scandal.
Is the disc error just one of those things? Something that just happens and has nothing, really, to do with politics?
Yes and then again no.
With every action taken by a state organisation there is a small chance of an error. So the Government can reasonably protest that such things are just life.
But in two ways Labour's philosophy of Government helped create this fiasco.
First they have increased the size of government. With a given probability of a mistake, the number of errors will increase the more that you do. As Chris Dillow puts it: Government is just too big, and does too much. The state employs 5.78 million people. The law of probability means it's inevitable that some of these will be the sort of careless idiots who'll entrust a (private sector!) courier with sensitive data
Second, the probability does not stay constant. The more that you do, the less likely you are to be able to manage what you do. So the probability of an error rises with the size of government.
For years the right has used freedom arguments for smaller government. I am going to start using the discs too.
Guido will probably say "I told you so" but, ahem, David Miliband's new blog isn't very exciting is it?
I like and respect David. He is capable of a really interesting blog, sharing his thinking, perhaps a little briefing material, some books he's been reading, a bit more depth on controversial issues. And an occasional posting gives a hint of what's possible.
But for the most part we get spectacularly, hilariously unilluminating stuff like this:
This cost money and time to make and what was the point? What did we learn?
He seems to have mastered the form of the internet - blogging, You Tube and so forth - without any thought about the content. And that's not really the idea, is it?
The story that illegal immigrants were being employed to guard Gordon Brown's car and work in Scotland Yard, was bad.
But the exclusive from the excellent Ben Brogan this morning tells an even worse tale. The Home Secretary knew for four months and kept it secret.
This means, of course, that she was keeping it secret during a period when an election was being planned and that it was due to be revealed, if it was ever revealed, only after the voting was over.
This afternoon, Jacqui Smith will speak to the Commons.
Here's a question I'd like to know the answer to. Did anyone tell Number 10 about this in the last four months?
It would be extraordinary, given its seriousness, if they did not. But if they did, was Number 10 complicit in the cover up?
Over on his blog, the crisis in Pakistan prompts our new Foreign Secretary to muse about the relationship between order, democracy and security: The events of the last two days in Pakistan have sharpened the debate about whether and how the force of democracy is brought to support security and stability.
In his book Security First, the distinguished American academic Amitai Etzioni, makes the case for order as the foundation of democracy. Of course at one level he is right: lawlessness, fear, killing, make democracy impossible. But security without democracy can bottle up expectations and produce instability - also the enemy of security.
The situation in Pakistan is very important to us in Britain - and I don't just mean the 800 000 Britons of Pakistani origin. It is important to our counter-terrorist work and to our contribution in Afghanistan.
I said in my statement on Saturday after President Musharaff announced his measures that I wanted democracy and the rule of law to be allies of development and security in Pakistan. That is why we want the elections to happen on schedule and the media to be free.
The hope for Pakistan must be for the moderate majority in all sections and classes of society to come together; democracy makes that more not less likely.
I wasn't absolutely clear from this which side of the debate David Miliband is on, given that he now says the debate has been sharpened.
But I think he is on the neocon side and that he believes democracy comes first. And obviously this has implications far beyond Pakistan.
Am I right?
And if I am, does that signal that Miliband is more Blairite on foreign policy than Mr Brown would like to give the impression he is?
 Meanwhile there's the other Miliband.
I wrote this morning of Helena Kennedy's view that charities should be allowed to have an explicitly political purpose. A very bad idea.
But Ed Miliband, the charities minister, insists I am wrong to suggest he agrees with Kennedy. Quite fairly, he argues that he has never wanted to allow charities to set themselves explicitly political aims. And he has made that clear in a number of speeches.
The Miliband position is that charities should be allowed to do as much political campaigning as they like, removing existing restrictions while retaining their traditional charitable purposes. This is also the direction the Charities Commission want to move in.
I understand the distinction being made. But I am not convinced. If a charity is able to spend all its time on political campaigning it ceases to be what we traditionally view as a charity and becomes a pressure group.
So where does that leave us on inheritance taxes?
By raising the threshold to £700,000 the Chancellor hopes to leave the Tories using £2billion to relieve those who are inheriting fairly wealthy estates. Meanwhile the Government can spend it on children and sick people.
Cute? Pretty cute. But.....
Because the chancellor estimates the revenue from a charge on non-Doms at only £650m, he doesn't actually have the £2bn himself to spend.
Meanwhile, the Tories can "reuse" some of the money they had originally planned to spend on inheritance tax because the policy of raising the threshold to £1m is now much cheaper. They can announce a further tax cut with the same money.
So, perhaps, not so cute after all.
Whatever, it's certainly another reason to regard the "sums don't add up" as a silly game involving notional sums.
But one thing is clear. This is a massive political victory for all of us who dislike inheritance tax.
|
