Trimming government

7:14pm

Was Alan Milburn on to something? When he proposed slashing Whitehall by a quarter in his interview with me for this week’s magazine – on the grounds that you can only take bureaucrats’ power away if you send them away – I imagined he was just stirring things to be mischievous. But now Matthew Taylor, former No10 policy chief, has proposed slashing the number of ministers by a quarter and, as Three Line Whip reports, No10 has slapped him down: “The Prime Minister is quite happy with the number of ministers he has got in his Government”.

 

I’m with Milburn and Taylor. A Conservative government should ask itself searching questions about the need for a DBERR (as the DTI now calls itself), a culture department or an education bureaucracy to name but a few. The Blairites realise now that they fought the establishment – and the establishment won. The civil service vastly outnumber the handful of Blairite ministers. If David Cameron is serious about “a post-bureaucratic age” then a useful step should be to dispense with the bureaucrats.

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Harman vs. Cable

6:54pm

As James reported last week, Harriet Harman will be standing in for Brown at Wednesday's PMQs.  Her Tory opponent will most likely be William Hague.  And now Red Box confirm that she'll also be faced by Vince Cable.  

Harman against a Hague 'n' Cable tag-team?  One shudders to think...

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Obama's web site is more popular in Britain than those of Britain's political parties

6:17pm

If anyone doubted that British political parties are doing a poor job of both using the internet to drive their message and exciting voters, then just consider this from Tom Watson’s blog:

“Barackobama.com was the 11th most visited site for UK Internet users in February. In September last year it was 172nd. During the week of super Tuesday his website had more visits than any of the major UK political party websites. Obama was the most searched for political figure in the UK, receiving three times as many searches as Hilary Clinton. That’s reach.”

To be fair, there are some British politicians who understand the potential impact of the internet—notably, George Osborne. But the parties haven’t yet translated this into effective online strategies, although the Tories have definitely made more progress on this front than the other two major parties. 

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McCain on Basra

6:14pm

Talking about the situation in Basra today, John McCain makes the point that the problems in the city reflect not on the current strategy in Iraq but on the mistaken initial strategy:

“This goes back to when we didn’t have enough boots on the ground, after the initial military success,’’ he said. “Iranian clerics moved into the region, Iranian influence moved into southern Iraq, and we basically, and the British, did not do a great deal to prevent them. These are the penalties we continue to pay for the very bad mishandling of the war for nearly four years while they became solidly entrenched.”

It is hard not to think that the problems in Basra have been exacerbated by the fact that the British government has long been preoccupied with planning a withdrawal strategy rather than thinking about how to fix the problem.

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End of a circus?

5:26pm

So there we have it. According to Lord Justice Scott Baker, there is not a “shred of evidence” that Diana was assassinated by the Royal Family or by anyone else. A line can finally be drawn through the conspiracy theories of Mohamed Al Fayed. (Although will his supporters be placated? I doubt it. To paraphrase Karl Popper: a Diana conspiracy theorist cannot open a newspaper without finding on every page confirming evidence for their view of history.)

 

But it’s taken some £6 million of taxpayers’ money to reach this sensible conclusion. And that’s before we consider the distress caused to Princes William and Harry, as their mother’s name has been dragged through the mud. In this light, does the end justify the means? 

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Has Mugabe actually come third?

4:18pm

The Institute for War and Peace Reporting latest update on the Zimbabwe election quotes source with knowledge of the results saying that Mugabe actually came third. He is, however, set to claim victory. The key thing to watch for is how South Africa reacts to his announcement.

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Another considerable lead

2:27pm

More encouraging news for Boris, on the day that he formally launched his mayoral campaign. The latest YouGov / Evening Standard poll puts the Spectator’s candidate 10 percentage points clear of Ken Livingstone. He also leads Ken on second preference votes.

 

Admittedly, it’s a bit down on his 12-point lead of two weeks ago. But at least it proves that wasn’t a freak result. The tide is certainly in Boris’s favour.

UPDATE: Over at Red Box, Sam Coates wonders whether Boris might scrap the congestion charge.

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Come and get me

12:34pm

Charles Clarke’s interview in The Independent is good value. He lets rip with his now trademark straight talk, declaring that he’s “frustrated that Labour does not seem to be doing enough to offer real solutions to the major problems of the future, nor be convincing about our capacity to overcome the challenges we face” and criticising Gordon Brown for “allowing a sense of indecision to develop.” But, interestingly, he issues a ‘come and get me’ call about returning to government in response to a question from one reader:

“Would you ever take a Cabinet position under Gordon Brown?
Richard Collins
by email

Yes, certainly but any such appointment is a matter for him. Since before he became Prime Minister I have always been clear in conversations with Gordon Brown that I am ready to serve loyally in his Government but, equally, that I am perfectly happy if he decides not to include me. He asked me to discuss some non-governmental roles but we couldn't find the right way to make them work.”

Over to you, Prime Minister.

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You don't say

JAMES FORSYTH 11:34am

The opening line of Northern Rock’s annual report, out today, deserves to win an award for understatement:

"2007 was a difficult and challenging year for Northern Rock"

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Law, Actually

11:03am

It all depends who says it, doesn’t it? I hold unfashionably robust views on the proposed extension of pre-charge detention for terrorist suspects (the arguments are familiar now: see my article here). I have traded blows on air with opponents of the change and I respect most of their anxieties.

David Davis is one of the politicians I admire most, and he and I happen to disagree on this issue – which is fine. Likewise, the Government should certainly take seriously the challenge to its plan by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (chaired by the admirable Trevor Phillips). These, like Liberty’s Shami Chakrabarti, are serious people with serious reservations about an undoubtedly significant infringement of core liberties. Their arguments will rightly receive a hearing when the Counter-Terrorism Bill returns to the Commons this week.

What I can’t be doing with is a bunch of authors, clothes-makers and luvvies muscling in on the act. Look at the signatories to the letter to Gordon Brown complaining about the proposed extension to 42 days: Colin Firth, Iain Banks, Patrick Stewart, Peter Capaldi, Vivienne Westwood, and others. Since when did we go to Captain Picard for guidance on anything other than defeating the evil Borg? Or Colin Firth for advice on matters unrelated to beating up Hugh Grant? Or Dame Vivienne on matters unconnected to punk fashion and contemporary couture? Please: this is a serious business, not a Richard Curtis movie in which nice middle class creatives intervene to stop a really beastly fascist bill (Law, Actually).

Come to think of it, perhaps this will swing the vote for Brown.

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