The Lobby's existential search for meaning
11:00am 
There was a small but important piece in the Independent this week by my former boss John Kampfner. He’s not my boss any more, so I don’t have to be nice to him. But it really was rather good.
John simply pointed out that political journalism goes in cycles of hype and condemnation. Thus, just after his election as Labour leader, Gordon Brown could do no wrong — until he failed to call a snap election, after which everything he did turned to dust.
So where once...
The coverage of the appalling Rochdale grooming case has been, for the most part, well-informed and responsible. In the Times today David Aaronovitch 
As those of us in London face up to the prospect of the none-of-the-above election, it’s worth thinking ahead to 2015 and asking yourself if any of the major parties really deserves your vote. It’s hard to remember a time when things were quite like this. Daniel Finkelstein has a theory that the British electorate rarely makes the wrong judgement. And it is almost always the case that at least one party is firing on all cylinders. The 1992 election was an exception, but right now John Major, Neil Kinnock and Paddy Ashdown...
Over the weekend I had some interesting responses to my rather flippant tweet asking if there was a government minister not under pressure at the moment. The consensus seemed to be that William Hague was still looking pretty good, with Michael Gove a close second. No one mentioned Eric Pickles, but it was interesting to see the substantial figure of the Communities Secretary sitting at the Prime Minister’s side during his appearance in parliament yesterday. It would probably be too chippy, even for me, to point to the class origins of the government’s...
Michael Dugher is only half right when he 
I have always thought Francis Maude was a rather decent chap on the moderate side of Tory politics. He has worked valiantly to drive the Big Society agenda from the Cabinet Office. He has the good hair of a classic Conservative MP of the old school. But he gave the game away when he talked 
