I tweeted this on October 23rd. I even teased Iain Dale and Tim Montgomerie about Ashcroft now dominating Tory foreign policy as well as domestic policy. 

Does this count as a micro-scoop? 

Whoever it was, they were cheering at the expense of David Cameron. The Tory leader's twin strategy for appeasing the eurosceptic wing of the modern Tory Party has left him isolated at home and in Europe. His promise of a referendum is dead and his decision to leave the European People's Party is looking increasingly eccentric. 

i always get soppy about this first half term of the school year.  It takes me right back to my west country primary school in the 1970s, kicking through the autumn leaves as the nights drew in. The excitement of the new term has gone and the long winter lies ahead. (You can already feel this small-scale sense of dread on Westminster). 

This first half-term always reminds of one of my classmates. He was not the brightest lad: let's call him Craig or Andrew or Michael or Mark or Simon (popular names at the time, but now long abandoned). OK Simon. Simon left school at 16 and went to work at the Gordano Services on the M5. We all did our stint there and I heard this story when I had a holiday job there during one long university summer. 

A few years earlier, I was told, my old primary school classmate had started work at the filling station in the services: not a bad job in the hierarchy of the services. He was a]]> Martin Bright 2009-11-03T21:30:26+00:00 http://www.spectator.co.uk/martinbright/5472401/my-bbc-radio-4-analysis-programme-on-secrecy.thtml

But over recent years I have become worried that the cost whistleblowers pay for their disclosures is too high. I worked closely with two high-profile leakers, Katharine Gun from the government’s secret surveillance centre, GCHQ, and Derek Pasquill, a former Foreign Office civil servant. Both ended up being hauled in front of the courts and both have found it difficult to find work since.

In each case, there was an argument for disclosure in the public interest. Gun revealed details of a spying operation on the United Nations Security Council in advance of the Iraq War and Derek Pasquill disclosed the UK government’s policy towards radical Islamist groups.

Gun and Pasquill both say they have no regrets about what they did. I believe they are both courageous individuals who put their own careers and livelihoods on the line in the interests of the wider public. But the]]> Martin Bright 2009-10-25T21:32:30+00:00 http://www.spectator.co.uk/martinbright/5467586/how-question-time-became-important.thtml I can't expect anyone to bother reading another piece about Question Time, but bear with me here. In the build-up to Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time, I was convinced it was a fuss about nothing. I still can't quite understand Peter Hain's objection to allowing an unpleasant fascist hang himself live on TV. Good box office, sure, but surely a spectacle worth paying good money to see.

My only concern was the quality of the panel. But when it came to it,  I was pleasantly surprised. I thought Huhne, Warsi, Straw and Greer were really rather good. I have my doubts about Sayeeda Warsi's record on radical Islam and homosexuality but I was impressed by her performance. (Griffin didn't even bother to get in the point that he had been elected and Warsi hadn't, but then I don't get the feeling he's that much of a democrat). For me, Warsi was the only panelist who really skewered Griffin when she said how appalling it was to describe the plight of white British people in terms of genocide.

It was also good to flush out the BNP leader on the Holocaust. His equivocation was a disgrace. 

Sadie's Tavern has]]> Martin Bright 2009-10-23T21:57:12+00:00 http://www.spectator.co.uk/martinbright/5456836/now-the-tories-need-to-get-serious-about-their-euroallies.thtml The Guardian splash today puts some serious meat on my story in last week's Jewish Chronicle about growing US unhappiness about the Tories' new friends in Europe. Jonathan Freedland adds some important analysis.

When I first put it to the Conservative Party press office that there might be an issue here I was told that it was unlikely the Obama government was troubling itself with such a parochial British issue. To me this demonstrates a fundamental failure of understanding that stretches right up to David Cameron himself. There has always been the suspicion that, for Cameron and his circle, politics is a game. The original ruse to leave the European People's Party was a ruse to attract the Eurosceptic ultras to his leadership campaign. A mature leader would have abandoned this daft idea when he realised what the consequences would be. If he had taken the trouble to do as much a Google search on his new allies he would have been able to predict that this would become a serious problem for him in America.

William Hague will have some big questions to answer about the new European Conservatives and Reformists group when he meets Hillary Clinton today. 

The]]> Martin Bright 2009-10-21T07:23:09+00:00 http://www.spectator.co.uk/martinbright/5453536/thanks-to-bruce-anderson.thtml I didn't think I'd ever find myself uttering the words in that headline, but I'm afraid those looking for further evidence of my ideological drift to the dark side will be disappointed. I do have to express my heartfelt gratitude to the old curmudgeon, however it's for his guidance as a literary rather than an ideological mentor.

Shortly after I left the New Statesman, I found myself wandering through Waterstones on Trafalgar Square. I find bookshops very comforting in times of trouble. I was in something of a daze and found myself in the detective fiction department. Now this something unusual for me, as I rarely read the stuff, considering myself a little more high brow in my tastes. 

It was at this moment, lost and directionless in a part of a bookshop where I rarely tread, that I bumped into big Bruce. "Hello, Martin," he boomed, full of the bonhomie my comrades on the left seem to find so difficult to muster at the moment. We discussed briefly his genius at his early championing of the cause of David Cameron, I told him of my sadness at leaving the NS and then he noticed where we were.

"Aha," he]]> 2009-10-20T06:38:08+00:00 http://www.spectator.co.uk/martinbright/5446501/harriet-now-more-dangerous-for-gordon.thtml The once-daft (but now rather good) Labour List has a very interesting story about Harriet Harman. Apparently, she will tell Andrew Neil on this weekend's BBC Straight Talk that she won't stand for the leadership in any circumstances and has no leadership ambitions. 

This is very bad news for Gordon Brown.

This may seem like a strange thing to say, but in several conversations with Labour MPs and activists I have heard a version of the following: "We can't get rid of Gordon because Harriet would win the election to replace him." 

With Harriet gone, the way is now clear for a genuine challenge. 

The likelihood is that this won't happen. Although almost anyone would improve Labour's chances, the party is just exhausted (and this applies especially to the parliamentary party).

One Labour minister even told me this week that he hoped the Tories won the election definitively so that Labour could have the time to rebuild in opposition rather than fighting to undermine a tiny Conservative minority. 

For once the over-used phrase "a great day for freedom of speech" actually means something.

Perhaps now the British journalistic community will take heart and stand up to this firm of lawyers that specialises in closing down discussion of the ultra-rich and downright disreputable. It is difficult to imagine an episode more damaging for the reputation of this firm. Hurray. 

However, let's take a step back here. The journalistic profession had become so cowed and the libel laws of this country so abused that Carter-Ruck seriously believed it could close down legitimate debate in parliament itself. What's more, for several hours they actually succeeded.

This is beyond arrogance. 

Paul Farrelly served on the select committee that investigated our disgraceful libel laws in the last session of parliament. I only hope his work, that of the committee and the lessons drawn from this disgraceful episode lead to genuine reform. 

I interviewed Mr Kaminski last week, and I found his responses to my questions on the wartime massacre of Jews by Poles at Jedwabne in north east Poland unconvincing. His comments to me have been picked up by The Observer today. Most worrying is the idea that he believes this massacre to be of a different order to Nazi war crimes. He told me: "I think it's unfair comparing it with a Nazi crime and putting it on the same level as the Nazi policy."

His admission that he used to wear the symbol of a Catholic totalitarian group, the Chrobry Sword is also very odd. 

Many of Kaminski's claims about his past seem to be unravelling.

Now I notice Craig Murray, a former UK diplomat in Poland, who knew Kaminski as a young activist,]]> Martin Bright 2009-10-11T10:46:46+00:00