I learned the truth at seventeen

That love was meant for beauty queens, and high school girls with clear skin smiles, who married young and then retired.

Actually that was Janis Ian's experience of being seventeen. But having been tagged by Stephen Glenn (well he said "feel free to have a go yourself" and I read those words and assumed he was speaking directly to me) I thought I would have a crack at this "Politics and me at Seventeen" meme.

I did also sort of learn the truth (about politics in my case) because I studied "British Government and Politics" at A-Level and it opened my eyes to the full wonder of our political system. It was also at the age of seventeen in 1991 that I visited the Houses of Parliament for the first time on a politics class trip guided by our then MP Gordon Oakes. I think he was a bit sozzled and perhaps not the best guide but it was amazing to see inside the place which had only just been opened up to the TV cameras.

Thatcher had just been deposed, a general election was imminent, EMF were in the charts, comedy was about to become the new rock and roll. Times were good for the young political enthusiast.

And yet I never got directly involved. As I have discussed previously on this blog I actually only finally joined a political party last year (2008) at the age of 33. Looking back now I am not really sure why. I think when I was that age I was more interested in socialising (by which I mean going out and getting trolleyed) and the ladies than sitting in rooms debating policy positions with the type of people who were generally considered geeks. It sounds a bit sad to say that now because I probably would have loved doing it given how much I was in awe of politics. I can still vividly remember a hustings that took place in our Widnes Sixth Form College in the run up to the 1992 general election where the candidates from the 3 main parties took questions from the assembled stroppy teenagers. I asked a question about the River Mersey in case you are interested (I am too embarrassed to say exactly what that question was now although I do recall).

I can still remember the names of the candidates. Gordon Oakes for Labour (the incumbent - see above), David Reaper for the Lib Dems and Grant Mercer for the Tories. Mercer was clearly a parachuted in candidate earning his spurs in an unwinnable seat. I can still remember him reeling off central office statistics in a vain bid to convince a fairly partisan crowd that the Tory government was doing some good! Incidentally, if anyone knows what happened to either of the Lib Dem or Tory candidates subsequently I would interested to hear.

Anyway, I suppose that's about all I have to say for this meme. In some ways I regret not having got involved in politics earlier, but on the other hand I have been able to form a clear and strong political identity independent of parties and then choose the one that most closely matches me today.

The GOATs they went out two by two, hurrah! Hurrah!

The GOATs they went out two by two, hurrah! hurrah!

The GOATs they went out two by two, hurrah! hurrah!

The GOATs they went out two by two, they really mustn't have had much to do,

And they all went into the street, for to get rid of the pain.

The GOATs they went out three by three, hurrah! hurrah!

The GOATs they went out three by three, hurrah! hurrah!

The GOATs they went out three by three, can you really blame poor Lord Darzi?

And they all went into the street, for to get rid of the pain.

The GOATs they went out four by four, hurrah! hurrah!

The GOATs they went out four by four, hurrah! hurrah!

The GOATs they went out four by four, that Lord Malloch Brown he could take no more,

And they all went into the street, for to get rid of the pain.

The GOATs they went out five by five, hurrah! hurrah!

The GOATs they went out five by five, hurrah! hurrah!

The GOATs they went out five by five, Lord Digby Jones he couldn't survive,

And they all went into the street, for to get rid of the pain.

Hattip to Sara Bedford on Twitter for the idea.

Lame Duck Government Syndrome

Recently I have been starting to wonder what the point of this government carrying on is. We are now less than a year away from a general election. An election, which if the opinion polls are to be believed, Labour will lose and lose badly. The Prime Minister, along with every other senior and junior government minister are unlikely to be in post on 14th July 2010.

It is through this prism that I am now starting to view government announcements. The nature of government is such that when measures are announced, that is just the starting point. There will often be reviews and various other activities before the proposals finally get put before the Houses of Parliament and eventually end up on the statute book.

Some, perhaps many of the measures announced now will not see the light of day this side of the next election. If they ever do get implemented it will be because the next government wants them to be. Labour may leave some nasty traps as it seems to be trying to do in some areas (its economic policy seems to be drawn from the Scorched Earth Handbook) but with application, the next government will be able to unpick most of it. Much activity between now and next June will be a waste of time.

I recall a story I heard about Michael Heseltine in the run up to the 1997 election had a meeting with Tony Blair where he urged Blair if (when) he became PM to continue with the Millennium Dome project. There was obviously no point talking to John Major or his cabinet colleagues. The power was shifting inexorably to Blair and the same thing is starting to happen now with Cameron.

There is also a second problem with much of what this government announces and it is a problem with all long serving governments. I remember it happening with John Major’s administration in the 1990s. It is that every measure announced will be met with the question “What have you been doing for the last 12 years?” It actually makes the government very wary of doing anything too radical as it then calls into question their actions over the previous decade which of course they do not want.

Here is an example. Today, Andy Burnham announced a review of how the elderly pay for their care. Irrespective of the whys and wherefores of the particular proposal this quote leapt out at me when I heard it:

For too long politicians have avoided this issue. We have an opportunity to grasp the nettle and confront the debate. If we fail to do that we face the prospect of a diminishing quality of care being provided.

The first thing I thought was, yes but you've been in for 12 years so why has it taken you until now to do anything about it? All policy announcements suffer from this syndrome now.

These issues combine to make it very difficult for the government to achieve anything. If they were governing in the proper interests of the country they would recognise this and do something about it, change the leadership and get rid of the worst PM in my living memory and then call an election so at least there would be a fresh mandate to properly get on with stuff. Of course this won't happen because they aren't governing in the interests of the people. They are a self-interested clique who don't care that their policy pronouncements are just so much hot air.

It is we, the public who suffer most from this Lame Duck Government Syndrome.

Democracy Diner

[Scene opens on a restaurant]

WAITER: Yes sir, what can I get you?

CUSTOMER: Right, I would like a prawn salad, erm followed by, what sort of steak do you have?

WAITER: I’m sorry sir.

CUSTOMER: Sorry?

WAITER: Yes sir, I think you may have misunderstood how it works here at the Democracy Diner.

CUSTOMER: How it works?

WAITER: Yes sir.

CUSTOMER: So how does it work?

WAITER: Well sir we have a number of menus that we ask you to look at. [He pulls out several menus that are each clearly many metres long. Each one is on different coloured paper]

CUSTOMER: [Takes menus and starts to assess what is on them] I have to look through all of these? But there are thousands of items on each one.

WAITER: That’s right sir.

CUSTOMER: And I’m supposed to choose a meal from all of this?

WAITER: No sir.

CUSTOMER: No?

WAITER: Sir really doesn’t understand does sir?

CUSTOMER: [Starting to get annoyed] Understand what?

WAITER: OK sir. You have to choose every single meal that you would like for the next 5 years. From one of these menus.

CUSTOMER: Every single meal?

WAITER: Yes sir.

CUSTOMER: For the next 5 years?

WAITER: Yes sir.

CUSTOMER: What, even like supper and brunch and stuff?

WAITER: Yes sir. Every meal.

CUSTOMER: That’s crazy!

WAITER: That’s how we do it here at the Democracy Diner sir.

CUSTOMER: Hang on, so I have to choose the meals I want from each of these menus?

WAITER: No sir, you just choose one menu.

CUSTOMER: One?

WAITER: Yes sir. And then every single meal is predetermined from that menu for the next 5 years.

CUSTOMER: But what if I want some from one menu and some from another.

WAITER: You can’t do that sir I’m afraid.

CUSTOMER: [pause] So I have to go through each of these menus and decide which one I want to be everything that I eat for the next 5 years.

WAITER: Well not quite sir.

CUSTOMER: But you just said...

WAITER: I said you choose the menu but it won’t necessarily be the one that you get.

CUSTOMER: How do you mean?

WAITER: Well sir, everyone else in the Democracy Diner also gets to choose which menu they fancy and once everyone has chosen, we take the one with the most support and everybody gets the food from that menu for the next 5 years.

CUSTOMER: So there might not be any point in me choosing anyway?

WAITER: Well there could be if it was a close vote.

CUSTOMER: Is it likely to be a close vote?

WAITER: No. You are in a safe vegan seat here I am afraid sir.

CUSTOMER: But I like meat.

WAITER: I’m sorry sir. You can choose the carnivore menu if you like sir but I fear it would be a wasted choice. Carnivores can’t win here, have a look at this bar-chart [shows bar-chart with carnivores a poor third place].

CUSTOMER: So is there anything I can do about this.

WAITER: Not really sir. I suppose you could try to get other people to choose your carnivore menu but you would be unlikely to persuade many people. For many generations they have chosen vegan round here like I said.

CUSTOMER: Right, I’m not having this. I’m off! [starts to leave]

WAITER: That’s your choice of course sir but you will still be served the menu that wins the vote whether you like it for not.

CUSTOMER: [Sits back down] Is there no way we can change it so that there is some from one menu and perhaps some from another? Come on, be reasonable!

WAITER: We have thought about that but the thing is at the Democracy Diner, we like there to be a strong, decisive, clear menu so everyone knows what they are getting.

CUSTOMER: Even if lots of people don’t like or want it?

WAITER: Yes sir.

CUSTOMER: Right well I can see that there’s not really anything I can do about this. I suppose I’d better start going through the Vegan menu and get used to what I am going to be eating for the next 5 years.

WAITER: Well you could do that sir... [Pauses]

CUSTOMER: What. WHAT?

WAITER: Only, it’s not very likely that the meals will pan out exactly as it says there.

CUSTOMER: Why not?

WAITER: Well, your lunches and dinners will all be as it says there. That’s a commitment from us. But the more minor meals may end up changing. After all, we can't reasonably be expected to know right now what will be appropriate for you to eat in 4 or 5 years time right now. Can we sir?

CUSTOMER: But if things are going to change, why don’t I get a choice over how they change?

WAITER: Because we choose for you. Based on what you chose originally. Subject to changes.

[Customer looks agog]

WAITER: Would sir like a drink whilst he is waiting.

CUSTOMER: Yes, go on then. I’ll have a white wine... [sees Waiter shaking his head] What?

WAITER: No sir, I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that.

CUSTOMER: How does it work then?

WAITER: Well, we source our drinks from “Upper House Beverages”. So a panel of people including some whose ancestors were good at choosing drinks along with some other people who used to create menus have chosen the drinks you are allowed......

[Swannee whistle, Curtain]

Is there a better way than "Collective Responsibility"?

I have written in the past about how frustrating I find it that government ministers (and often shadow ministers) won't answer questions and how they speak in an anodyne sometimes meaningless language that can be almost impenetrable to anyone outside the Westminster village.

Of course what happens eventually is that ministers leave office and then in their post-political careers you often find that they are interesting people with interesting views and opinions about things. Almost the exact opposite of how they seemed when they were in office.

There are various reasons why our system of government causes this state of affairs but the main one is the principle of "Collective Responsibility". This is whereby all members of the government take responsibility for the decisions of that government. It is supposed to give us strong and clear government. It is the system we have used for hundreds of years with only a small number of temporary deviations (e.g. Wilson allowed members of his cabinet to campaign for and against membership of the EEC in the 1970s). It is also used by many governments throughout the world.

From my perspective though, I wonder if this way of doing things is fit for purpose any more. Here are a few negative consequences of collective responsibility:

• Ministers find it difficult to answer questions put to them. I can understand how hard the strait-jacket of CR must make it for ministers. They are asked questions but sometimes they are not exactly sure what the government line is or exactly what their colleagues may have said so they waffle or give an answer that is non-committal. Or they use well learned tactics to shift the ground onto something they are comfortable answering and answer this instead. It takes considerable intelligence and talent to be able to navigate this sort of minefield but isn't this ultimately a waste of time and energy that could be better spent? We find out eventually what ministers really thought in their memoirs or through other means. It's a facade that we all know exists and they know we know. And we know they know we know. Etc.
• Interviewers pick at ministers in order to try and provoke a "gaffe". Interviewers often know where the fissure points are in government and which ministers may not be "fully on board" for certain policies so they will try and trap them into saying something that is not 100% consistent with something one or more of their colleagues has said previously. Then this is pounced on as a "gaffe". I can see that sometimes this could serve a purpose if a policy is weak or ill-thought through and the interviewer is trying to expose this but more often than not it is just a game of cat and mouse between interviewed and interviewee. Experienced politicians will not fall into these traps but they do it by again, speaking in an impenetrable language.
• We don't get to know what our elected representatives really think about things. We voted for them. They are often intelligent people who have risen to the top of their profession. They are supposed to represent us and yet what we get is anodyne waffle because they are forbidden to tell us what they really think.
• The real decisions get thrashed out behind closed doors and the public don't get a say in any sort of nuance about how those decisions are reached. We simply have the blunt instrument of "keep 'em" or "chuck 'em out" once every four or five years. In the meantime we don't get any sort of a say.

I am sure there are loads more but that will do for starters.

My wife (who is not directly involved with politics herself) will often say to me "Why won't they answer the question?" or "What is she on about?" when I am watching political programmes. She is a very well educated professional person but she is turned off by the sort of display she regularly sees like this and I struggle to answer her (and other non-political friends who ask me the same) questions on this. I try to explain to them why ministers can't really say what they mean or think but the more I do it, the more it just all seems so artificial and yes, silly.

It is this sort of thing that continues the public's disengagement with politics. It makes them think politicians are all liars because they hear them say one thing in government and then later when they have left office, something completely different. It has people shouting at their radios and TVs in frustration that for seventh time Minister X has avoided answering Humphries or Paxman's question.

Now, after all my criticism I am not going to pretend there are any easy answers to this. This culture and way of doing things is deeply embedded in our politics.

There must be things we can do to improve it though, surely? I think that one of the problems is that the people who could do something about it, the politicians themselves are so ensconsed in the current system that they cannot see the wood for the trees and it would almost be like speaking alien to them to get them to engage with doing things differently.

I am not a political scientist or academic but here are a couple of ideas to throw into the mix as to how we could improve this situation. I am sure there will be problems with what I suggest but I offer them as starting points for discussion. Hopefully other people will be able to contribute their thoughts in the comments below too.

Here goes:

• Allow more votes to be treated as "conscience votes" are now. These are usually reserved for things like votes on the death penatly or stem cell research. But could this not also be extended to other areas?
• Allow ministers to be honest about their views. I am a director of a company and I run my it with 4 other people who attend management meetings. Of course we do not always agree on everything and we sometimes have quite heated debates but we take the decisions and act upon them accordingly. However, when I am talking to our staff, I don't feel obliged to pretend that I personally agreed with everything that was decided. If asked I feel able to give my honest view about things but can explain that I lost the argument and it has been decided to do something a certain way and we will do our best to make it work. Why can't ministers work on this sort of principle? It would mean they could be more honest about their views and we, the public would know what they were thinking and I would know which ministers were aligned with me on which issues. (I am sure commenters will have views on this one!)

I am also interested to hear whether others have ideas about how to change things in this area. I can't be the first person to have lamented the existing system and its shortcomings.

If I get a decent amount of response I might do another post on this later on.

One final point, I am not politically naive. I know how hard it would be to change the culture we have but to anyone who thinks this is all pie in the sky I would ask what do you propose instead to help re-engage the electorate with politics?

Fraser Nelson's misleading chart scales

Blog reader Matt Raven has drawn my attention to one of the graphs in this blog post by Fraser Nelson on The Spectator's Coffee House blog on Friday.

Now, before I start I want to make it clear that I am a big fan of Fraser Nelson. He is an excellent columnist and is often able to cut through the crap and get to the real issues especially when it comes to figures and statistics. He has been forensic in his dissection of government figures and long may he continue to do this sort of important work.

Unfortunately his high standards seem to have eluded him a little in one of the graphs in the post referred to. I have reproduced the relevant section here:

Look at the number of jobs in the private sector and split it down by immigration status:

So foreign-born workers account for all of the net job creation since 1997.

Now I am not arguing with the figures or his conclusion that foreign-born workers account for all of the net job creation since 1997. I am sure Fraser and the ONS have been rigorous about these and I will take it as read that this is correct. What I am arguing with (and what Matt pointed out to me) is the presentation of these figures. Fraser has the two lines superimposed on top of each other which invites direct comparison but he uses different starting points for the scales on each one.

The scale for the UK born workers runs from 17.8 million to 19.4 million on the left hand side and the scale for the foreign born workers runs from 1.4 to 3 million on the right hand side. I can see what he is trying to do (contrast the relative changes) but I think that this choice of scales would give someone who only glanced at this chart and didn't look closely enough to notice the disparity in scales the impression that the foreign-born figures have actually surpassed the UK-born figures as the UK-born figures have dropped off vertiginously at the end of last year.

This seems potentially very misleading to me and unneccesary. Fraser has a good enough argument without resorting to visual distortions like this.

I have tried to come up with a fairer way to represent this data. Of course I do not have the source data but I printed out the chart and by pinpointing the plot points on it I have been able to reverse engineer an approximation of this data. I have then produced my own versions of it.

Firstly, in order to demonstrate that I am using approximately the same data as Fraser, here is the data presented in a similar way to how he did it:

Secondly I adjusted the scales so that they are both the same running from 0 million to 20 million. This is now what the updated chart looks like.

This gives quite a different impression. The relative sizes of the different types of labour force are much clearer. This is fairer but of course you cannot see the changes in the data so easily this way so if I had been doing Fraser's post I would have also included two more charts with his original scales but with each data set on separate charts which would have made it clearer that they were different scales. They would then clearly be "explosions" of sections of the final chart above. This could even be represented by circling the data sets and pointing an arrow from them to the two sub-charts.

Putting them on the same one was destined to cause confusion in my view. His point is strong enough without this sort of potentially misleading representation.

A week in the Lib Dem blogosphere: 4th - 10th July 2009

I thought I would try a new way of doing link round-ups so I have been keeping track of what I think are some of the best blog posts from the Lib Dem blogosphere this week and every Saturday I am going to post links to them with a brief description of what I liked about them. There's no science or numbers behind this, it's just what I reckon. I will try and do at least one for each day Here goes:

Saturday 4th July

Jennie Rigg had some rather forthright opinions about whether Nick Clegg should have been writing for LabourList. She thinks not. (I won't link to the LL article in case Jennie explodes in Wikio related indignation!)

Sunday 5th July

Costigan had a very well argued piece asking whether the future can truly be free.

Mark Pack shared an excellent piece he originally wrote for a compilation of counter-factuals asking "What if the 1832 Great Reform Act had never happened.

Monday 6th July

Caron asked how a government department was able to trace Lisa Greenwood's anonymously posted critical comment on "They Work for You" in order to be able to then sack her.

Cicero posted a beautifully written piece about how the small nation of Estonia comes together once every five years to sing in huge numbers.

Tuesday 7th July

Charlotte Gore asked "Who'd be an immigrant" given the ridiculous test they make you take. There are lots of comments from people who have taken the test with varying degrees of success. I must admit my responses to her post were rather flippant (one was a quote from Moe Syzlack about "immigants" which shows the level) but that's probably just because I also failed the test. Do I have to leave Blighty right away or can I pack first?

Bridget Fox wondered at the Sky News Panel's priorities for her feedback to them.

Wednesday 8th July

James Graham wrote a very well considered post in defence of "parliamentary graffiti" or Early Day Motions as they are more commonly known. I partly used this as inspiration for a guest post I did on the "Scrap Early Day Motions" website also in defence of EDMs.

There was an interesting post by Angela Harbutt on Liberal Vision where she describes how a teacher was sacked for apparent inappropriate behaviour relating to pupils but there is a twist...

Thursday 9th July

Mr Pack was back asking why the blog search facility in Google is hidden away. I had wondered this myself. Perhaps Mark with his friends in high places can find out for us? It would certainly help with blog traffic if it was more prevalent!

Friday 10th July

Cobden asked why so many Lib Dems have to be such killjoys when it comes to things like enjoying a drink. I haven't met many Lib Dems like this I have to say! He used Sarah Teather's comments on BBC Question Time as his reference point for this.

My statistically learned friend Andy Hinton had a very thought provoking piece about telephone fundraising which he has personal experience of doing himself. He suggested we shouldn't shoot the messenger but that also the organisations wouldn't do it if it wasn't on balance worth it for them.

A bonus section this week for a trilogy of great posts on Lib Dem Voice which combined tell us the 30 things that any aspiring politician should do this summer (part 1, part 2 and part 3). The one about doing without internet access for a week looks the most scary to me....

Mark Reckons - Guest article on PoliticalBetting.com

Political Betting have very kindly published a guest post from me today about my recent experiences of betting with fellow bloggers on political events (and losing!) and the lessons I have learned.

You can read it here.

Andy Coulson survives - for now

So it it starting to look like my prediction from Thursday morning that Andy Coulson would have to go and soon will not come to pass following the "Hackgate" scandal breaking.

I think I underestimated two things:

• David Cameron's determination to hold onto his communications chief.
• The determination of (much of) the press to close ranks (even much of the non-Murdoch press) and dampen this story down.

Apart from The Guardian and The Independent yesterday I struggled to find much coverage in any of the other press. Unsurprisingly The Sun and The Times were quiet on it but much of the other press was too. As Michael Portillo said on This Week on Thursday "Dog does not eat dog". Unless there are more revelations on Sunday then it is now clear that Coulson will survive the weekend.

There are numerous other traps though lying in wait. The first one is at the hastily convened Select Committee hearing on this subject on Tuesday. He needs to do well and be convincing at that. The second is the possibility that one or more of the people who have had their phones allegedly hacked pursue private prosecutions against the NOTW/Murdoch. This would drag the whole thing through court with Mr Coulson doubtless called to give evidence and would provide new fuel on the fire of this story. However that could be a long way off.

Another possibility is that Cameron quietly lines up a replacement in the coming weeks or months and Coulson then appears to go at a time of his own choosing before the General Election. My money is on this as as good as Mr Coulson is, the risk of this story reigniting and also the taint of what has been alleged on a large scale whilst he was the editor of NOTW could be very damaging, especially if new allegations or evidence came out close to or during an election campaign.

So he survives in post for now but I think his longer term prospects have taken a severe blow. Should the Tories win the next election, perhaps now Mr Coulson now won't get the chance to be to Prime Minister Cameron what Alistair Campbell was to Prime Minister Blair.

Tom Brake MP is an unperson

Just seen on Lib Dem Voice that Tom Brake MP has had his Facebook account disabled just hours after he used it to organise a large public display in his constituency:

Tom, who last year became one of the first MPs in Britain to offer his constituents regular online advice surgeries, is widely noted in the media for his use of the internet to engage with the public.

Hundreds of people gathered last night in Wallington town centre to protest against the axing of the N213 night bus service. They were mobilised largely through the Save the N213 Facebook group which had grown to over 2,000 members – Tom Brake was one of the administrators.

This morning he found that his account had been disabled and that he had been removed as admin from several groups, including “Save the N213.”

I hope this turns out to just be an administrative cock-up on Facebook's part. It does however demonstrate the risk of public officials using mechanisms that are ultimately owned and mediated by private companies. As Tom himself says:

Much of my casework now comes through Facebook – the bizarre and heavy-handed decision to disable my account only hours after a protest organised through the social-networking site, severely disadvantages my constituents who rely on the net to contact me.

However "nice" companies like Facebook, Google (don't be evil) etc. might seem, they are ultimately there to try and make money and who knows what goes on behind the scenes in these organisations. They are not accountable to us.

It is worth bearing this in mind I think.

UPDATE: Apparently Tom's account was automatically disabled due to heavy traffic (possibly caused by interest in the event he had orgainsed) and Facebook are now working on reinstating his account. I still think the points I made are valid though.

Early Day Motions should be reformed, not scrapped...

...is the title of a blog post that I have done as a guest post today for the "Scrap Early Day Motions" website and the editor (Jonathan Sheppard of Tory Radio) has kindly published to give an alternative viewpoint to the campaign he started recently.

BBC Question Time Live Chat - 9th July 2009 - #bbcqt

It's BBC Question Time day again - schools edition special where the audience is made up of school children and the Live Chat on this blog will start at 10:30pm. I am aware that tonight's edition in addition to being broadcast in its usual slot on BBC1 at 10:35, will also be broadcast live on BBC3 at 8:00pm (presumably because it is the schools edition) but I am not around this evening at that point so I can only cover the usual BBC1 broadcast from 10:30pm.

The panel will include Secretary of State for Health Andy Burnham, the Conservative shadow secretary of state for culture, media and sport Jeremy Hunt, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on housing Sarah Teather, the director of the human rights organisation Liberty Shami Chakrabarti, and a fifth people's panellist to be announced on the night.

You can also follow people's comments on Twitter via the #bbcqt hashtag (you can also follow me here on Twitter by the way).

Liberal Democrat Voice also always have an open thread for BBC Question Time which is usually posted just before the start of the programme.

Last week's chat was the best attended ever and very lively with almost 40 people (including lurkers!) attending according to the stats with many of them joining in.

As I said above, the chat starts from 10:30pm this evening:

Andy Coulson will go - and soon

Following yesterday's revelations about the Murdoch owned papers apparently having paid £1m to silence victims of phone-tapping (the Guardian splashes on it today) the former News of the World editor Andy Coulson is now under extreme pressure. He used to be editor of the NOTW but resigned in 2007 over the royal phone-tapping scandal involving Clive Goodman and is now head of communications for the Conservative Party.

I read Flat Earth News last year, a book by journalist Nick Davies that exposes the methods used by Fleet Street including in Chapter 7 "The Dark Arts" a detailed description of how, according to Mr Davies newspapers regularly use Private Investigators to source information for stories and that the PI's sometimes use unethical methods to get it. Phone-tapping is mentioned as one of these methods amongst many others and yesterday's revelations don't come as a huge surprise to me.

The focus now seems to be on Mr Coulson's position within the Conservative Party. He was editor of the NOTW at the time when some of the alleged actions took place and as Andrew Neil said on Newsnight last night "it beggars belief" that he was not aware of what was going on. It seems to me that must be right. Either he knew what was happening, or he had lots of out of control journalists working for him who pulled the wool over his eyes. I can't imagine that someone who could be duped so easily could run communications for a large political party.

If Mr Cameron is smart (and we all know he is) he will be lining up a potential replacement as I write. He may claim to be "relaxed" about the situation but not so relaxed as to not have a Plan B I am sure. Cameron will not want the taint of this story to start damaging the Conservative Party; that is what will start to happen if he doesn't do something quickly. We know David Cameron can be ruthless when it comes to the crunch (a putative Prime Minister has to be sometimes) and this situation feels very crunchy indeed.

I expect Mr Coulson to be out by the weekend.

UPDATE 1: I just wanted to make clear that the Guardian journalist with the splash on this today is also Nick Davies the author of Flat Earth News mentioned elsewhere in my post.

UPDATE 2: My blog post here has very kindly been included and linked to by The Guardian in its coverage of blog reaction to the story.