Is Toby Young really as naive as he seems?

I mean he can't be? Can he?

I've noticed this before but generally just assumed I'd misunderstood him or something. After all he's Oxbridge educated, had pieces published all over the place, used to be a columnist read by millions and is a successful author.

Surely someone that successful can't be totally naive can they?

Well three things I have seen/heard from him in the last 24 hours make me think he is.

Firstly there was this piece for the Telegraph yesterday where he seems to honestly think that the Conservative Party are going to come to some sort of arrangement with UKIP in individual seats in order to prevent the "vote on the right" from being split in future. Now aside from the fact that it is hopelessly simplistic to think that all who vote for UKIP are naturally inclined Conservative voters (the evidence from Eastleigh proves that is not true by any stretch) the idea that the two parties are going to do some secret handshake based deal is completely unrealistic. For so many reasons. Farage would never do it for a start. He's riding the crest of an anti-establishment insurgency wave. The last thing he is going to do is make a deal with the biggest party currently in government. And the Cameroons have made their views about UKIP perfectly clear. Also if in individual seats UKIP were given a free run (quite apart from how disenfranchising this is and would be see to be) what happens to all the Conservative members and activists in those seats? Are they just going to sit back and happily allow the work they have done over the years to count for naught. Cameron would be risking massive leakage to the upstart party.

The other instances came in quick succession today when I was listening to the repeat of last night's Any Questions (where Young was a guest) in the car. I only actually caught about 5 minutes of it on the way to the supermarket but in that short time he managed to demonstrate a complete lack of appreciation of people without his privileges and also a fundamental misunderstanding of how democracy is supposed to operate.

The privilege point came in response to a question about whether school governors should be paid. He has some experience in this area having set up a free school in London. His response was to say that he wouldn't want governors to be paid because they should be doing it for free for the sake of the school. He then went on to explain how he has been working 40 - 60 hours a week for his school for free since 2009. Now I think there is a genuine argument to be had about whether governors are paid but Young's attempt at oneupmanship by underlining how hard he has worked *for free* is just silly. All I can say is that if he can spare that much time during his week for no pay then he must have substantial financial resources to fall back on. Having been a successful (and presumably well paid) journalist and author for many years that's bully for him. The vast majority of people who would want to help out with something like this would also have to work 40 - 60 hours per week on another full time job and/or look after families etc. His response demonstrated no understanding of how lucky he is to be able to do what he has done and is not an argument against paying governors at all. It's the answer to a different question along the lines of "Toby, please tell us why you are so great.". Maybe that's the prism through which he filters all his questions. It would explain a lot.

The misunderstanding about politics came in response to something Evan Harris on the panel had said about preferring schools to have democratic accountability to local education authorities and councils who can of course be voted out if they get things wrong. Young took exception to this and then tried to use the example of Chris Huhne to prove that democratic accountability doesn't work properly. I'm paraphrasing but his argument was that Huhne tried to pervert the course of justice and yet the Lib Dems still managed to retain the seat, hence somehow proving his point. What an utterly, utterly bizarre thing to say. Nobody else in the party knew that he was guilty of this until a few weeks ago when he suddenly stood down. He did not perform these actions on behalf of the party, he did them as Chris Huhne and he will take the consequences as Chris Huhne. The idea that it is a travesty of democracy for the Lib Dems to then retain the seat in a by-election with a completely different candidate and that this somehow "proves" that democracy does not work is utterly wrong-headed. It's like how you would expect a child to understand politics working.


Until very recently Toby Young was the main political columnist for The Sun on Sunday. All I can say on the basis of my experiences of his lazy and illogical thinking in the last 24 hours is it is no wonder he no longer enjoys that position.

Chris Huhne's demise is literally tragic

There's not much more I can add to the comments I have read across the blogosphere regarding the end of Chris Huhne's political career. But I'll have a go.

It strikes me that this is a literal example of a tragedy. I wanted to believe Huhne, really I did. I have followed his career with interest for many years and when I met him a few years back at conference he was as friendly and enthusiastic as he had always come across in the media. I wasn't a party member back in 2007 but if I had have been I'd have voted for him. But the circumstantial evidence all seemed to be pointing in the direction of him being guilty. Still, he was so adamant he was innocent and was so determined to push it all the way to a full trial that I had almost convinced myself there must have been some "rabbit out of a hat" that he was going to be able to produce to prove his innocence.

Sadly it wasn't to be. He pushed it to the wire and at the last minute pleaded guilty. That's why this is tragic. Because it's now clear that a strong character trait in Huhne is hubris. That was very useful in getting him a long way up the greasy pole. It probably helped him in his earlier career as an economist and journalist. It will have helped him in the tortuous process of getting selected and then elected as first an MEP and then an MP. It certainly served him very well in cabinet. By all accounts he was a tenacious minister who was respected and somewhat feared by his colleagues, even the Conservatives. But it is this very hubris that has been his downfall. He thought he could brazen it out and somehow cheat justice. It was only when he stared into the abyss and he must have realised the game was up that he capitulated and confessed.

There's not much more to say. His career is now over. He will likely go to prison for a time and I cannot argue that should not be the case. He deserves it. I thought that with Jeffrey Archer, I thought it with Jonathan Aitken and I think it with Chris Huhne. The mere fact I am typing his name in the same sentence as those two notorious names of yesteryear is galling, but he is now in the same category as them. Today's resignation in disgrace is what he will be remembered for. Anything else he achieved will be a footnote.

I just hope now that we can retain Eastleigh whenever the by-election is called. It will be a tough fight and Huhne has put us in a dreadful position but it is there for us to win. A win would help to quell the fears about a potential "meltdown" in 2015. A loss would... Well, lets worry about a loss if it happens.

One last thing. John Minard in the comments on Caron's blogpost suggested that this might be a good opportunity for a Lib Dem open primary in Eastleigh. This sounds like a very interesting idea and could help to ensure the candidate we choose has broad support across the constituency.

Yesterday I was proud to be a Lib Dem

Sometimes I disagree with things that MPs and other representatives of my party say. Yesterday's debate in parliament about the dismissal of Professor Nutt from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs was not one of those occasions.

Instead as each Lib Dem MP popped up to make their contribution I found myself feeling more and more proud. Alan Johnson the Home Secretary, Chris Grayling his shadow and most of the back-bench Labour and Conservative MPs who contributed were in agreement that Professor Nutt had to go and that the Home Secretary had done the right thing.

Chris Huhne, the Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesman led the way by pointing out that the government was as risk of recruiting an "army of nodding yes-men" as the logical conclusion of the latest debacle and suggesting ministers were being ludicrously thin-skinned. Evan Harris asked a very important question about the independence of the advice. For his trouble, Alan Johnson suggested that "A calmer, more rational view, ... may be impossible" from Mr Harris but instead of getting angry about that, Evan simply looked at the Home Secretary expressionless, treating the comment with the contempt it deserves. I have seen few MPs as rational as Evan Harris. Even Phil Willis with whom I have not always found myself in agreement questioned whether Mr Johnson has consulted with the government's chief scientific adviser to which the answer was no. As Mr Willis pointed out later on any notion of joined up government is now out of the window with each department retreating into its silo.

Even when Chris Huhne was rebuked by the Speaker for being a bit too enthusiastic ("uncharacteristically so" Mr Bercow suggested) I thought that was positive. Mr Johnson was talking absolute rubbish at some points and I am glad to see someone was getting annoyed about it!

The Conservative's response to this debacle has been woeful. They are clearly going to be even worse than Labour on the issue of drugs if they get into power next year. It is clear that we are the only major party seriously willing to look at and listen to the scientific evidence without going off on populist rants which utterly refuse to engage with the debate.

You only have to look at this post yesterday from Tory Bear to see how frustrated some in other parties are about this unwillingness. The only person he found himself in agreement with was Chris Huhne.

Yesterday was a good day to be a Lib Dem.

Does Chris Huhne read this blog?

I watched the debate in the Commons earlier today where Alan Johnson attempted to defend his decision to sack Professor David Nutt from his position as chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs last week.

One thing that particularly caught my attention was Chris Huhne's description of Chris Grayling, the shadow Home Secretary as Alan Johnson's "mini-me", the exact description I used in a post about him on Saturday.

It made me wonder if Chris Huhne reads this blog....

BBC Question Time Live Chat - 11th June 2009

It's BBC Question Time day again (are you as excited as me?) and the Live Chat on this blog will start at 10:30pm.

The panel will include newly appointed Secretary of State for Wales Peter Hain, Conservative shadow communities secretary Caroline Spelman, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne, joint secretary general of Unite Derek Simpson, and director of Global Vision Ruth Lea.

You can also follow people's comments on Twitter via the #bbcqt hashtag (you can also follow me here on Twitter by the way - I did manage to multi-task it last week!).

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

Chat is now finished. We will be back same time next week but in the meantime you can review how this week's one went below: