Just back from Japan, from where I was closely following the UK election on Twitter (your best place for my day-to-day political commentary these days, though be warned they’re usually more jokey – and sweary – than here…)

After 30 hours offline, and 44 hours after the polling booths closed, the UK still doesn’t have a new government. As such, witness the wonders of my jetlag-inspired political guesswork!

I’d be surprised if this lack of a government lasted beyond Monday morning, largely because the next government will want to look responsible – and we had some serious global financial trouble on Friday for a variety of reasons (NY stock exchange hiccough, Greek crisis, UK election uncertainty, etc.). They’ll want to have a government before the markets open, if they can…)

Here’s what I currently reckon will happen, rejigged from a few comments on Twitter:

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg’s playing this absolutely perfectly so far – he has solid offers to join coalitions from both Labour and the Conservatives, and significant policy differences with both, and has explicitly stated that the Tories – with more seats and more of the vote – should have the right to “seek to form” a government first.

But the Tories can’t get a parliamentary majority without Lib Dem support. At least, not a stable one. Not the sort of majority that they’d need to do, well, just about anything.

But Labour and the Lib Dems combined can’t get a parliamentary majority without other parties’ support either.

Clegg has also repeatedly mentioned “the national interest” and equated this with electoral reform (unsurprising, considering Labour got only 5% more of the vote than the Lib Dems, but 5 times the parliamentary seats).

The Tories are fundamentally opposed to the sort of Proportional Representation-style electoral reform that the Lib Dems want (usually single transferable vote) – which is hardly surprising, as it would almost certainly lead to a permanent Labour/Lib Dem coalition (there being very few other parties on the centre right that are likely to end up big enough to give the Tories the backing they’d need under such a system).

So, Clegg is giving the impression that he’s willing to work with the Tories – and probably is – but his one major condition is a deal-breaker for Cameron and co.

So I’m now fairly convinced that Prime Minister Cameron’s not going to happen. If Cameron rejects PR, as he must to keep his party behind him (there have already been dire warnings from the right wing of the Conservative Party about such a move, in the shape of Thatcher-era relic Lord Tebbit), then a Lib Dem/Labour/Scottish National Party / Plaid Cymru coalition has first dibs (SNP leader Alex Salmond has already openly proposed this).

Constituionally-speaking, Gordon Brown retains first right to try to form a government, as the sitting Prime Minister in a hung parliament. With Lib Dem, SNP and Plaid Cymru support, the coalition would have an outright majority – able to outvote the Tories and their allies on anything. As such, despite his unpopularity (and calls from within his own party to step down), Brown could yet remain as caretaker PM of a coalition expressly set up to bring in electoral reform.

This would actually be a very sensible option, for several reasons:

1) It would be constitutionally unprecedented for Cameron to form a minority government in the current circumstances – he is impotent until he has enough supporters to claim an outright majority. This looks to be impossible.

2) The constitution explicitly states that Gordon Brown remains Prime Minister, so using him as a figurehead for any new coalition is – constitutionally – the least harmful in the short term.

3) Anyone unhappy with Brown remaining as PM simply adds to the case for major constitutional reform with their objections.

4) This would also give both Labour *and* the Conservatives time to sort themselves out, as they are blatantly in a shambles at the moment.

So, what I’d suggest is a short-term multi-party national coalition *explicitly* for electoral *and* parliamentary/constitutional reform, as well as to maintain some form of stability in the midst of an ongoing financial crisis, keeping Gordon Brown as a figurehead Prime Minister for constitutional reasons alone, with an explicit promise that he will step down once the basic reforms are in place to have a fresh election under a new electoral system.

One final note: There’s nothing to say – constitutionally – that the Prime Minister has to be a party leader. Nor even that he has to be an MP… The question is, is there *anyone* who could be seen as a sufficiently impartial lynchpin to take on the task of leading a coalition of (at least) four parties?

The proposed President of the European Council is very far from being “President of Europe” – either in terms of profile or power.

Whoever lands the job (and it’s highly unlikely to be Tony Blair) will have practically zero influence on anything, acting instead as little more than a moderator between the governments of the member states as they continue to run the EU show. And will be in office for just two and a half years – which is no time at all in EU terms (hell, it’s just taken more than a decade to get agreement on a treaty which doesn’t solve half the problems it was meant to…)

Meanwhile the rotating EU Presidency – the Presidency of the Council of the European Union – will continue as usual (currently Sweden, with Spain taking over on January 1st), ensuring that the President of the European Council can constantly be outshone by whoever holds the more established rotating presidency. Because the rotating presidency still has the ability to influence the EU’s focus for the six months that each member state holds it – whereas the President of the European Council will have *no* formal powers whatsoever, and remains hugely ill-defined.

And that’s before you note that the President of the European Council’s role, as vaguely as it has been described, also overlaps with that of the far better-established Presidency of the European Commission (currently Jose Manuel Barroso) and the EU High Representative (currently Javier Solana). A brand new two and a half year office versus two existing five-year offices? I know which ones I’m betting on to have the real power here.

In other words, it really doesn’t matter who gets the gig. It’s not important in the slightest. It’s a meaningless position.

I do get that it’s confusing to have a (proposed) President of the European Council AND a President of the Council of the European Union (not to mention the Council of Europe), but come on – the significance of this is being blown out of all proportion.

(Originally posted as a comment to this article over at the Guardian)

Interesting analysis from European Voice today:

Some members of the European Monetary Union (EMU) – Ireland and Greece obviously, and Italy, too – are discovering that what the International Monetary Fund (IMF) adjudges a global recession is cruelly exposing their failure in the past ten years to adjust to the rigours of membership of a currency union…

But the idea that any country will quit the EMU unilaterally, while it remains a hard-currency club, is mindless.

Long before the printing presses could be greased up to produce reams of new lira, drachma or punt notes, or ‘secretly’ asked businesses and financial institutions to re-programme their computers for a new era of monetary independence, the stampede of deposits from the banks to safer havens offshore would have triggered an economic meltdown. Forget it. The mechanics of leaving the single-currency area unilaterally and out of weakness, notably the pain of the transition to a new currency regime, make it all but inconceivable.

We are, however, already witnessing the beginnings of a process through which the bright hopes for the single currency of a decade ago could begin to dim. One expert calls it the “re-nationalisation” of EU financial market regulation…

Gordon ‘beggar thy EU neighbour’ Brown, the UK prime minister, has led the way in implementing a 1930s-style competitive devaluation to back up his “British jobs for British workers” jingoism…

Protectionism is rife and Neelie Kroes, the European commissioner for competition, is finding she does not have enough fingers to plug the holes in the dyke that the EU constructed long ago to prevent illicit state aids swamping free competition.

Naturally enough, worth reading in full.

Baroness Ashton. Ever heard of her? No? There’s a surprise. Her only qualification for the job seems to be that her full title is Baroness Ashton of Upholland – perhaps dear old Gordon assumed this meant she has something to do with the Netherlands?

Peter Mandelson may have been a discredited tit when he was appointed, but at least he was high-profile and quite blatantly had the ear of the Prime Minister. This dear peer? She may have been made Leader of the House of Lords last year, but she’s barely registered an impact on the public consciousness. She is, however, a staunch Labour loyalist, and the wife of similarly staunch Labour man, semi-influential journalist Peter Kellner, a co-founder of polling organisation YouGov.

Track record on Europe? Well, here are all her speeches mentioning the European Union in the last seven years. No doubt they’ll bear double-checking. From a brief skim through, all that’s stood out for me are the standard parrot phrases of a loyalist who’s memorised the talking points. Which seems to be precisely what Brown wants in Brussels – a bit of a no-mark who can make the right noises, but who hasn’t got much of a brain of their own.

Being harsh? Maybe. After all, one of her old jobs has technically had an EU element to it (along with several others, including the rather odd pairing of the National Archives and the Tribunals Service). But she was only in that post for a year, and the rest of her work history is decidedly of the parochial standard.

But it would, let’s face it, be entirely in keeping with Brown’s track record on UK-EU relations to chuck someone irrelevant and with little knowledge of the EU out to Brussels. He’s barely paid the EU a blind bit of notice since coming to power, and had precious little time for our EU cousins while Chancellor. Indeed, it’s largely down to Brown and his famous “five economic tests” that Blair wasn’t able to use Labour’s remarkable series of majorities over the last ten years to combat the rising euroscepticism of the British people. Those tests shot any pro-EU Labour drive in the foot before it even started through the simple question “So, Mr Blair, if the EU’s so great how come your Chancellor won’t let us join the single currency?”

Gordon Brown has, in other words, finally demonstrated his utter lack of interest in the EU. Hell, even Maggie Thatcher was more constructively engaged with Brussels than Gordon – and we’re in the middle of just the sort of trans-national economic crisis that the EU was in part set up to help counter. You’d be forgiven for imagining that Brown’s forgotten the EU’s existed – especially when it’s a big story that he’s going to deign an important EU crisis summit with his presence.

But hey – Ashton’s a woman! That’s, like, progressive and stuff! And it’s all the rage to appoint women no one’s ever heard of with little in the way of an appropriate CV to important political positions these days, it seems. Go Gordy! You’re with it, man!

I never thought I’d say it, but come back ex-Commissioner Peter Mandelson – all is forgiven. (Sorry, that should now be Lord Mandelson – yet another insanely stupid move on Brown’s part, albeit for entirely domestic reasons. I mean, bringing back someone who’s twice been forced to quit the Cabinet in disgrace and is hated by pretty much the entire country? And entirely unelected to boot? Seriously, Gordon? Do you WANT to lose the next election?)

Just when you thought a government couldn’t get any worse…

Update: Pertinent points from Jon Worth:

Mandelson was playing an important role in WTO negotiations, and Ashton will not be able to replicate Mandelson’s network of contacts, even if she has the opportunity to do so. For I can imagine that the French government is already on the phone to Barroso making sure someone else gets the Trade portfolio and Ashton gets allocated Multilingualism or something similar.

Agreed entirely. Meant to mention that. You can’t possibly have an unknown in as important a portfolio as Trade, no matter how big the member state. Brown’s just downsized Britain’s influence in Europe even further. Nice one, Gordon.

Absolutely hilarious (via):

“Of 40 people questioned, none could put names to photographs of all 23 Cabinet ministers. Only one managed to recognise more than half of them… A total of seven ministers – nearly a third of the Cabinet – went unrecognised by all surveyed… during a major economic crisis the Chancellor of the Exchequer was no more recognisable than Robin Cook, the former Foreign Secretary, who has been dead for three years.

“David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, who faced rumours of a leadership challenge this summer, was recognised 13 times, but no fewer than three people thought he was Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats. “

I wonder what the success rate would be for photos of European Commissioners? I’d be amazed if anyone from pretty much any EU state got more than two or three right. Let’s find out – here they are. With no cheating by looking at the filenames or checking the Commission page, how many can you honestly put a name to? How many could you put a job to?

Go on, try to put a name to a face: Joaquín Almunia, José Manuel Barroso, Jacques Barrot, Joe Borg, Stavros Dimas, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Mariann Fischer Boel, Ján Figel, Dalia Grybauskaite, Danuta Hübner, Siim Kallas, Neelie Kroes, László Kovács, Meglena Kuneva, Markos Kyprianou, Peter Mandelson, Charlie McCreevy, Louis Michel, Leonard Orban, Andris Piebalgs, Janez Poto?nik, Viviane Reding, Olli Rehn, Vladimír Špidla, Antonio Tajani, Günter Verheugen, Margot Wallström

Despite readers of this blog being likely to be rather more knowledgable about EU affairs, I’d be surprised if many of you – if you’re honest – would be able to get more than ten right. For the rest of the population? Hell, I’d be pretty surprised if you end up with more than one in ten who’d be able to recognise Barroso…

Is this why EU debates tend to seem focussed more on the policies than the personalities? Has the EU managed to create politics without politicians?

Something from me over at the revived Sharpener, following the Tory win in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election yesterday.

Gordon Brown, 2000: “Some people might think Ken Livingstone is funny, but saddling London with him for four years is no laughing matter”

The same has repeatedly been said about the man Johnson over the last four weeks along with a number of wild allegations based largely on out of context quotation – much the same as the whole “Ken’s an anti-Semite” nonsense.

More worrying have been the unsupported assertions based on little more than the outdated 1980s belief that all Tories are evil – my parents are Tories, and I can assure you that they are not. More to the point, people were voting in the mayoral elections who weren’t even born when Thatcher was in power. Using her as the all-conquering bogeyman simply isn’t a viable electoral strategy any more. (It’s a bit pathetic it ever was, if you think about it – after all, it was the Tories, not Labour, who got rid of her…)

Ken did a halfway decent job over the last eight years , along with a bunch of very impressive achievements. I have little reason to believe that Boris can’t do similarly – and no reason to think he’ll be a disaster. His acceptance speech certainly started on the right bipartisan (even tripartisan) note, and he’s blatantly not a typical Tory no matter the colour of his rosette, educational history and accent. I’m hopeful.

Furthermore, anyone who thinks that Boris and Boris alone will be calling the shots in London simply doesn’t get how politics works. Or how the Mayor’s office works, for that matter – it simply doesn’t have as much power as everyone seems to think. Ken was just very good at giving the impression that all the successes were thanks to him and him alone.

All this hyperbole being spewed about Johnson from normally sensible left-wing sources* – not to mention the dismissal of over a million Londoners who picked him as their first choice as merely “doing it for a laugh” – is doing the British left no good at all.

Boris Johnson is not some monster – by painting him as such when he blatantly is not is going to rub off badly on you, not him. Just as it rubbed off on Labour badly when they tried the same trick with Ken back in 2000. (That certainly helped push me towards voting for the guy…)

If the left/Labour can’t get over the snide remarks, personal attacks and class prejudice that seems to imbue every aspect of their relationship with the Conservative Party – and, ideally, come up with some practical left-wing policies rather than populist and ill-considered appeals to the middle-classes and big business – they are going to continue to slide in the polls to the point of embarrassing defeat.

And serve them right. (Labour promising cuts to corporation tax while the Tories run to the defence of impoverished single mothers? Come on, guys…). The worry is the knock-on effect – not just driving people who care to the extremes of right and left, but meaning that the Tories don’t have to fight for power.

Boris had to fight, and fight hard – because Ken was a formidable and principled oponent. He’s not going to forget that in a hurry; he’s going to be fully aware that a sizable chunk of the capital don’t like him and that a sizable chunk of the country want him to fail. And it’s going to make him work even harder.

But the way the rest of the Labour party is going, the next election is going to be handed to the Tories on a plate. They won’t even need to bother knocking on doors at this rate. And power gained that easily is never going to engender respect – either from politicians or public. Labour have had a free run for most of the last decade or more, and just look what happened to them…

* I won’t link to any specifics as I hope they’ll see how silly they’re being soon, but have a gander at some of the tripe the Guardian’s been spewing over the last few days for an idea of the tone and content

Allow Tony Blair to become the EU’s first permanent president and I’m very likely to turn anti-EU again.

My feelings have already been succinctly summed up by Ari – a Finn, lest anyone get the idea this is yet another disillusioned Brit:

“Admittedly a lot of people in a lot of different countries know Tony Blair, which can’t be said for most possible candidates. Alas, he’s known for making a disastrous mistake and then not owning up to it, i.e. for showing bad judgment and not being particularly trustworthy. That sort of fame isn’t really a desirable quality in a candidate.”

Plus, of course, despite being supposedly very pro-EU, during his ten years in power Blair repeatedly failed to do anything to convince the country that being pro-EU is sensible – spending most of his time continuing John Major’s “wait and see” approach, despite being in a significantly stronger position than Major ever was throughout his time as PM. Had Blair wanted to he could, with his huge Commons majority and the inexplicable love the country had for him during his first term or so, have used his extraordinarily strong position to have pushed the EU on the UK, or at the very least to try and convince the country that closer engagement is a good plan. Instead, he did nothing.

This lack of action continued even on the continent. During the UK’s last (rotating) presidency of the EU, Blair was so invisible and uninvolved that one MEP even put out a jokey “Missing: The President of the European Union” press release. In fact, Blair’s only real engagement with Brussels during his time in office was to try to use the EU to bypass Westminster and force laws upon us that he never would have been able to get past his own MPs.

On top of that, of course, so hated is Blair in the UK that to have him as the EU’s official figurehead for (most likely) five years is merely going to further entrench British anti-EU feeling. Though he’d have been a good spokesman for the EU ten years ago, now he’d be like using Gary Glitter to advertise a primary school.

Not that the only other “name” candidate is much better. Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker is so rabidly, blindly pro-EU that he makes me feel decidedly uncomfortable, still advocating the kind of total political integration that most people gave up on back in the 70s, still advocating a “United States of Europe”. It’s hard to think of anyone with views more likely to drive British europhobes into a foaming rage, or to finally convince moderate eurosceptics that there really is no hope for the EU.

So who else is there? Well, what about Romano Prodi? He’ll most likely be available soon, judging by how his luck’s been failing him in Italy. As a former president of the European Commission he’s got the experience of running things at the top of the EU (during which period he oversaw the introduction of the Euro and expansion from 15 to 25 member states). As a two-time Prime Minister of Italy he has plenty of experience of juggling the multiple interests of tenuous coalitions, essential for anyone trying to keep all 27 EU member states happy while simultaneously trying to get agreements with non-EU powers.

Blair’s experience of diplomacy, in comparison, consists largely of two options: agree entirely with everything George Bush says, or launch an invasion. Jean-Claude Juncker’s, coming as he does from a principality only slightly larger than Greater London with a population less than that of Bristol, is non-existent. And yet these are the two front-runners for a position created largely to help in the EU’s diplomatic relations? Christ…

Pensioner, 83, notches up ASBO:

“Police said Mr Hughes, of Vane Lane, Coggeshall, Essex, had not been convicted of any child sex offence. But magistrates had decided to use civil anti-social behaviour laws after police received a number of complaints about him.”

Welcome to Britain in the 21st century. To be branded a paedophile, and to have both your name and the street on which you live broadcast across the newswires, all you need is for your neighbours not to like you very much. No kiddie-fiddling required – but torch-wielding lynchmobs almost guaranteed.

And here we all are complaining about the insanity of the Sudanese courts…

So, are the Tories going to have the guts to offer up a policy overturning the glorious summary “justice” of ASBOs and, you know, perhaps going back to the traditions of innocent until proven guilty and the rule of law that used to be taken for granted prior to the Blair years? We’ve had some promising rhetoric from Cameron on ID Cards (though not so much, that I’m aware of, on the database state) – what are they going to do about the other Labour-introduced injustices of modern Britain? Or are they doing too well in the polls to care any more?

Well, he may have ignored it for months, but now it’s finally taking shape – although it hardly seems to be overly well thought-out.

So, was Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s choice of Bruges to deliver his first EU policy speech symbolic? It is, after all, the scene of the moment when Maggie Thatcher allowed her (entirely understandable) irritation with the then EEC to bubble over into hyperbole and hysteria back in 1988, inspiring the formation of the staunchly anti-EU thinktank the Bruges Group in the process.

Well, considering Miliband quoted the Iron Lady at length in a subsection to his speech headed “Twenty Years on from the Bruges Speech”, you can be certain that he was at least aware of the potential symbolism. But how different is his language, his approach?
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It’s hard not to find the idea that the EU could be moving in to the old Tory Smith Square HQ quite amusing, considering the decided shift against Europe in the party during the last thirty years.

The Tories moved in to number 32 Smith Square back in 1958 – the year after the EU was founded – before moving round the corner onto Millbank earlier this year. It was the time of Macmillan, the chap the Tories brought in to sort out the messy legacy of Churchill and Eden. Macmillan, the chap who first attempted to get Britain into the then EEC after Eden singularly failed to take any interest in the new alliance, and Churchill – despite being one of the prime instigators of the idea of European integration – deliberately ignored the new developments. Macmillan, the man who tasked Edward Heath with the job of buttering up our European cousins – a task Heath kept up with dogged determination for more than a decade until he finally managed to usher us in to the union in 1973.

It’s still quite bizarre to think that it used to be the Tories who were the party of Europe. But it was only with the onset of the rebate dispute from 1979 – with Maggie taking the then fair enough position that Britain was contributing too much to the EEC’s coffers – that the Tory love affair with Europe began to sour. Even then, the party remained largely keen on membership right up until the late 1980s (the EEC after all – and unlike the UN or USA – gave Britain its full, official support during the Falklands war), when Maggie set out her stall opposing further integration. It’s been downhill ever since, the Tories seemingly having given up any hope of the EEC/EU returning to the relatively simple customs and trading union they always wanted it to be.

Labour, meanwhile, though now painted as rabidly pro-European by the majority of anti-EU types, were constantly opposed to membership throughout the first 25 years or more of the EEC’s existence – campaigning for a “no” vote in the 1975 referendum, for Britain to leave during the 1983 general election, and for the rejection of Maastricht in 1992.

The Tories’ shift to opposition to the EU is, for me, entirely understandable. Its seemingly ever-expanding powers and swelling budget, not to mention the various aspects of the EU which have stifled free trade over the years, have increasingly begun to make it look like everything conservatives dislike – big, protectionist government.

But why have Labour shifted towards supporting the EU, having been so massively opposed to it for so many years? The rest of the radical policy changes the party’s gone through during the last twenty years make perfect sense – they’ve increased Labour’s electoral viability. But support for the EU is – rightly or wrongly – an electoral liability in the UK.

If you take the usual line that the shift from old to New Labour was designed to bring the party closer in line with the thinking of the country at large, jettisoning unpolpular socialist rhetoric in the process, how to explain the shift to favouring the EU, when the EU is supposedly so unpopular with the public? It’s something I’ve never quite understood.

Not ruling out an election sooner.

This insane hyperbole (“humiliating retreat”? “cling to office”? “extraordinary indecision and extraordinary weakness”? You what?) shows just how worried the Tories still are. Yes, Cameron made a storming speech at the conference the other day, and yes they’ve had a big boost in the polls over the last week or so.

But the one question the advocates of an autumn general election have singularly failed to answer is: “why?”

There are two reasons to have a general election: 1) The government is coming to the end of its legally-limited five year term in office, and 2) The government no longer has a sufficient majority to see legislation through the House of Commons. That’s it.

Brown has a large Commons majority and a good two and a half years left before he legally has to call an election. So why the hell should he? Because the party leader, and therefore Prime Minister, has changed mid-term? So why no elections in 1990, 1976, 1963, 1957, 1955, 1940, etc. etc. etc.? It’s a nonsense.

Yes, Brown could have called an election to get a re-affirmed mandate for his government. But the time to do that was the moment he took over from Blair. Calling one three months later – after riding high in the polls all summer following a series of moderately well-handled crises and a succession of Tory cock-ups – would smack of dangerous opportunism. For what’s to stop any government from repeatedly calling snap elections when they’re temporarily doing well once that precedent’s set?

Brown should have said more forcefully on taking over that he was going to serve the full term (but you can understand why he didn’t – after all, Labour were elected on the promise that Blair was soon to be going). That he didn’t is most likely because he didn’t think the Tories were so desperate as to keep up the election calls all summer, because – excluding the last two weeks of Tory bounceback – an election at any point in the last four months would have seen yet another Labour landslide.

And as for the electorate? Less than two-thirds bothered to show for the election two years ago – what makes anyone think they could be bothered now?

It’s too soon after Brown’s takeover to see just how similar or different he is from Blair, and I doubt if anyone could tell you what David Cameron stands for. (Hell, I’m more than averagely politically aware, and I genuinely haven’t got a clue about either of them… In fact, I’m not even sure where my constituency’s boundary lies any more, since the re-jig a year or so back…) We all need at least another year of Brown in charge to see the real him, preferably two. And Cameron, lest we forget, is still so new that Brown had already been Chancellor for four years by the time young Dave entered parliament…

A snap, three week election campaign would merely ensure that the public is even more uncertain about which of these two slightly mysterious, little-known figures would be best to lead the country. And uncertainty in politics breeds both apathy and resentment far more than does a Prime Minister deciding not to bow to pressure from the opposition and launch an expensive and unnecessary mid-term election.

What with the ongoing spat with Russia (hyped out of all proportion, I reckon, and hope I’m not proved wrong), the fact that our dear new Prime Minister has made his first overseas jaunt while in office seems to have been largely forgotten. The fact that Brown managed a solid three weeks in the UK before nipping off abroad – approximately 400% longer than Tony Blair ever managed during his ten years in office* – has likewise received little comment. (Blair’s first overseas visit, by the way, was to the US, which could be significant…)

But why, with so much to do in Europe, Germany? Why suck up to Angela Merkel, with her relatively unstable coalition and two weeks after she passed the EU presidency on to Portugal? Why not follow the EU presidency itself? Why not head to Brussels and meet Commission head Barroso? Why not try to form a good relationship with Europe’s most secure and powerful politician, Nicholas Sarkozy (who he’s due to meet on Friday)? Why not Sarkozy and Merkel at the same time, in an EU big three spitroast?
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- Foiled terrorist attack
- Public service sector strike
- Prisoners released early
- People overreacting to one-off events by calling for wholesale reform
- Left-wingers feeling alienated
- Tories making futile noises they know will have no effect
- Lib Dems being useless and indecisive

I’ll keep my fingers crossed for the outcome of the Cabinet meeting that’s just starting – that they won’t get distracted by an unexploded car bomb (which used to be ten a penny during the IRA campaigns), and get on with explaining precisely how the government is going to work now that various departments seem to have been split in two or abolished and we have a Lord Chancellor sitting in the House of Commons.

More later, no doubt.

Update: Gordon explains some of the departmental reorganisation in that wonderfully stilted blend of management speak and Blair-like platitudes he uses when trying to be populist.

Still no explanation of precisely what Jack Straw’s job is, though – I’ve even been skimming through the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 to try and work out what role the “Justice Secretary” might have. Very confusing.