Liberal Burblings

An emission from Paul Staines’ French second home which sums up ‘the cynical view’:

If Hague had kept an experienced press handler like William Littlejohn as his SpAd he wouldn’t be in this situation would he? He wouldn’t haven’t released that stupid statement on Monday, which brought him more unwanted press attention. He wouldn’t have released that cynical, Aitkenesque, “sword of fidelity” statement yesterday. All in all, he has only himself to blame for being ill-advised and has shown a staggering lack of judgement.

There comes a time when we all have to be a little human. It really takes a cold, cold heart to cast aside a tale of two people struggling for a child, suffering miscarriages including a recent one, and make such a cynical statement such as that above.

William Hague is a good foreign secretary. He is a politician of integrity and honesty, but he displays occasionally poor judgment.

Appointing a close colleague to a special adviser role at £30,000 is not a big deal. Special advisers are often close political allies – that’s what they are there for – to provide the political advice of a close ally.

You really don’t have to write more than a 300 word synopsis of the qualifications of a Durham university history graduate to justifiy them being selected to do a £30,000 job (which for a graduate of such a good university could justifiably be described as “two-bit”).

Give the man a break.

By the way, Staines is flattering himself by alluding to the Jonathan Aitken affair via the “sword of fidelity” reference.

While both cases come down, by bizarre coincidence, to hotel arrangements, there is no real comparison between employing a £30K adviser and the Aitken case, which involved possible/alleged imprioriety by the Defence Procurement minister in a contract worth hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money. 

If we are now going to spend the next few months going through the fine nuances of Hague’s statement and coming up with stories about holidays, hotel rooms etc, then I despair. If that happens, I think we can rightly conclude that British blogging (or at least one blogger) and the British media have finally “jumped the shark” and landed head first in the gutter.

And, yes, I never thought I’d end up defending William Hague!

I like this. The Mayor New York City, Michael Bloomberg has recently been plagued with questions about whether he will stand down. Now he has refreshingly answered those questions:

At his Bronx Q and A, The Post’s Dave Seifman asked if there were “any circumstances” under which he wouldn’t finish his third – and hard-fought-for – term.

“Yes,” the mayor replied.

“What are they?” asked Seifman.

“If I died,” Bloomberg said.

From Political Wire:

Though a majority of Alaskan Republicans still like Sarah Palin, a new Public Policy Polling survey shows she can’t count on a whole lot of support back home if she runs for president in 2012.

Key findings: 62% of Alaska Republicans are opposed to her making a White House bid and she gets only 17% in a hypothetical 2012 primary in the state tying for her second with Mike Huckabee behind Mitt Romney.

Well, such is the drift of an otherwise inscrutable performance by James May on the Simon Mayo show here at 1:05. If you’ve ever wondered how to fly a A330 (I thought that was a road near Birmingham) there is some clue in the clip.

Well, he’s been leading up to it for a long time but this time Guido has really shown his true colours for all to see….

Let’s step back a bit – as they say.

One of the “life skills” which I have acquired is living through (a) losing a child and (b) ten years of trying for children.

These are the sort of “life skills” which make one a “grown up”.

Making cheap shots at someone in a general fog of homophobia does not make one a “grown up”.

It is valid to question the appointment of an alleged friend as a special advisor. It is highly distasteful to do that in such a way that encourages 300 comments per post, most of which are disgustingly homophobic in the extreme. But, as Stephen Tall wisely says, let’s not give Guido too much quodos. The Mail’s and the Telegraph’s printing of a year old – yes it was a year old, James Landale – photo was the thing which brought the whole sordid mess to a crescendo.

Yes, the MSM and blogging should pursue the truth. But when we end up with the terrible mess we have this evening, with a couple having to make public distressingly personal details, then we all have to examine our consciences.

There must be a better way of bringing politicians to account.

It’s good to see that headline, even cloistered, as it is, in the august environs of the FT, behind a free registration wall. Cleggie deserves a boost. He’s doing a good job. And it’s good to see such prominence being given to a humble LibDem Voice forum survey, in which I took part.

But our national poll rating has halved, so why are members not up in arms?

Well, firstly, I think there is a masochistic strand within the DNA of LibDems. We enjoy the occasional purging which comes with low poll ratings. We all thoroughly enjoy remembering when we were an asterisk in the polls, for example, when Paddy started the party. Oh, how we chortle at the memory!

Although I have never had the experience, I should imagine that getting low poll ratings is a bit like an coffee enema. It gives you a sort of cleansed feeling afterwards.

But a passer-by might ask whether Nick Clegg and the LibDem members are locked together in a sort of suicide pact. …Ignoring the prospect of electoral meltdown, we all sail blithely on towards the golden horizon of an electoral system we don’t like and might not get.

…Indeed, the whole thing is a bit of a mystery.

I think two things are fundamental to all this. One was the arithmetic at the election - which left us with little option but to go into government with the Tories – unless we wanted to turn into a permanent debating society.

The other was the coalition agreement which gave us an enormous number of our policies plus muted or abandoned extreme Tory policies.

I would also cite the remarkable resilience of the party which is based on its democratic structures. 

…The prospect of a stable five year government also helps.

So, I am pleased that Nick Clegg gets a boost just before the conference. He is working very hard and is a good honest liberal and Liberal Democrat.

…But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a great deal of work to do, and many battles left to fight.

In the Telegraph , Mail , Mirror , Express and Independent.  

I am disturbed by the disgusting level of homophobia (through comments) surrounding the origin of these rumours in a particular blog. There also appears to be only the thinnest veneer of “evidence” to support any allegations of an inappropriate relationship. Reports from an unnamed source of “body language” at a breakfast before the election is hardly what you would call a cast-iron, “slam dunk” case.

From the excellent VoteMatch site - try it yourself to see which of the Labour leadership candidates you are closest to – in policy terms.

Any suggestion that the Foreign Secretary’s relationship with Chris Myers is anything other than a purely professional one is wholly inaccurate and unfounded

I cannot believe the ludicrous and appalling homophobia in the comments on a certain blog site which is continuing to follow up this story.

Some samples of the beautiful display of produce from today’s Swallowfield Horticultural Society show in Berkshire.