Sunday press roundup, 21st August 2005
August 21st, 2005Sunday’s stories sifted
As usual for August, it’s a quiet weekend for political news, but a few pieces in today’s papers will interest political gamblers.
The Conservative leadership has been a reliable source of interest since May, and continues to provide stories. The talk at the moment is of whether Kenneth Clarke and David Cameron can present a united front in a “dream ticket”. The Sunday Times reports that Lord Heseltine is backing a bid led by Clarke with Cameron as his deputy. However, with press coverage on Friday and Saturday reporting that Clarke supporters such as Tony Baldry moving to Cameron’s camp, there must be a question on whether Heseltine is really in touch with the situation in the parliamentary party. The Observer reports that Clarke would give up his business interests in companies such as British American Tobacco if he became leader, but not during a leadership contest. This will prompt some to wonder whether he really believes he can win. The article also mentions scepticism over whether Cameron’s supporters would back a “dream ticket”. Betting odds are 4.3/1 Cameron, 9/1 Clarke, with David Davis still favourite at 0.71/1.
The Observer also reports that Mo Mowlam regarded Gordon Brown as unfit to be Prime Minister. One might speculate on how many other Labour figures privately feel this, but with no clear challenger Brown remains the strong favourite to succeed to the Labour leadership, at 0.28/1.
Scotland on Sunday – the Sunday edition of the Scotsman, which has excellent coverage of UK-wide as well as Scottish politics – reports on the selection of a Labour candidate to fight the by-election in Livingston. Five contenders are mentioned; with all of them having local connections, Labour seems to be doing the right thing to avoid a serious challenge from the SNP or Liberal Democrats. No betting markets seem to be open on the by-election result yet.
Finally, looking overseas, the Washington Post reports that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, once seen as a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, is spending more time than expected with his Tennessee constituents. The paper speculates that he will abandon his White House ambitions and run for re-election to his Senate seat in 2006 after all. Frist, as a respected Senator but very poor media performer, would probably find a happier outcome this way. The Tradesports exchange rates Frist as an 8% chance (odds of 11.5/1) for the presidential nomination, with no odds on the Tennessee Senate race yet.
Philip Grant
Guest editor
Mike Smithson is on holiday until 5th September.
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I sometimes feel sorry for David Cameron. He goes to Lord Hezza to ask for support for his own leadership bid, only to be told he must fall in behind Ken.
Which would be completely hopeless. Because, as you point out, Ken’s unwillingness to junk his directorships shows he doesn’t really think he’ll win. Indee, if the party Convention on 27 September rejects the abolition of member leadership voting, he won’t even stand. Poor old Dave C would be left high and dry.
Incidentally, purely in the interests of helping you punters make money, may I direct your attention to the excellent article on Ken’s business interests in the Observer- http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1553563,00.html.
See- it’s not just me.
Wat - I realised an HTML screwup (my fault) had obliterated a bit about the Heseltine story. I’ve fixed it now.
Another good article book value. Mike will be getting worried. The Cameron courting Hezza is a very interesting development. If Cameron does act upon this, then rather than stop Davis, it might become stop Clarke/Cameron.
Philip - great opening, lucid comments, excellent precis and balanced.
Many thanks
Thanks woody and Peter.
On point 3, I agree - it seems that being seen to go and pay his respects to Heseltine might do Cameron more harm than good.
I have no time or use for Heseltine at all. He is the Assassin. My man, DC, would be well advised to stay away from him. He’s pure poison in the Conservative Party, at least among activists, for what he did to Mrs Thatcher. If Cameron pursues this, it will be a mistake.
A speculative question, but given the story in todays Times about a plot to gas or bomb parliment, what would be the protocol for government if by any chance if most if not all MP’s were killed or out of action. Could one presume that if George Galloway were the only one to survive that he would be invited to form a govt!
7 Mad . The government would be made up from the House of Lords and a dissolution would be granted for fresh elections as soon as practical. Now who the Labour Prime Minister would be is an interesting question ?……. Lord Kinnock , Lord Hattersley , Lord Healy , Baroness Jay ………
What if both houses were eradicated, say during the opening of parlement?
7. All the 5 Sinn Fein MPs would survive an attack at the Commons.
Does one surviving MP have precedence over the House of Lords? The fellow that gets locked up at Buck House or wherever for instance during the state opening?
In that case, could we legally end up with a Sinn Fein govt in the UK?
11, 12 - there is no order of preference as such, in fact no formalised procedure for the situation. I think in the circumstances, some kind of “government of national unity” would be formed from the ranks of the great and the good. There would certainly be no conventional or legal obligation on the Queen to summon Gerry Adams to form a government; and if she did, I doubt he’d come!
9-10 mad/Andrea !! . The Queen invites AN Other to form an administration and enobles enough peers to form a government (of National Unity) . There would also be plenty of backwoods spare peers to form a government as they all can’t fit in the HoL . The new government takes precedence over a few MP’s.
HM Queen may also issue orders and decrees through the Privy Council.
13.” There would certainly be no conventional or legal obligation on the Queen to summon Gerry Adams to form a government; and if she did, I doubt he’d come! ”
he could spin that he has just conquered UK.
14. Using current peers, how will a Labour governemnt look alike?
What a morbid turn the discussion has taken - has the heat got to you, Andrea?
15 Andrea . To add to the few I mentioned earlier a little colour would be added by Lords Attenborough, Bragg, Ali, Campbell-Souptin, Gould, Adonis …….
7-17 . And then …… we could invite The Scottish executive to run the country for a few months !! ….. a few notable Scottish peers in the Lords ….. and the Scottish Raj will have taken over !!
16. I’m not the one who started to discuss this topic. It’s not always my fault!
19 Andrea. Guilty by association ! Also having given some thought to the next Scottish peer to be Prime Minister , I’ve plumped for The Duke of Atholl and as he’s got his own private army , the Atholl Highlanders, he’ll have no problems from the cabinet !
To change subject of discussion (and I wasn’t the one who started it. Just in case the Home Office check this website, with all this new anti-terror laws….),
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/newspolitics/tm_objectid=15826019&method=full&siteid=50082&headline=labour-set-to-oust-male-councillors-name_page.html
if Welsh Labour really wants to do it, they’re a bit crazy. I agree that there’s the need to have more women in elected politics, but this is too much!
20 . Atholl Highlanders : Would look rather fine outside No.10 .
http://www.regiments.org/regiments/uk/inf/077athol.htm
20. There is a (very outside) possibility of a real Scottish peer becoming prime minister - the next Marquess of Lothian i.e. Michael Ancram (it’s a Scottish title anyway). It would admittedly need circumstances out of the ordinary, but marginally more possible than that imagined above. We have had a Scottish peer PM as recently as the 1960s though!
On a related theme, between Alec D-H renouncing his peerage and getting into the Commons via a by-election, he was PM without sitting in either house, so there is a perfectly good precedent to invite members of neither house to form a government if there was a succesful gunpowder plot typ event. Also, if it was done at the opening of parliament, chances are it would be Charles III appointing a PM.
Couldn’t the Queen take charge?
24 Woody . The Queen is in charge , but don’t tell anyone !
25. Dennis Skinner could not take it well.
26 Andrea . We’ll not tell him , he’s only an MP after all.
“chances are it would be Charles III appointing a PM”.
He has let it be known, privately, that he intends to become George VII instead.
28 observer . For some he’d be Charles IV !! …. or George V as the first two Georges were usurpers , so to avoid confusion he could use one of his other names Philip - So Philip I or Arthur I or of course choose a modern name ……. Wayne I
29. “For some he’d be Charles IV !! …. or George V as the first two Georges were usurpers”.
The first George had a better mandate than any monarch since as he was given the crown by parliament in the 1701 Act of Settlement (or rather his mother was, but she died before Queen Anne).
Perhaps even more interesting (to some) than what regnal (is that right?) name he uses, is what surname - and hence House - he considers himself to have. I think earlier proclamations indicate he would retain Windsor, but he could change it and he must be tempted to consider Mountbatten instead.
30 davidh . The so called “Act of Settlement” was a device to preclude catholics from the throne and had nothing to do with “better mandates” . Indeed James II was still alive when the “Act” was passed . When the George The Elector of Hanover usurped the throne in 1714 there were over 50 descendants of Henry VII who had a prior claim to the throne . Additionally the “Act” was an English piece of legislation and didn’t have any effect in Scotland .
BTW the Prince of Wales surname is already Mountbatten-Windsor.
Well tonight’s BBC Panarama was a good programme and has certainly put the wind up some people looking at the BBC comments.
32 JamesM . Missed it I’m afraid , what’s the score ?
Well it showed a number of things (although I admit one programme has obvious evidential limits)
1- MCB leader looked weak. He seems to have mixed messages which is dangerous in itself.
2 - It showes the obvious diversity of Muslims in Britain today.
3 - The responses to the show on the BBC comments are generally people building upon this “victim mentality” which some Muslim contributers to the programme said was of concern and unhelpful to the situation.
I am not sure to be scared or heartened by the debate though.
34 James M . Thanks for that . I’ll see if I can get a tape of the show .
While I am online (and at a far too late hour to get a decent response) has anyone shown a desire to organise the meetup at the Conservative Conference?
One kind reader tried, but he sadly is going to miss Blackpool now. While I am happy to help, I do not really feel comfortable organising as I have never been to a conference before and do not know the ropes.
Feel free to email me at: ukfuture@yahoo.co.uk if anyone wants to organise an event or just to consider meeting up. It would be good to put faces to names, not being able to go to the previous meet.
Sure it will be on the BBC website to view, they usually do put them on.
Congratulations Mr Book Value on your splendid articles. I salute you.
6 - and to cap it all he bought his own furniture!
Amusing discussion about what happens in the event of a gunpowder plot and all parliamentarians being killed. I would have thought the Queen could look to the Party HQs and devolved bodies, and possibly top civil servants or judges? I rather like the idea of a Scottish takeover. She should try to find a Labour leader but a Tory No 2. But surely there is a department in Whitehall - LCD or Home Office? - that would tell the queen what to do.
By the way, ministers are ministers despite not being Parliamentarians during every election campaign. Formally there are no MPs between dissolution and election day.
Now what happens if there’s a bomb at the Labour party conference and the entire Parliamentary parties (both houses) and activist base is wiped out? Could this be the Tories’ best chance of coming to power any time soon?
As for Frist: surely running for re-election in 2006 does not say anything about 2008- after all, Hillary is getting re-elected in New York! Tennessee is a Southern state but it isn’t as hard-core Republican as some of those Dixie states, having elected progressives such as Kefaveur, Al Gore snr. and Al Gore jnr. Maybe he just wants to sow up his home patch?
41 - I think the point is that he had already said he wouldn’t run for Senate again, which makes it seem more significant. And unlike Hillary, he doesn’t seem to be doing much outside his state.
You are right about Tennessee - Kefauver and Gore snr sat for it simultaneously in the 1950s. And further back, quite a bit of the state was solidly Unionist in the Civil War.
31 Jack W You are right but only up to a point. The original Act of Succession was England and Wales only. But six years later the Act of Union bound all that together and thus the Act of Succession was reaffirmed in the Act of Union passed by the parliaments in London and Edinburgh and so became all GB legislation including Scoland.
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