Writing in the Mail on Sunday today she says:

In my view, those orders are most likely to have been issued by George Osborne, who knocks the Machiavellian tendencies of Gordon Brown into the shadows.

Such a briefing sends a clear message to Ministers: it was code for the Prime Minister’s general direction of travel. It said: ‘Feel free to start smearing Lansley.’

She goes on to say: “Lansley is toast”.

Though she supports the reforms, she says the bill failed for two reasons: Lansley was bad at selling them, and the Libdems.

He is a man of exceptional intelligence but speaks in the jargon of integrated care pathways, learning networks and triggers for intervention.

The reforms are highly complex and No?10 should have helped Lansley to explain them. Instead they have left him to his fate.

Then Nick Clegg’s chippy Lib Dems got their teeth into the Bill. They have caused so much mischief, you could be forgiven for forgetting we are in a coalition.

They may have only 52 MPs, but they display the arrogance of a party that knows it holds the balance of power – even though they face annihilation at the next General Election.

She also says its clear that Cameron “wants to kill his own NHS Bill – and Lansley’s career with it”.

Brilliant.

Today ConservativeHome makes the argument I made only yesterday:

Only 25% of voters think it’s one of the top three issues facing the country. But the state of public opinion today isn’t the issue. The issue is public opinion next winter and in the winter of 2013/14 and beyond.
…
The NHS Bill is not just a distraction from all of this but potentially fatal to the Conservative Party’s electoral prospects. It must be stopped before it’s too late.

It will take some almighty miracle to get the NHS bill passed now.

Ed Miliband said last night:

By defending an unreformed bonus culture, this Government confuses the interests of the economy as a whole with the interests of an irresponsible few.

This is exactly right. Plus, the argument that Barclays is a private company so should have a right to set its bonus doesn’t really fly.

In an interview with Channel 4 in 2009, the Barclays chief then admitted that Barclays benefited Labour’s intervention:

There are two ways I would say the system as a whole benefited generically. One was in the injection of liquidity undertaken by the Bank of England and a new structure put in place in March 2008.

And the other was the making available of guarantees from government for funding undertaken by banks. It is important to recognise that in each case the banks were encouraged to use these new structures that were put in place and we did.

Barclays was bailed out by the last government – there is no way to pretend otherwise.

It relied on government guarantees and stability the BoE offered, and saved by RBS and Lloyds not going bankrupt. So the claim that Barclays should not have to face the same pressure as RBS is simply rubbish.

Does that still mean Diamond doesn’t deserve his bonus? Absolutely – I’ve explained why the bankers are the biggest scroungers of public money.

Until those subsidies are removed and the banking industry is reformed, there is no reason why they should award themselves massive bonuses. The current state of affairs hurts the UK economy and drains taxpayers money.

Cameron instockholm also looking at Swedish idea of tax breaks for cleaners to help working mothers

— glenoglazaSky (@glenoglazaSky) February 9, 2012

Most cleaners don’t earn enough to qualify for tax-breaks. You can raise their tax-threshold but you can’t give them tax breaks.

So that above is the spin.

I’ve been told by another source that Cameron is actually proposing tax-breaks for companies employing cleaners. His view is that that will trickle down to cleaners themselves, but of course there’s no guarantee that it will.

Most cleaners would benefit more from a living wage, not ‘tax-breaks’. And this doesn’t help most mums either.

@rhian82 @sunny_hundal I agree. The cost of childcare is pure extortion. For a lot of women the cost outweighs the benefit of working.

— Kelly Kaye (@Lobmeister165) February 9, 2012

The Mirror’s James Lyons puts it more starkly

Is David Cameron really proposing tax breaks for employing butlers? labour.org.uk/camerons-tax-b…

— JamesLyons (@MirrorJames) February 9, 2012

You couldn’t make it up.

There’s little point in calling for Andrew Lansley to go, frankly, even now. Cameron knows that firing him would almost certainly kill the bill and be a serious setback to the government. He can’t afford to fire him – the media firestorm would seriously damage him. So he’s stuck in a lose-lose situation.

But some dispute that, saying the NHS bill only angers the usual suspects who would vote Labour anyway.

The right-wing columnist Iain Martin blogs:

Anway, Janan Ganesh of the Economist tweeted that Miliband winning on health doesn’t matter, as it is an issue where people expect Labour to be ahead. To really have an impact Labour needs to be making the running where the party is traditionally weak. I know what Janan means, but I’m not sure that he’s right on this one.

This NHS row is fast becoming a quite basic argument about competence, or government incompetence. That has broader potential significance because in time it could erode Cameron’s reputation.

Yes indeed: incompetence in dealing with the NHS and incompetence in growing the economy & reducing unemployment is how Labour need to define this government. Not ‘out of touch’ but just ‘incompetent’.

But for that to happen properly, Labour has to ensure this massive shake-up of the NHS is firmly etched in the public’s brain. Remember, most people don’t pay attention to Westminster debates.

The row has already scared some voters. At the election, 33% of voters felt Tories could best handle the NHS. That has declined by nearly 10pts since then.

Health is now the third most important issue rated by voters as important to them.

The problem for the govt is when things do start to go wrong – and they absolutely will – voters will automatically blame Cameron. In fact, even if it’s not directly his fault they will blame him because they will vaguely remember this big fight.

This is why Labour need to keep loudly attacking the Conservatives on the NHS bill (to their credit, they are). They need to make as much noise as possible so that voters associate this massive NHS upheaval with the Tories.

At the last election, approval of the NHS was at its highest for a generation. If that decreases then the Conservatives have to be associated with that. That is the only way to ensure they pay the political price for the human cost.

Ms Dorries’s Twitter output offers hours of fun and rage to lefties and yesterday was no exception.

It all kicked off with this…

Really disappointed with lack of trolls in response to my troll tweet. Where are you all? Come back!

— Nadine Dorries MP (@NadineDorriesMP) February 7, 2012

.

@NadineDorriesMP It’s difficult to take you seriously when you mislead about police investigations. #70%fiction

— Michael Haslam (@mrhazzers) February 7, 2012

.

@mrhazzers That is libelous and an outright lie. My staff have taken a screen shot and reported your tweet to the police.

— Nadine Dorries MP (@NadineDorriesMP) February 7, 2012

Someone please tell Ms Dorries that libel isn’t a criminal offence?

What’s ironic is that this is the tweet that kicked this off:

Effect of internet trolls should not be underestimated Mineused to freak me out and made me stop Twitter. Now just make me laugh.#panorama

— Nadine Dorries MP (@NadineDorriesMP) February 7, 2012

Perhaps Ms Dorries should take her own advice?

But from a political perspective I can see why they’re doing it. I want to briefly address this because I think it raises a broader point.

News curation
Anthony De Rosa at Reuters makes this important point:

The idea here at Reuters when it comes to social media is to be the beacon for all news, which makes us the go-to source, no matter what the source may be, after being put through our own filters of verification.

Agreed – but I think there’s an assumption here that people will only follow Reuters for their news and want a wide spectrum of news from that source. I don’t think that model of news is sustainable for long.

On Twitter and on Liberal Conspiracy I sometimes echo others on news or opinion if I find it significant, but rarely see the point in replicating others. If LabourList and/or The Staggers blog have already posted something I’m more likely to link than post the same content. If someone at Guardian CIF has taken a highly visible position on an issue, I usually pass on similar comment pieces. I know other left-wing bloggers take a similar approach.

Newspapers still cling to an era when they ran similar content on the basis that readers will only buy one newspaper. But most people surf at least 2-5 websites of a particular genre, including news. I check about 10 every day, in addition to news aggregators and news tweets.

Sooner or later newspapers and broadcasters with shrinking budgets will have to start specialising their online content. So I don’t think Sky News will lose much by not having its journalists act as curators for other content.

Reputation problem
The ban on RTs also makes sense if you acknowledge their worry that disputed links or info by their journalists could reflect on Sky News itself.

Put this in a political context. The other day Matt Zarb-Cousin got ambushed by the media for calling the Queen a scrounger, even though his Twitter biog says his opinions do not reflect his boss.

And didn’t most people think the Tory Cllr criticising disabled protesters reflected on the Conservative party?

The common Twitter disclaimer: ‘opinions are mine alone, not those of my employer‘ now offers little protection, ironically as journalists themselves have jumped on controversial tweets to get at employers (MZ-B a case in point).

Is it any surprise editors at Sky News feel that a RT not meant as an endorsement could be interpreted in that way anyway? After all, people still attack me for publishing editorials on LC even if I disagree with those views. Once a Twitter mob gets going it’s very difficult to calm it down.

Of course this also implies Sky News editors don’t want to give their own journalists too much leeway in using their judgement. But all the broadcasters have hefty rule books for journalists (I expect the BBC will follow Sky), so this isn’t that surprising.

—
Disclaimer – I’ve not had contact with a Sky News editor or journalist over this blog-post.

Harding had to be recalled back to the inquiry after details of the hacking were not revealed in his last appearance at Leveson.

Blogger Nightjack was denied an injunction in 2009 to stop the Times from printing his name on the basis his privacy rights had not been breached. But it is now clear that his privacy had indeed been violated by a reporter at the Times (who faced an internal disciplinary action).

Harding said yesterday his newspaper regrettably “paid insufficient attention” to the hacking episode from 2009.

The Guardian reported last night:

Harding, returning to make his second witness appearance at the inquiry on Tuesday, also apologised to the officer, saying he “sorely regrets the intrusion into Richard Horton’s account by a journalist then in our newsroom”.

“I am sure Mr Horton and many other people expect better of the Times and so do I. So, on behalf of the paper, I apologise,” he told Lord Justice Leveson.

But this episode is far from over.

In July last year the bloggers Zoe Margolis (‘Girl with a One Track Mind’) and Brooke Magnanti (‘Belle de Jour’) both alleged that they had been sent computer viruses by journalists at the Sunday Times.

The film was preceded by a Sunday Times story that week citing the same £34bn figure.

Both the Sunday Times and BBC Panorama got their figures from a KPMG report that was due to be published within days of the stories being aired.

But now it turns out the report was never published.

In fact, KPMG are saying they won’t publish the report at all.

The report claimed that Britain could meet its 2020 carbon reduction targets more cost effectively by building nuclear and gas-fired power stations instead of wind farms.

Or at least that is how the Sunday Times and BBC Panorma portrayed it.

But now Panorama have back-tracked. A quietly published clarification on their site now says:

Panorama wishes to clarify the following information regarding What’s Fuelling Your Energy Bill?, first broadcast on 7 November 2011:

While the film focussed on government energy policy going forward – and the associated costs – we feel it worth repeating that the rise in current energy bills is predominantly linked to the increase in winter gas prices.
…
We accept that it would have been helpful to our audience had this point been made more clear in the film and the website materials that accompanied it.

Should have made more clearer? Unbelievable. The entire programme was based on the premise that renewable energy was too expensive and would hit our bills hard.

And now BBC Panorama don’t have a leg to stand on because the report isn’t being published. And they admit their programme may have given the wrong impression.

World Wildlife Fund have now issued a statement criticising the BBC too.

Was @BBCPanorama audience subject of PR operation based on dodgy numbers and executed by an accounting firm in the pay of vested interests?

— Joss Garman (@jossgarman) February 7, 2012

This lax in standards at the BBC is shocking. What do they keep putting out this kind of journalism, especially on the environment?

Firstly, banking reform has been pitifully weak so far and will not deal with the big structural reasons. Even Ed Balls is pitifully weak on this issue.

Secondly, bankers are the biggest recipients of government handouts of our time. They also have extraordinary powers over our lives. Why isn’t either of this being adequately challenged?

But there are more reasons…

The city receives an extraordinary amount of attention for such a small sector. According to the Times last week the City of London was worth only 2.8% of our GDP. Conservatives pander to the City because bankers fund their party; some Labour MPs do it because they’re afraid of the City or don’t know how to handle it.

But pandering to the City is also hurting our economy. Not only does it get subsidies and support to an extent other industries don’t, but also has great potential to disrupt other sectors.

The credit crunch happened because normal lending to small business or medium sized businesses dried up. Banks had severe liquidity problems and their first priority became their own survival not that of other firms. Even Quantitative Easing, designed to deal with this problem, has dealt with this.

So is there any good reason why private banks, who get to borrow from governments at extremely cheap rates, shouldn’t be even more tightly regulated to ensure that even if their investments fail – a repeat of the credit crunch cannot happen?

Why is the normal task of ensuring liquidity flows easily through the economy tightly meshed with other riskier operations? By riskier operations I don’t just mean investment banking, but also lending to other riskier banks.

Just as consumer deposits are guaranteed by central banks, why isn’t lending to businesses also guaranteed in a sense, to ensure such disruption as the Credit Crunch is not repeated?

Without bashing bankers and demanding that regulation go further to untangle this complicated sector, we’ll never get to a stage where they are held accountable for the support their receive and power they are handed on a plate.

She wants councils to be given more power to stop them from springing up everywhere.

She has a point, and I support the campaign – not just because I abhor betting shops.

She says:

Betting shops are causing problems in Peckham. My constituents tell me that they take the most from the poorest. They complain that they are a source of anti social behaviour and recorded violence. They say they cluster on the poorest high streets, and put off other businesses.

The problem is that as a councillor, I can’t do anything about it. Current planning laws mean that local councils have no meaningful way of controlling the number of betting shops in their area.

The government is currently consulting on whether to give local councils the powers to take control, so there is a real opportunity for influencing the government.

Is this a massive issue? I would suggest it is, in several ways. High streets are the commercial and social life-blood of local areas. They can make people feel more connected to the area or feel like they should leave.

They can also trigger vicious cycles – if the quality of local shops in an area declines then people stop coming into the area, local businesses go bust, house prices fall and people move out. The whole area suffers.

Allowing betting shops to proliferate also betrays how far local governments let ‘the market decide’ on what shops and services should be on offer.

High Streets should be public spaces for all. That councils don’t have this power (while being allowed to spy on residents) illustrates the skewed the priorities of central governments.

Sign the petition

Their well paid commentators should pay a bit more attention to public opinion. A YouGov poll for the Sunday Times yesterday found the public had lots of appetite for more banker bashing.

» Asked if it was right to strip Fred Goodwin of his knighthood – 67% of people said it was right, while only 18% said it was the wrong decision.

» And what about others? Should other senior executives of banks that needed to be bailed out also be stripped of honours?

YES, said the public, enthusiastically. 63% agreed while only 19% disagreed (that includes 61% of Tory voters too).

» Was the government right to pressure Hester into not accepting his bonus? (Actually that was Labour, not the govt…) – 72% said yes. Only 20% disagreed.

» Would all this damage the business environment in Britain, asked YouGov. Only 25% said it would damage UK’s business environment while 56% said it wouldn’t (incl a majority of Tories).

Neither was the public convinced it would discourage foreign companies from coming here.

So much for the likes of Toby Young and other Tories being in touch with public opinion on this issue.

He says on his blog:

Just getting home from a photo-taking expedition in the snow and my neighbour points the camera out to me.

Now, the flash camera has been there for a while, we’ve complained about it before and we’ve been told the objective is to move people on. Seeing as this is our communal garden I’ve never really felt that was an adequate explanation.

There’s no illegal activity here, no anti-social behaviour. The worst it ever gets is the kids running round which, I understand, some people might not like, but frankly kids should run round – it’s their job.

But this was new. Watch the film and be aghast!

WATCH

#WTF?

I bought into this theory initially, but I don’t any more. My point is to say that raising expectations in such a way can be counter-productive.

Furthermore, this is a call for a different approach to fight the cuts.

Over the last 18 months the left has notched up some victories. voters mostly agree the impact of the cuts is ‘unfair’ and they are ‘too far and too fast’.

We also eventually won the economic argument – that austerity would hurt the economy and make closing the deficit harder. Right-wing economists making the case for ‘expansionary fiscal contraction’ (Osborne’s policyd) are silent. The likes of Paul Krugman and Martin Wolf have been shouting ‘told you so!’ almost continually.

But a majority of the public still think the cuts are necessary. This is the clincher because people are expecting the pain and the cuts to services but have rationalised it.

Why? Well, there are lots of connected factors.

1) S significant proportion of the public believe Labour spent too much money and didn’t save enough
You can blame Liam Byrne’s note, the Tory / Libdem discipline in endlessly repeating this or the power of the right-wing media – this accusation has stuck with a significant proportion of the public. Labour have fought against this accusation hard but made very little progress.

Obviously, an objective look at the facts shows this is rubbish, but it doesn’t matter. People believe it. And trying to change their minds via graphs or discussions of the GDP/debt %s is not going to work. It doesn’t matter how many times you say ‘but the Conservatives pledged to match Labour spending plans until 2009′ – it doesn’t reach enough people.

2) The govt narrative is simple and clear, Labour’s isn’t
Whether you use the credit card analogy or simply say “you can’t spend more money to pay off debt” – the government’s lines are clear and understandable. Labour’s counter-explanation of using a stimulus to revive the economy and reduce debt makes economic sense but is confusing for ordinary people.

Even focus groups for unions have shown that people resist the idea of spending money to cut deficit, which is why you aren’t hearing loud calls from them to pump billions into the economy. Labour cannot oppose all cuts because a significant % of Labour and swing voters buy point 1. So their stance on the cuts itself is somewhat muddled. There’s no escaping this, and it will remain like this.

3) The left is mostly talking to itself
Denouncing the cuts in the Guardian or the Daily Mirror isn’t enough. The BBC has comprehensively bought into the austerity agenda so that avenue is also limited in scope. Besides – a lot of people who didn’t vote Labour don’t want to listen to the party for the time being. So the influence they have is limited.

4) There is a big partisan split
This point is under-appreciated: there are two parties in government. And the leaders of both those parties echo the same narrative. This means core Conservative and core Libdem voters (already over 50% of the electorate) are very difficult to influence. They believe their own leaders much more than Labour leaders or left-wing organisations.

5) Most people affected are Labour voters
Just makes it more likely that Conservative and Libdem voters think we are scare-mongering.

6) We haven’t pushed the right messages
Most of our emphasis is still on saying the cuts are unfair and will hurt people. If people think the cuts are still necessary and aren’t too affected (pt 5), they won’t be persuaded by our arguments.

I think we have to focus on making two arguments:
- these cuts are false economy and won’t save much money (and show this via research)
- they will make economy worse (with examples)

7) We don’t have the mass media on side
Even if we make the right arguments above, the message won’t be easily conveyed.

In a sense the public is like the frog sitting in boiling water – with some parts (Labour) hotter than others. It will take a huge tipping point for them to realise something is wrong, otherwise they might just be willing to sit there and bear the boiling water all the way to 2015 and beyond.

To be blunt, having looked at the polls over the last 18 months, I now think this is hopelessly optimistic.

I say this for several reasons.

For one, the public mostly blame Labour for the spending cuts. This hasn’t shifted much at all over the past year.

But that shouldn’t be surprising from a left-wing or right-wing perspective – the party presided over the crash and since most people don’t pay enough detail to public finances – they will carry on believing Labour must be responsible for this.

You may want more spending on public services but still believe there’s no money to spend on them for the time being (because we bailed out the banks), and therefore cuts have to be made.

At the next election it will be harder for the Conservatives to carry on cutting and blaming Labour, but in the run-up to the 2015 election I highly doubt enough of the public will see these cuts as ideologically driven in order to lift Labour.

Or to put it another way: even if all Labour supporters and half of Libdem supporters think the cuts are ideologically driven (which isn’t the case yet) – Conservatives could still be in power at the next election.

The other problem is that polls over the last 18 months show too many people still believe Labour spent too much money. Even polling and focus groups done by the unions (who are opposed to the cuts) show this. And that too from Labour voters!

This is partly a political disconnect – people see how their local NHS hospital and schools have improved but they didn’t equate this with national government spending. Even while they appreciate the improvement in public services, the narrative that Labour ‘wasted too much money’ is quite pervasive – especially when you take into account the countless stories of wasted money on gigantic IT projects.

Put simply – Labour cannot rely on more spending cuts, I think, to see an improvement in the polls. That doesn’t mean they should accept the cuts – I think they should oppose harmful cuts.

But it won’t help their polls, if the last 18 months are any guide. Even if the cuts continue, and public opinion moves against those cuts – that doesn’t mean a lift for Labour.

In other words, even if people think the cuts are harmful (as most do now) – it doesn’t mean they’ll see them as unnecessary or give Labour any credit for opposing them.

So why aren’t Conservatives worried? Won’t this hit their ratings in the polls and reduce their economic credibility?

Not if the pain is mostly relegated to Labour voting areas. And that is exactly what’s happening.

An extraordinary analysis published by the House of Commons Library of benefits claimant figures shows this to be the case.

The report breaks down dole claimants by constituency and then ranks them. The top 15 dole constituencies – with the exception of three - are all Labour seats.

Journalist David Hencke, who studied the analysis, says:

It is the fact that across the nation the number of people claiming job seekers’ allowance is now dividing area against area and becoming party political. Put it simply the government – whether it intended to or not – is dumping on areas that voted Labour and leaving many coalition seats- Liberal Democrat and Conservative alike – completely unscathed from the grim dole reaper.

In fact -taken year on year in some Tory and Lib Dem seats unemployment claims are, believe it or not, actually FALLING.

He also points out that this has political ramifications:

No wonder perhaps the dole queues do not have the same resonance for the Tories as Labour. Tory Mps’ surgeries are hardly going to be packed with desperate people looking for jobs – but Labour Mps are going to be overwhelmed. It also has a political impact and might be one reason why Labour is not capitalising on the recession- simply because in some areas it does not exist.

No wonder the Tories aren’t worried about rising unemployment.

hat-tip David Hencke

The number of signatories stands as follows

Thatcher state funeral to be privatised – 29,330 signatures

Restore Capital Punishment – 26,304 signatures

Doh! And the petition to retain the ban on capital punishment is still way ahead at 33,379 signatures.

Political Scrapbook pointed out yesterday that Paul Staines’ petition to bring back hanging will soon be struck off for lack of enough signatures.

Worse – the Guido Fawkes tried to promote their petition with an ad, and soon got slapped down by the Advertising Standards Authority.

I’ve not seen the ad surface since…

The arrests sent shock-waves through the press because it was the first time that prominent Sun executives had been targeted.

The Guardian reported:

A Scotland Yard spokesman said that Saturday’s operation was the result of information provided by News Corp. “It relates to suspected payments to police officers and is not about seeking journalists to reveal confidential sources in relation to information that has been obtained legitimately,” the spokesman said.

The four Sun employees have now been suspended by the paper on full pay.

But here’s why this has massive implications. One of those arrested on suspicion of was former Sun managing editor Graham Dudman.

But, as the Leveson inquiry notes (hat-tip Tom Watson):

On 26 March 2007, the Managing Editor, Graham Dudman, said that he wanted to make it “absolutely clear The Sun deplores the type of snooping revealed by the [Clive] Goodman case and we have in the past made strenuous efforts to ensure that type of conduct does not happen at the Sun”.
…
With regard to the other issue raised by the Goodman case, namely, cash payments being made to contributors, Mr Dudman confirmed that no payments were made by The Sun without the personal written authorisation of the Editor or the Editor of the day. Once signed, each payment would have to be approved by him or the Deputy Managing Editor and a permanent paper record of all cash payments would be retained.

[my emphasis]. If illegal payments had been made to the police for information, and had been signed off by the editor or senior executives – then this can of worms has just been opened.

YouGov’s Peter Kellner said that from the beginning of 2011 to 2012, public opinion changed as such:

* The proportion of people expecting their family’s finances to get worse has declined, from 64% to 53%

* The proportion expecting public spending cuts to have an impact on their own life has fallen from 72% to 62%

* The number accusing the Government of cutting spending too fast is down from 58% to 48%

* The proportion saying the cuts are necessary is up from 55 to 60%, while the number saying they are unnecessary is down from 34% to 26%.

Remember – these are figures over an entire year, not just recently. Though I’d like to see if they showed sudden movement during that period.

YouGov’s Peter Kellner says:

One big reason why it isn’t is that, despite the rise in unemployment, the Government is winning the argument about the necessity for spending cuts and who should be blamed for them. Compared with last January, there has been no material change in the numbers: almost twice as many voters still pin most blame on Labour rather than the Conservatives.

It can’t be denied that despite vigorous campaigning on the left about the cuts – the public still blame Labour for them (for ‘spending too much’) and as a result don’t want to punish the government for them.

Many of my constituents came up to me after the riots and blamed the Labour Government, saying, “You guys stopped us being able to smack our children.”

He isn’t spelling it out but we’ve talked on this issue before; when referring to “my constituents” I strongly suspects he’s referring mostly to black families. That doesn’t surprise me. And I suspect that Asian families would overwhelmingly say the same.

Like David Lammy I was smacked by my parents as a child. It stopped once I became a teenager. Once, in response to me “borrowing” some money from my parents when I was really young, I got a absolute hiding with a belt. There was no stealing after that.

To be clear: I’m not endorsing whipping your child. But I will say that for all my parents’ fault, I never held that against them. (Of course this applies only to me and may not apply to others.)

Lammy says the same:

‘We have to distinguish between that and child abuse. No normal parent enjoys smacking their child. A lot do it from time to time and as children get older it stops.

‘I was smacked as a child. And I am hugely grateful for the role my mother played in my life. I wouldn’t be an MP if it were not for her.’

I suspect there’s a stark racial divide on child smacking. I’ve heard loads of Asian parents complain about the smacking ban in the past; in most Asian families its standard practice despite the law. I suspect many of them would support Lammy’s stance in the Mail today.

I’m not sure where I stand if I’m honest. I think it should be the absolute last resort. But I also think I’d want that right if I think I’m responsible enough to do it within reason.

That said I’m not even sure I’ll have kids so this is a rather moot debate for me. I just think there’s a stark racial divide on this issue.

PS: I know I’m going to be absolutely vilified by lefties on this but our stances are often shaped by personal experiences. It definitely applies to me on this issue.

PPS: I don’t want the law changed, just to clarify, unlike David Lammy.

PPPS: This is a brilliant sketch by the Canadian comedian Russell Peters

Councillor Luke Mackenzie then changed his profile biog after his tweet was widely circulated online and attracted outrage.

At noon today he Tweeted:

I hear there are a bunch of unwashed people at Oxford and Regent Street, if you don’t like capitalism move to North Korea #UKUNCUT

— Luke (@CllrMackenzie) January 28, 2012

At the time his Twitter biog stated:

25. Basildon Councillor. Assistant Member to the Leader. Work for an MP. Small State Conservative, Economic Liberal. Views expressed in my tweets are my own.

Mackenzie works for Stephen Metcalfe, MP for Basildon. He is also on The Essex County Council NHS Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

After questioned about his tweet repeatedly, the Tory councillor changed his biog simply to:

Economic Liberal. Views expressed in my tweets are my own.

He also changed his Twitter picture to wipe any signs of his employer.

He then also tweeted this to ‘clarify’ his remarks:

Comments aimed at their tactics and idoitology of UK Uncut, I am aware that comments may have been interrupted, however was not the case

— Luke (@CllrMackenzie) January 28, 2012

In addition to a missing a brain, Mackenzie seems to need English classes too.

And then there’s this:

Yo #UKUncut peeps – just to inform y’all that @CllrMackenzie was one of the Cllrs who voted to evict the travelers at Dale Farm…

— Shelly Asquith (@ShellyAsquith) January 28, 2012

Rather ironically, he has also attacked Labourites in the past for changing their profile.

Luke Mackenzie is yet to apologise for his remark.

(hat-tip to @mrsnickyclarke and via @adrianshort and @Sezla)

The plans are in place even though Nadine Dorries lost her vote in Parliament last year to stop organisations that provided abortion services to offer counselling.

A source who was close to Dorries’ campaign said the Conservative MP had already agreed a “stitch-up” with the health minister Anne Milton on the issue even before the vote was lost 368 – 118.

The issue came back on the agenda this week when the Sunday Telegraph revealed that the government was planning to “radically reform” abortion counselling services.

Anne Milton, the health minister, has been working with DoH civil servants behind the scenes on plans to dramatically alter the system.

The article prompted Shadow Health minister Diane Abbott to resign yesterday from the government’s secretive cross-party committee on abortion counselling.

She told Newsnight last night that she feared the government was planning to press ahead with changes to counselling services regardless, under the guise of a cross-party and public consultation.

In the same debate Nadine Dorries MP herself admitted she still wanted to stop abortion providers from offering counselling to women despite numerous studies showing BPAS and Marie Stopes International followed strict Dept of Health guidelines.

In contrast, opening up counselling services would make it easier for religious organisations to offer counselling services. Undercover investigations by Newsnight and by Education for Choice last year found such groups offering very biased and wrong abortion advice to vulnerable women.

Last night Abortion Rights issued a statement saying:

It is unsurprising that Diane Abbott has felt the need to withdraw from the counselling group. It is clear that the government is not interested in either the will of Parliament, which rejected these proposals last year, or in the results of its own consultation on the issue.

Anti-choice MPs such as Nadine Dorries have a direct line to Anne Milton. It is clear she will do their bidding, regardless of evidence, public opinion or patient safety. These plans put politics before women’s health.

But Diane Abbott’s resignation did not come as a huge surprise to some. Even though the government claims it will consult the public and MPs before making any changes – my source close to Dorries’ campaign said the decision was inevitable.

“They won’t touch MSI [Maries Stopes International] but BPAS is on its way out. They’ve already stitched it up.”

The changes are expected to be made through what is called secondary legislation.

They pore over everything Boris does and ruthlessly point out mistakes he makes or things he’s trying to hide. They’re relentless and show. They are how an opposition should be. No wonder the polls are moving in their favour.

But Ken Livingstone is still being complacent and isn’t stepping outside his comfort zone. And if he wants to win – I think he has to do that.

To explain what I mean, it’s important to look at the polls. Ken has reversed Boris’ lead by winning back Labour voters who were earlier sympathetic to Boris. He has done so with a laser-like focus on transport fares and made that a key issue like never before. Boris looks out of touch – even the polls say so.

But there are two important caveats that still give Boris an edge. First, Boris hasn’t started actively campaigning yet, and when he does he will start to define himself positively (backed by a helpful Evening standard) and win back some of that support.

Furthermore, he will go negative against Ken. He will ask: ‘do you want the guy you chucked out four years ago back again? Isn’t he tired?‘. They might even stoop to ageism (don’t put it past campaign manager Lynton Crosby). The negative campaigning will hurt Ken too. Besides, polls always narrow in favour of the incumbent as campaigning starts earnestly (happened with Labour in 2010) – so a 2 point lead isn’t enough.

Ken Livingstone, I think, needs to overcome two weaknesses to extend his narrow lead.

First: Ken has yet to outline any headline-grabbing ideas or initiatives that say he is brimming with ideas and energy. He is way behind the polls on this. He still needs to show he can tap into Londoners’ expectations of the world’s capital. Fares cannot be the only issue he talks about for the next 100 days.

Second: Ken hasn’t neutralised negative perceptions from last time. There is still some resistance to him and he faces a Tory electoral machine very good at getting its voters out. There are two groups to neutralise: Tory voters determined to come out against him (make it easier for them to stay at home on election day); Labour sympathisers who need to be persuaded he has changed so they can happily vote for him.

His campaign has been within his comfort zone – focusing on attacking Boris from the left. But Boris isn’t stupid – he’ll move to the left too.

To win – Ken has to confound expectations and surprise people who may normally dismiss him. He has to show them he is a refreshed and changed. That requires a serious attempt at neutralising negative perceptions and admitting he made some mistakes back then. Only then will some give him another chance.

She thundered in the Daily Mail:

On this European stage, with parliamentarians present from across the continent, the Prime Minister has a chance to outline a new vision for human rights and for clear changes to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to prevent it from meddling in our legal system.

He must make the positive case for national parliaments and courts to protect human [emphasis ours] rights while denouncing the over-zealous and undemocratic way the ECHR has expanded its control on our laws. He must also be bold in his approach to the other institutions under the auspices of the 63-year-old Council of Europe (COE) because it will be another quarter of a century before a British Government gets this chance again.

Priti Patel cares for human rights you see – she just doesn’t want European courts meddling and stopping our right to discard them when necessary.

But does she really care? If so, why not demonstrate that when the opportunity comes along?

This time last year Ms Patel took a trip to Bahrain – at the height of the Arab spring as the country was brutally suppressing protests.

The junket, unbelievably, was entirely funded courtesy of the Bahrain government. They paid for everything.

Why did she happily go there as guest of the Bahrain government while it was brutalising hundreds of its own people? Did Ms Patel raise human rights concerns then? We searched Google and didn’t find any mention by her.

In fact, Patel and her two colleagues weren’t the only MPs to have received hospitality from the Bahraini government – Liam Fox and Alan Duncan were also guests in 2009.

Tories standing up for human rights? Pull the other one.

Here’s what the Guardian report found on the party’s new stance:

But there is scant evidence that the change of position on public expenditure has done Balls and Miliband any good with the wider electorate.

Asked how Labour’s new harder line on the cuts affected the likelihood to support the party, the overwhelming majority, 72%, said it made no difference one way or the other, as against just 10% who said it made them more likely they would vote for it.

That is fewer than the 13% saying they would now be less likely to vote Labour as a result of the change of economic emphasis, giving the shift a net rating of minus-three points

So the net result of the new position is a 3 point drop in support, and the broader public largely indifferent or usure what the new “harder line” is.

Well that came as a surprise to me, as I bet last week it would have no electoral upside whatsoever.

No doubt some people will say ‘ah yes but the 13% who are now throwing a strop will come back to us at the election anyway‘. That strategy worked out so well at the last election.