Apparently the government has just spent £100,000 on a new logo for the Office of Government Commerce.  I didn’t know such an office existed to begin with, but at least the price tag of this new logo puts the BBC News rebrand firmly in perspective.  The scandal is not about the price of a logo that was clearly created in two minutes by someone typing “OGC”, selecting a round-looking font, picking a grey colour, then heading off for a coffee before cashing a cheque for £100,000.

As bloggers have been keen to point out, if you rotate the logo 90 degrees it begins to look a little less than wholesome.  Cue bad puns and bull-in-china-shop innuendo all round.  I first spotted it a few days ago on An Englishman’s Castle (via Politics Home): this remains my favorite blog post about the logo simply because of the animation.

Isn’t it nice when people come together?

Forgive my contrarianism but the present display of unity and cohesion within the Labour Party truly is quite touching to behold.

Blairites who swore that the party would never be in party until its old self had been purged and only the contemporary join hands and link fingers with those they long ago attempted to alienate as publically as possible. The Old Left and the followers of the man who, even more than Thatcher, proved their foil. The purple marginals merge with those from the dyed-red heartlands, the usual suspects mingle with those who spent the 1990s dreaming wistfully of a cabinet position, sitting on a sofa chatting with Tony.

So what is this force that draws the long-standing foes together, this diverse and disingenuous alliance of sworn idealogical enemies? Brown, of course. He has triangulated himself into a hole. Not something which Blair never encountered, but one which the Prime Minister lacks the sheer inevitability his predecessor used to weather such storms.

So the most unlikely coalition, some interested in his downfall alone, others in earnest opposition and all out to cause a fuss and a mess. An odd bunch but potentially capable of felling their leader. Under any other conditions the rather startling sight of the still-unreconstructeds and former modernisers moving as one might be rather pleasing. On this occasion, though, their assembly seems intended to destroy their leader, either through direct means or crippling his reputation and allowed the Tories to finish the job in a few years.

Still, that Brown is able to draw together these forces in opposition to him is impressive, much as Hillary Clinton’s ability to unite the right in a fashion all ideology would dictate, and should prove impossible. All other comparison is dubious but this, at least, is well established upon both sides of the Atlantic. Of the two, at least the right are a foe.

Charles Clarke wrote an enlightening (hah…) letter to the Times today.  The feud continues:

Sir, Ed Balls’s extraordinary interview with you (April 18) is most revealing and provokes a response.

His injunctions about the “indulgent nonsense” of “private briefings against the Labour leader” certainly come from one who is well acquainted with this kind of activity. Such things do discredit politics and take us back to the days of faction and party-within-a-party that were so damaging in the 1980s. As he says, we’ve seen it over this parliamentary recess, as I know to my cost from the totally false briefing (to which he refers) that I am considering running as a “stalking horse” against Gordon Brown. I hope that he’ll do what he can to stamp it out.

His references to “disappointment” resonate. It’s certainly true that many Labour MPs, including myself, are disappointed by policy decisions such as the abolition of the 10p tax rate, the over-bureaucratic and insensitive nature of the post office closure programme, and the problems arising from lack of preparation for a Northern Rock-style economic challenge. These all stem from Treasury positions with which he is very familiar. It’s also true that many, including myself, are disappointed with many aspects of his education policies, of which the most serious is the absence of a coherent and focused reform strategy for the 14-19 curriculum, along the lines of Mike Tomlinson’s proposals.

As far as his remarks about “falling for false prophets” are concerned, I would advise him to examine himself and his own role. He should stop attacking others anonymously or in code and look to his own performance and record.

Rt Hon Charles Clarke MP

Interesting that they’re openly fighting it out in the media now; Balls acting as his own man and as a surrogate for Brown, Clarke for the grumblers.  Superficially, this is perverse in the extreme. Labour risks heavy defeat over the 10p tax band and 42-Days Terror legislation at the moment, most likely on the backs of huge back-bench rebellions. These seriously threaten the stability of the party’s power.

But that’s rather the point, isn’t it? Brown will go either with, or before, the end of the Labour government. Clarke, Milburn and the other Blairites will have a shot at the leadership - what they’ve wanted ever since Blair fudged his way out of power.  If removing the Labour government is the price of removing Brown, then they’re presumably up for it.  He’s not their chosen leader by any stretch, and I imagine a number of them feel (unwisely) that that’s as bad as Labour being out of power.

They’re therefore upping the pressure on Brown (by proxy, at least) with this increased back-biting as he’s hit by the dual blows of the seemingly inevitable rebellions over tax and terror, presumably hoping to topple him.  Balls’ repeated pleas for unity suggest he knows this.  Tied as he is to Brown by reputation and and politics, he’d lose out if Brown was ritually slaughtered and thrown to the electoral wolves.  And so he’s rather desperate to save Brown - or, at least, destroy him on his own terms.

No doubt Clarke&co believe jettisoning Brown is necessary to make Labour electable.  What they don’t seem to realise is that, the way they’re going, they risk making it entirely unelectable.  The grumblers faced a good opportunity to lambast Brown over the 10p tax band abolition.  At the same time as facing Brown down, they’d have been able to restore the faith of the horrified core voters in the bulk of the PLP.

Instead, they’ve chosen to up their shit-stirring.  It’s not good for anyone.  They look pettily childish, and compound Labour’s growing reputation for back-biting.  The public will just love that if they get into power, won’t they?  Brown, meanwhile, looks unable to handle his own party - and weak.  If he survives the next few weeks and months as leader, it’ll be by the seat of his (brown?) trousers.  He’ll look very shaky, and virtually incapable of running the country.  Again, the public will just love that too.

And the issues that actually matter here - the abolition of the 10p tax band, the vile Terror legislation - will go with less scrutiny than they need.  Wonderful.

Grow up, Mr. Clarke, Mr. Balls, before it’s too late…

Last time I went to watch a televised debate, it was the BBC’s Question Time programme. Today’s ITV Mayoral debate - to be broadcast tomorrow - was a very different experience. The organisation was poor, the audience was loud, and the questions were planted. A genuine debate I think not. A valuable experience, though, it most definitely was.

After a very long time queueing, we were ushered into the studio with a slightly banterous security guard. Admittedly this was not the most enjoyable part of the evening; he thought he was being funny when he was searching my bag, asking if I had brought a sword with me. I’ve heard that one before. Before long we were ushered into seats by a really switched-on usher who didn’t quite grasp that filling a row from the aisle outwards is not the most sensible way to get people to their seats. Ten minutes of musical chairs later, we were settled and ready to start.

The production company had other ideas. ITV had over-allocated tickets, as they are justified in doing, which left many people disappointed outside. The early bird really did get the worm this time. For those of us inside, the heat was mounting as the studio lights glared down on a large audience. A number of reserved seats remained to be filled, but as soon as they were taken the show got on the road.

It soon became clear that those sitting in the reserved seats were the least camera-shy. Or, to put it less bluntly, the correlation between people asking questions and people sitting in reserved seats was roughly 100%. They all had prepared, written questions. They all had a cause to raise in some pseudo-aggressive manner. Having been told so many times that “we, the audience” were leading the debate, I found myself tempted to expose the sham question-asking. It was utterly unnecessary: you need not sex up a TV debate when viewers are already viewing it! I wonder how many people turn off their TVs thinking “I don’t want to see any more of that debate because the questions are not nearly as direct and vitriolic as I would like”.

My temptations to heckle were clearly not contained to myself: the audience was almost encouraged to shout as they pleased, and a huge number of people in the audience took pleasure in obliging. At times it became clear that the heckling was preventing debate: the candidates were often left finishing their arguments under total cover of miscellaneous grumblings. When Ken Livingstone issued some slur or other towards Boris Johnson there was an immediate wave of applause, followed by a loud and sustained “boo”, topped with random yells of “Boris! Boris!”. There were a few occasions where the candidates were clearly refusing to be taken on an issue, but the cries of “answer the question, Boris!” did nothing to progress debate. For his part, Alastair Stewart made sure he got answers without behaving like Paxman. It was a genial, slightly less than high-brow affair, and Stewart filled his role perfectly. Top marks for him.

To judge the prospective mayors is a more difficult task. I remain convinced that none of the candidates is truly worthy of this great city, and remain reluctant to express support for any of them. But this evening’s performance has consolidated my opinion in some areas and shifted it in others. Ken Livingstone is most in control of facts and figures, but he has a sad tendency to accompany them with half-truths and outright fallacies. Boris Johnson knows Livingstone’s lies inside out, but is shaky on his own spending plans (whilst pretending to be “consistent” on the issue). Brian Paddick performed much better than usual: he was more calm in fighting for airtime and sounded like a typical LibDem on Question Time, seeking out applause. A marked improvement.

Some nutjob asking a question (rehearsed, from a reserved seat) said that she thought Enoch Powell was right about immigration. While the audience was “oooh!”-ing and “boo!”-ing, the candidates were fighting for the chance to answer first. Paddick won, and received his best round of applause of the night. He is becoming much better at these sorts of events, and given that he has only been in politics for five minutes it is to his credit that he has learned so quickly. Paddick certainly gets top marks for effort.

The debate demonstrated amply that the three candidates featured passionately want to run London for the next four years. It would be deeply unfair to suggest that Boris Johnson is uninterested in London: he’s arguably more in touch with the aspects of London life that mean most to people. It is telling that his applause came mostly from statements of objection to simple observations about London life: Ken Livingstone can claim to have lived in London all his life but he does not have the same cultural affinity with it. That said, Mr Livingstone has a far better grasp of London politics - hardly surprising when he has dominated the leadership of it for decades, despite a period of rest after Thatcher prevailed over him in the GLC. Brian Paddick, it seems, cares little for much aside raw policy; including arguing his case. His performance today was better than previously, but it would be unfair to pretend that he is an overnight master of PR.

The debate ended and the planted questioners were asked to stay behind (presumably to get paid?) while the rest of us left the studio. A glorious line of silver Prius cars adorned the road outside. One had a card in the window advertising its customer as one “B Haddick”. That rather sums up the campaign, I think.

For a former lecturer of American and British studies at Oxford Tim Hanes truly does know startlingly little about his topic. This is the man who predicted that the Republicans would hold both Houses so firmly that he was forced to eat the article coated in tobasco after their thorough electoral humiliation. How exactly a man who seemingly knows quite so little about the shape the future will take yet {be it what would happen to Iraq after foreign soldiers took control of it or…Well…Anything at all} gets to continue to make ham-fisted attempts after so many shocking failures is beyond me.

This week he stared off with a premise as weak as it was offensive:

He [Obama] has been the General Lee of the competition so far.

Yes, mixed-race, half-black Barack Obama is much like the man who came vaguely close to protecting American slavery. Can you actually get worse than that? Yes, it seems like you can.

If he were to win the Pennsylvania primary, he would indeed become unstoppable. Yet adversity has brought out the best in Mrs Clinton. She has fought for seven weeks in Pennsylvania and while no one has been killed or wounded (unlike the 8,000 dead and near 50,000 casualties and losses at Gettysburg) it has been a bruising struggle with Mrs Clinton landing the most blows. The odds are that she will at least emerge strong enough to take her cause on further.

This analysis is, to put it lightly, shockingly poor. The only perspective from which this could be the “Best in Mrs. Clinton” is if you are either a journalist or a Republican. The former have delighted in being provided copious headlines by Clinton’s vicious mud-slinging while the latter have seen their electoral prospects soar and woefully inappropriate candidate unchallenged.

Furthermore she may have landed the most blows but this is primarily because she is the one who has been doing the most punching. Obama has started to retaliate of late, perhaps because of so many people saying that he looked like a “Wimp” after the last debate, but for the most part the month and three weeks have been an exercise in Clinton doing her best to maim her opponent, causing endless vats of rightist joy to be filled.

The chances are that Mr Obama will end the nomination season with more pledged delegates than Mrs Clinton. His admirers argue that it would be profoundly wrong for those who have not been elected as delegates to overturn the will of those who have. It’s a seductive claim, but there are good reasons why the superdelegates should ignore it and instead endorse Mrs Clinton.

Sounds dreadfully “Democratic”.

The first is, what is the point of the superdelegate system if all they do is follow the majority of pledged delegates? Why bother with them? Why not just allow them to turn up at the convention as mere observers?

Shockingly enough there is no point.

The Democratic Party created the superdelegate system about 25 years ago because it feared that the party’s most ideological supporters were quite capable of choosing a candidate who many ordinary Democrats would not feel able to back at polling stations. If the primaries and caucuses were to be the gearbox of the nominating procedure, then the superdelegates were designed to serve as the handbrake. That is their role.

Yes, the elite knows best. Let us place our trust in the establishment. The wishes of the party who actually showed up to vote are an irrelevance.

Secondly, any advantage that Mr Obama will have among pledged delegates is misleading. Not only will Mrs Clinton have won in most of the largest states but she will probably have secured the bulk of delegates won in primaries - where turnout is comparatively high, while he has romped home in the caucuses - where participation is notoriously feeble.

It is here that Hanes exposes his blundering ignorance. He would have half a leg to stand on if he was actually correct in his claim concerning the number of Democrats which have voted for which. This is being measured and is known, predictably enough, as the “Popular Vote”.

At present Obama is thrashing her there, too.

That noise is the debris of Hanes’ argument hitting a hard surface as his case falls to pieces like a house of cards encountering a falling brick.

Furthermore, if all the superdelegates were compelled to vote for the person who won the most votes in their state (which they should not be, but it is an interesting exercise), then Mrs Clinton, who is likely to end the season having triumphed in eight of the most populous ten states (including Florida and Michigan, which had their results discounted by the Democratic National Committee as punishment for scheduling their primaries too early), would benefit hugely.

Because, of course, a vote where neither candidate campaigned is perfectly justifiably claimed as one in which she “Triumphed”, as is one where the named “Obama” was not even to be accepted as a write-in candidate let alone to be found on the ballot. Hanes’ partisanship is quite bewildering to behold. Either that or it is a level of ignorance that would be yet more shocking. I am highly thankful that I never endured him as a lecturer.

Finally, enough is now known about the strengths and weaknesses of these two contenders for superdelegates to come to the following conclusion. Mrs Clinton is the 5347 option and Mr Obama is the 5542 one. By this I mean that it is tough to imagine her obtaining more than 53 per cent of the national vote against John McCain, but it is hard to envisage her falling below 47 per cent either.

Given that half of Americans have stated that they would not vote for her under any circumstances I think that it is safe to say that it is impossible to imagine her winning at all.

Most of those Democrats who prefer Mr Obama to her (African-Americans, affluent whites, the young) would nevertheless back the New York senator in November

This is where Hanes becomes simply tiresome in his disconnection to America. I have visited chat-rooms, read blogs and talked to friends over AIM but not actually been there since I was still in the womb so perhaps the same is true of me. But there is one message unmistakable: Hillary will not be getting the black votes she lost back. Not since all that carnage. If she wins the nomination the people disgusted with her actions and “Fairytale” and “So did Jesse Jackson” remark of her husband will not flock back to her. Neither will the “Obamaniacs”, who loathe her. Neither will the MoveOn.orgers, who she lied about and lost forever when she backed the war.

They will simply not be there.

(particularly if their man was in the vice-presidential slot)

Yeah, he actually won the election through popular vote and through delegates but he’s certain to settle for that. I fear I see the specter of race hovering here, or at least opposition to youth {not that Obama truly is one} but as neither are mentioned explicitly I will not speculate.

Mr Obama, by contrast, has a somewhat higher vote ceiling but a much lower floor to his vote. If Americans decide that they are desperate for “change”, pure and simple, then he is a better vehicle for that mood than a woman who has the history of the 1990s attached to her.

Americans are pretty clearly in favour of that, as demonstrated by the theft of Obama’s buzzword by Hillary.

If, though, voters are after “change (with reassurance)”, as one suspects is the case, then she is a smarter bet against Mr McCain. A sizeable slice of working-class Democrats who back her may switch to the Arizona Senator if she loses. In the worst-case scenario, the Republican champion may well wipe the floor with Mr Obama.

Yes, nothing like a man who wants to stay in Iraq for as long as it takes to “Win” {whatever that means} to offer “reassurance”. No match exists for a man who is not only incapable of understanding the economy at present but also seemingly devoid of much interest to do so in the future. The working-classes are bound to move towards a man who proposes their families continue to die in Iraq and suggests that they get no assistance after having their lives ruined by corporate lies.

Iraq is, of course, the unspoken issue here. I suspect that Hanes prefers Hillary for much the same reason the right does: they know that she is incapable of removing troops and they are wary of someone who had enough foresight to show them up long, long ago, while they were still crying out that it would be the seamless toppling of a tyrant followed by liberal democracy reigning and free civil liberties being distributed evenly to all by a crack-squad of friendly, benevolent GIs.

Obama is deeply challenging to those who were fooled quite so thoroughly in a way that a fellow victim {Clinton does at least care about the political aftermath, which she did not foresee} never can. Clinton will never gain the political leverage necessary to extricate America and this is an out-come that the unrepentant neo-cons and their blushing apologists find favourable. The rest suggest that we should abandon the White Man’s Burden, an act of heinous dereliction.

Assuming she is victorious in Pennsylvania, then Mrs Clinton should keep on running. The superdelegates must ask themselves not only “who can win?” but “how might they lose?” For the reality of Gettysburg is not that in pure military terms the North actually won, but that it did not lose. It was this that later made it such a decisive moment.

If the superdelegates wish to destroy the relationship of an entire generation with their party and have a burning desire to lose an election that a one-eyed monkey with mange could triumph against the Republican Party with then they should unquestionably override the wishes of those they supposedly represent and force Clinton into position. This would result in a rupture within the party and the ultimate in culture war elections: Vietnam vet who reckons America should have stayed in and reckons they should stay in now against technocratic liberal of the elite and of the establishment. A speech at Wellesley versus years being tortured by the Viet Cong.

More dire baby-boomer drama, in other words.

In addition to Doug’s observation about Boris’ sulks I would like to add my own observation. In that video {which Douglas, to my great glee, brought to my attention} you can see Boris struggling when pressed not on the specifics of a homophobic piece of legislation, but the very basics. It was so bad that even Lindsay Graham was able to concisely thrash him with the words “But that’s what Section 28 did!” after he blustered and waffled {as he is prone} about being for “Liberty” and “Not telling schools what to do”. When the SWP are showing you up as hopelessly out of touch then you can tell you’re in trouble. Given the massive confusion over his transport plans {is it 8 million? 100 million? Thirty pence?} this hardly does much to dispell the overwhelming impression as him being an amusing man horribly lost.

Which would be hilarious, but for this whole affair setting a worrying precedent. Section 28 was the most wretched piece of anti-gay legislation to hit the books since the repeal of anti-sodomy laws in the 1960s. It remained the water mark for vile laws for nearly two decades.

Given that he wrote articles in defence of it there is a strong possibility that he is simply lying and playing up the lovable buffoon angle, by this stage growing rather ragged through over-use. Let us, however, disregard Sartre and assume good faith for a moment and believe him. Let us imagine that Johnson decided to lay his weight behind a law which he knew not even the most rudimentary content of. Let us imagine that a far-right talking point was all he used to justify his decision, rather than actually reading the content of the law in question, considering consequences and working from there. Let us imagine that he depends upon the rest of the right instead of his reason for his opinions.

Now if Boris was willing to support a piece of legislation with such disastrous effects upon a minority group without even knowing what he was doing or the content of the bill then how exactly can he be considered fit to govern London? Of all places, London?

I am still struggling to craft a response to the sight of the Tories outflanking Labour along the left via social justice. This article hasn’t helped…

I think I’ve just seen the video of the Mayoral campaign:

(Hat tip: Tory Troll)

Tory Troll really is an excellent use of webspace. His assessment of Boris as the Stonewall hustings is as accurately hostile as usual:

But, given that struggle, I had expected Team Boris to come out fighting. I had expected crowds of ‘Back Boris’ campaigners to be handing out dossiers on al-Qaradawi, and a freshly briefed Boris to be firing out statistics. But as he waded into his speech, it soon became clear that he had very little to offer at all.

Boris’ old joke about Ken, routemasters and dehumanised morons was wheeled out for the umpteemph time but this time the delivery was alarmingly quick. The chairman had given him 5 minutes but at this rate I thought he could finish in two. “Does he always talk this fast?” my girlfriend whispered into my ear. To be honest I wasn’t sure, but he certainly didn’t seem himself.

He started warbling on about bendy buses again, before suddenly becoming aware that he should at least try to mention gay people. Keen to meet the demand he came up with a new gag: “I do not see gay buses or lesbian buses,” he said with a smile. Which was certainly the case the last time I checked.

Cheered on by this truism he gave up any further attempts to out-gay the gays and steered himself back to the well worn routes of stealing bus passes and breaking unions.

But when Ken stood up, the mood changed. Members of the crowd booed Boris as Livingstone read excerpts from his columns, and shhhed him as he tried to interrupt Ken’s speech. Detatched from his custom adulation, the TV celebrity slumped into his chair and fiddled with his phone.

For the rest of the event, Boris seemed dangerously lost at sea. Questions on gay equality slapped him unexpectedly in the face and there were repeated instances of ‘Boris does not compute’ as he scrambled for something semi-relevant to say.

I’ve noticed a pattern with Boris. At the Stonewall hustings, as at the Mayoral Accountability Assembly, he was faced with a hostile audience. And, as at the Mayoral Accountability Assembly, he couldn’t handle them.

At the Accountability Assembly, the Unions heckled him - and he blustered. At the Stonewall hustings, everyone heckled him - and he banged his fist. And then he sulked. When pressed during debates (buses, anyone?) he blusters, or refuses to given an answer. When Andrew Neil (spits…) asked him who he’d employ in a new administration, he said he couldn’t - but only after dithering, blustering and getting upset at being pressed. And that’s all fairly typical.

Boris can’t handle criticism, it seems. That should make the GLA interesting, if he gets elected…

I read Guido Fawkes’ Blog.  I don’t expect to see shocking leaks that will bring down the Westminster machine (I like to think that Mr Fawkes assumes an alias simply because on name doesn’t do justice to his burgeoning ego) or very good gossip.  But I do expect to find some faintly amusing content about the less serious aspects of politics; the kind of stuff that’s too cheap for political journalists to put in their paper and risks lowering the tone of their blog.  It fills a gap in the free market of the internet.

It is with surprise, then, that I find myself compelled to reproduce an entire post from the site.  It’s snappy, concise, liberal with grammar, and strikingly true.  Common sense on the tax system; now there’s a rare sight!

Watching Darling spluttering explanations for abolishing the 10p rate this morning it is clear that the Brownies can’t see that their preference for taxing with one hand and then paying benefits back with the other hand is a wasteful bureaucratic merry-go-round that doesn’t work - except on paper.

Darling says “tax is complicated”. Who complicated it? Simplify it by raising thresholds dramatically. Why should people on earnings of less than £10,000 pay any tax? They only have to fill out endless forms to get it back in welfare payments. Crazy. Raising the threshold on the low paid will incentivise people to come off benefits and work. It will reduce the cost of collection which is disproportionately higher on low incomes.

The Tories are too timid, the mood of the public has changed. New Labour has always referred to “unfunded tax cuts” and demanded to know how many hospitals, schools would correspondingly be cut. The Tories should be pointing to Labour’s ”unfunded spending commitments” which have given Britain the highest budget deficit in the Western world. We can’t afford Labour’s reckless spending commitments they are literally mortgaging our children’s taxes to pay for current spending. It is the economics of the “never, never”.