Is it possible that Ed Miliband is a worse Labour leader than Gordon Brown?

By Tim Montgomerie
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One of the fears of Tory activists in target seats is that if the national party couldn't win a majority when Gordon Brown was Labour leader then it has its work cut out to win a majority at the next election. But what if Ed Miliband is an even worse Labour leader? A YouGov poll for this morning's Times (£) does not provide a conclusive answer to that question (a few of its findings point in opposite directions) but it does suggest that there are important grounds for thinking the current Labour leader is weaker than his predecessor on some important measures. The Times leader writers summarise some key YouGov findings:

"Asked to compare Mr Miliband with his predecessor, Gordon Brown, the public found Mr Miliband less in touch, less caring about ordinary people, less trustworthy, considerably less decisive, weaker, less competent and much less clear about what he stands for. This was against Mr Brown, an unpopular, unelected prime minister who attracted a mere 29 per cent of the vote in the 2010 general election. There is much in this polling that ought to concern Mr Miliband but perhaps most worrying of all is the verdict on the core leadership virtues of decisiveness and strength. Only 19 per cent think that he is decisive and 57 per cent say that he is liable to dither. Fewer than a fifth describe him as a strong leader and more than half say that he is weak."

Writing a commentary for The Times (£), YouGov's Peter Kellner offers three crumbs of comfort to the Labour leader. Crumb one is that the Labour leader scores strongly when it comes to personal honesty and more people seem to like Ed Miliband. Crumb two is that about one-third of voters have no opinion of Mr Miliband. The Labour leader must hope that these undecideds won't join the majority of voters who have consistently told pollsters that they don't see him as prime ministerial. Crumb three isn't a crumb - it's more of a loaf. Kellner notes that in 1979 Margaret Thatcher trailed Jim Callaghan by 20% when it came to preferred PM ratings. That deficit didn't matter when it came to that year's general election. The Labour government was capsized by the Winter of Discontent and an overwhelming sense of economic malaise. The danger that today's Tories will screw things up remains Labour's best hope.

It is usually true that oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them - but for that political proposition to hold true oppositions have to meet a minimum level of competence and maturity. It is far from clear that Labour under Ed Miliband has met that test in enough voters' minds.

Thank you, Gordon Brown

By Paul Goodman
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A last word on the controversies over Margaret Thatcher's state-funeral-in-all-but-name.  I believe that it was right to honour her in this way, others will think it was wrong, but there should at least be agreement on one point.  The arrangements were drawn up under, and to some extent by, New Labour - under Tony Blair and, especially, Gordon Brown.

I've been critical of Brown for not attending the Commons for the Thatcher tributes - he's the only former Prime Minister entitled to be there, and he should have cancelled his other commitments to do so.  But it's evident that he had a good look at the funeral plans during his time in office, especially in the early months before he funked calling an early election in the autumn of 2007.  The historian in him will have thoroughly grasped Lady Thatcher's significance.

What's going on in Gordon Brown's mind?

By Paul Goodman
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Only one former Prime Minister is currently a member of the Commons, and he wasn't there yesterday to pay tribute to Margaret Thatcher - or to criticise, in the well-chosen terms that Ed Miliband deployed, the Thatcher years.

It may be that Gordon Brown had some good reason not to attend.  But it can fairly be added that even if this is so, he's not exactly a regular speaker in the chamber.  He has mostly raised constituency cases, as he properly should, in his few interventions - though there was that extraordinary intervention on phone hacking.

I don't believe that a former Prime Minister is required to have a high voting record.  None the less, the absence of interventions from Brown on the big issues of the day is becoming more and more striking.  The "feartie from Fife", as Alex Salmond described him, has never been a great one for taking criticism on the chin.  Could it be that he simply can't bear to face the Commons?

Gordon Brown attacks Scottish independence as creating "a race to the bottom" to cut spending and raise taxes

By Matthew Barrett
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Gordon Brown has made another of his occasional appearances in British public life. The former Prime Minister appeared at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, to give the Donald Dewar lecture. Brown used his speech to make a three-headed argument:

• Team GB's "pooled resources" achieved exceptional results, whereas an independent Scottish or English team would not have
• The Union has made possible a number of shared institutions, such as the NHS, BBC and armed forces
• The Union has made Britain a more "fair" and "equal" society

On the first and second point, Brown said:

"One thing I take from the Olympics, a point that Sir Chris Hoy has already made for me – when we pool and share resources for the common good the benefit is far greater than would have occurred if we'd just added up the sum of the parts. So the National Health Service is common insurance policy … the BBC, shared across the United Kingdom. The armed forces, so you don't have a Scottish, a Welsh and an English army. The Olympics it is pretty clear – we managed to do it in cycling with pooled resources – if you had just divided the money and put a tenth to Scotland and a tenth to Yorkshire, you could not have achieved the same results we did."

Brown's Team GB point is a reasonable one. But Alex Salmond won't mind riding out the pro-Team GB sentiments at the moment. In 2014, the SNP administration will host the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, and will attempt to recreate some of the London 2012 Boris buzz by showing it can hold a successful sporting event. The fact that in the Commonwealth Games the Home Nations compete as England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will be a coup for Salmond, who must be praying for Sir Chris Hoy to make his final big-event appearance in Scottish colours.

In a new autobiography, Ken Livingstone claims Boris threatened to punch his lights out

By Joseph Willits 
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The Boris vs Ken battle has always added some colour to political life in London, and it seems that more is yet to be revealed in Livingstone's upcoming autobiography. Although Decca Aitkenhead in the Guardian has described it as "an exhaustive account of internal local government machinations, city hall bureaucracy, transport policy memos" having "more psephological detail than even the nerdiest anorak could conceivably want", certain revelations are likely to reignite tension as 2012's election campaign gears up.

Through humour, Ken admits, Boris has the knack of "getting away with it", diverting attention away from tough decisions, but during 2008's election campaign "the mask slipped". The example he cites is as the camera faded after the two men appeared on Questiontime:

"After Question Time the cameras were still on us as a smiling Boris draped his arm around my shoulders and said, 'If you carry on talking about my great-grandfather I'm going to punch your lights out.'" 

The comments were made after Ken's insistence that Boris' Turkish grandfather was a British spy.

Sayeeda Warsi claims Alistair Darling's memoirs reinforce doubts about Ed Balls' suitability for high office

By Tim Montgomerie
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Many have predicted that Alistair Darling's memoirs were most likely to raise eyebrows (geddit?) and early extracts suggest they are not going to disappoint.

Darling worked particularly closely with Brown, both when the latter was Chancellor and PM.

Darling may have been scrupulously loyal throughout Labour's time in office but he's about to catch up for lost time in his book "Back from the Brink: 1,000 Days at Number 11"...

• Darling will describe Brown's temperament as "brutal and volcanic";
• In new evidence that the former Labour PM was always briefing against colleagues Darling will accuse Brown of "making bullets" which were then fired at him by close aides;
• He will accuse arch plotter Ed Balls of running a parallel Treasury operation while he was Chancellor;
• He will say that Yvette Cooper, Balls' wife, was appointed to the Treasury team to keep an "eye on him";
• The Times (£) says that 'Back from the Brink' will confirm speculation that Darling did threaten to resign at Brown's often impossible behaviour.

Tory Chairman Sayeeda Warsi issued a statement yesterday, focusing on Mr Darling's remarks about Ed Balls:

“Alistair Darling’s memoirs should give Ed Miliband some concerns about Ed Balls’ suitability to be shadow chancellor. Ed Balls recently claimed that he ‘did his politics on the record’, but he has already been shown to have been at the heart of the plot to oust Tony Blair. Now Alistair Darling accuses him of running a shadow treasury operation within his own government. No wonder Labour left the nation’s finances in such a mess when they put party political plotting above the national interest.”

Brown is not the only victim of Darling's pen. In words that will have people nodding across Westminster and Whitehall he describes Mervyn King, the Bank of England's Governor, as "amazingly stubborn and exasperating".

Labour Uncut has more advance material on the memoirs this morning; "Darling lashes “stupid” and “arrogant” bankers for taking Britain to the “brink of collapse”".

Which British politician has Rupert Murdoch met most?

By Tim Montgomerie
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Yep, Gordon Brown.

Let's record for posterity that during his evidence to today's special meeting of the Culture and Media Select Committee Rupert Murdoch said:

(a) The British politician he met most in recent years was Gordon Brown;

(b) At those meetings Brown never once raised phone hacking;

(c) Their children played together;

(d) Their wives became friends;

(e) Like Cameron, Brown preferred Mr Murdoch to enter 10 Downing Street by the back door.

It puts all of that faux outrage from Brown, last week, in perspective.

Which media moguls did Brown entertain at Chequers?

By Paul Goodman

David Cameron has this afternoon released details of all his meetings with media proprietors and editors since the election.

Which has inevitably spurred what the late Alan Clark would have called an ooh-aah about who was invited to Chequers.  The list includes James Murdoch and Andy Coulson - unsurprisingly.

All this is scarcely an investigative scoop for the media, since the Prime Minister has released the details himself.  But where this one has led, his predecessors should surely follow.

We know from this week's events that Gordon Brown tried to stand up to Rupert Murdoch, but was stopped by the Cabinet Secretary (since under our constitution civil servants, not politicians, take decisions).

And he would surely welcome a further opportunity to proclaim his righteousness once again to the world, not to mention his meticulous concern for accuracy and strict regard for facts.

He will therefore leap at this invitation to respond to Cameron's move by asking for details of his own meetings with media proprieters and editors as Prime Minister to be released as soon as possible.

After all, what's good for the blue goose is also good for the red gander.

A Guardian-sized apology to The Sun

By Tim Montgomerie
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Tuesday's papers were a nightmare for The Sun with most titles accusing the Wapping tabloid of hacking into Gordon Brown's son's medical records. The story first appeared in The Guardian and was repeated by the former Prime Minister.  The Sun was able to prove that its source for the story about Fraser Brown actually came from a legitimate source and that Mrs Brown hadn't objected to them reporting the story. The Sun gets an apology today from The Guardian... on page 32...

The full text of the apology is:

"Articles in the Guardian of Tuesday 12 July incorrectly reported that the Sun newspaper had obtained information on the medical condition of Gordon Brown's son from his medical records. In fact the information came from a different source and the Guardian apologises for its error (The Brown files: How Murdoch papers targeted ex-PM's family, 12 July, page 1; When Brown decided that the Sun was out to destroy him politically, 12 July, page 2)."

I'm not sure The Sun can complain, of course. When it's treated people badly it has also buried its apologies. If newspapers were forced to give equal prominence to apologies as to original, offending stories they might be more careful in the first place.

Labour discussed whether to hold a public inquiry into phone-hacking... and chose not to

By Matthew Barrett
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Ben Bradshaw, who was the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport for the latter part of the Brown Government, has admitted that the last Labour government discussed in Cabinet whether to hold a public inquiry into phone-hacking, but decided against doing so.

Bradshaw was on BBC Two's Daily Politics this afternoon (his appearance can be viewed on BBC iPlayer at around 12 minutes in). When asked why Labour didn't discuss the issue while in government, Bradshaw said:

"That was a discussion in the cabinet in the last year of the Labour government about whether to have a public inquiry, as Alan Johnson made clear in the Commons yesterday. That was, in effect blocked by the police and Gordon Brown had the added political difficulty that he was seen as a weakened Prime Minister. If we had gone down that route there would have been a hail storm not just from the Murdoch press but from all the other hostile media that we were just trying to find a diversion or an excuse"

So, Gordon Brown - with the knowledge of his Cabinet, which of course included Ed Miliband and Ed Balls - decided not to have an inquiry in case the News International newspapers attacked him. An interestingly honest admission from Ben Bradshaw.