Rolling blog on the reshuffle

ROLLING BLOG CONTINUES ABOVE

11.24am: Jacqui Smith looks like she'll almost certainly be the first female Home Secretary.

11:17am: James Purnell, who has been a familiar face in the media recently, replaces Tessa Jowell as Culture, Media & Sport Secretary - a brief the former BBC man has been an adviser to Blair on. It's not clear if he will take on her Olympics brief as well.

10.50am: Peter Hain to get Work and Pensions so what will John Hutton get?

10.48am: Alan Johnson confirmed as the new Health Secretary.

10.37am: BBC reports John Hutton staying in the Cabinet, Harman to be Leader of the Commons.

10.07am: John Denham - opponent of Iraq war - may return as Home Secretary.

10.05am: BBC is reporting that Shirley Williams was offered a non-ministerial job to tackle nuclear proliferation.  She is still considering whether or not to say 'yes'.  Williams and Brown holiday together in America.

9.50am: Patten has described talk of him defecting as "drivel".  Rifkind laughed off suggestions that he was defecting.  Bercow is with Tory MPs in members tea room this morning.  Let's stop the defection gossip!  Slap on own wrist included.

9.45am: Tory reshuffle expected next Monday or Tuesday.

9.15am: Douglas Alexander to be International Development Secretary - he's going to find it difficult to coordinate Labour's General Election from Mozambique!  It's a bit of a bad message to send about international development, too.  Is Brown's commitment to Africa only worth a part-time Cabinet minister?

Thursday 8.20am: Nick Robinson has just been on the Today programme and has given his take on the reasons for some of Brown's likely appointments today:

• Darling is dull and boring and voters want someone reassuring in charge of the nation's finances;
• Miliband is going to the FO despite/ because he was furious at the Lebanon war and was never a real believer in the Iraq war (if true, the White House ain't going to be happy);
• Alan Johnson is going to health because Brown thinks the NHS isn't so much in crisis but has very bad PR and Johnson, as a great communicator, will be able to calm voter anxieties;
• Ed Balls will go to schools and skills because that is where the new PM thinks change is really necessary and the Chancellor's long-time key ally is the man to deliver it.

Thursday 8am: This is what the newspapers are thinking this morning:

• Darling certain for Treasury, Miliband for FO
• Some sort of role for Baroness (Shirley) Williams
• As well as Beckett and Hewitt, Baroness Amos will be the third Blairite woman to leave the Cabinet
• Jack Straw will replace Lord Falconer at the new Justice post
• Alan Johnson will move to Health
• Ed Balls to schools although the Education Department will be thinner as there is likely to be a new science department within a wider reorganisation of government machinery (Ben Brogan says James Purnell may get the higher education part of the education portfolio)
• Ed Miliband to the Cabinet Office
• Geoff Hoon, that great survivor, to Chief Whip
• Des Browne to move
• Harman may be Leader of the House as well as Party Chair according to The Times' Sam Coates.

10pm: Growing speculation that Chris Patten may defect.

5.45pm: The Spectator blog is tipping Miliband to succeed Beckett.

5.25pm: It is confirmed that Blair will be quitting as Sedgefield's MP.  That'll stretch the LibDems' by-election operation.

5.05pm: Tony Blair will be Middle East envoy for The Quartet.

4.40pm: Hewitt to stand down as Health Secretary. No big surprise but still very welcome.

Comments

[Edward]

Jump before you're pushed... Good riddance.

[Michelle Tempest]

Finally!

[a-tracy]

Patricia Hewitt has been a very loyal servant of the Labour Party and kept her party line, even though deep down she must know many of the changes that have occured under their watch have been to the detrement of patients. Of specific concern is the badly negotiated GP contract that removed local out of hours care even for emergencies but I put that down to John Reid.

If our doctors now only work 50-60 hours per week and they all used to do 100-120 hours per week have we got double the number? Why did she allow the allocation of doctor training places to spiral to such an awful mess? I would prefer her to stay on to answer for her department. Resigning is just a cop out - the easy option.

[John]

Sky are saying Beckett will not be Foreign Secretary

[Anon]

Three Hundreds of Chiltern
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has this day appointed the Right Honourable Anthony Charles Lynton Blair to be Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern.

[Graeme Archer]

Am shocked that someone with the light touch, the ability to reach out to normal electors like me, has left the cabinet. Poor Patricia Hewitt. Surely it was she that Forster had in mind when he urged us to 'Only Connect'? Or did she misunderstand his instruction, believing the early 20th century novelist to be telling her to spend, sorry, waste billions of your earth pounds on 'connecting for health', which doesn't work, will never work, and which should be tattooed onto her political gravestone?

[William Norton]

Graeme - since Connecting for Health is basically a logistics cock-up, Broon is obviously clearing the way for someone who has all the many human qualities of Pat Hewitt you list but, crucially, understands how to supply a vast army with essential kit. Geoff Hoon, naturally.

[MikeA]

Particia has probably been the 2nd worst health secretary with the truly useless Frank Dobson just beating her by a nose to this undesirable accolade. It is difficult to think of anything she has done that is good?
So good riddance. a-tracy is right though, someone has to pick up the mess that is now the NHS after all the botched reforms. My money is on a Brown foe say John Hutton (assuming he even survives in the cabinet) assuming David Milliband had been bought off with a beefed up environmental role

[Cllr Antony Little]

BBC doesn't rule out Hewitt getting another government job - is she doing a Morris and stepping down to Minister of State level?

[Jonathan M. Scott]

The New Labour media operation is collapsing before our very eyes.

Last night, we had the ridiculous images of Brown refusing to speak to a BBC Newsnight reporter, being blocked by Press Officers, security etc. (whereas David Cameron was more than happy to speak to the reporter.)

Today, we had John Burton, Brown's agent, just now on BBC News 24, announcing that Blair has accepted the Quartet's Middle East Envoy role and will therefore be resigning as an MP, and announcing that the By Election will be on the 19th July 'hopefully'.

An 'Experienced Agent' indeed, Mr Burton's mobile phone was going off at the end of the interview, no doubt to be bawled-out by one of their PR Men !

[John Moss]

Hewitts epitaph

Tried to connect for health, but it killed her.

("I told you I was ill", is stil the very best epitaph!)

[John]

Sky Report:

Brown has revoked the powers of Special Advisors over Civil Servants.

[Jonathan M. Scott]

Sorry, in post at 17.33, I should have said John Burton was Blair's, not Brown's agent. I'm as bad as Harriet Harman on Question Time.

[Londoner]

Above an Anon has stated: "The Chancellor of the Exchequer has this day appointed the Right Honourable Anthony Charles Lynton Blair to be Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern."

Are you implying that Mr Brown as Chancellor appointed him before Blair went to the Palace and the Government resigned, or are you suggesting that there is already a new Chancellor of the Exchequor making this important appointment before their own appointment has been announced? Can one be a secret Chancellor? Is there also already a secret Home Secretary signing warrants to bug the Opposition's telephones? Very mysterious.

If I were Private Eye, I would say "we should be told".

[TomTom]

Of specific concern is the badly negotiated GP contract that removed local out of hours care even for emergencies but I put that down to John Reid.

It wasn't badly negotiated - it took years to negotiate. The first contract was rejected by a huge margin by GPs.

People simply did not want to be GPs - it was a crap job since 60% doctors are now female. they want a work-life balance and not to be on call 24 hours a day.

Other countries do not have this on-call system and besides patients belong to the PCT not the GP nowadays.

Anyway the EU is going to impose employee conditions on the self-employed so the Working Hours Directive will apply to GPs as self-employed contractors henceforth.

There are nowadays very few full-time GPs - the new intake tend to be part-time female Associates who do not want to be Partners.

With drug addicts dumped onto GPs, care homes, and the whole validation and appraisal bureaucracy, they simply do not have time when the huge volumes of National Framework and It paperwork is considered.

More likely is that the Primary Care side of the NHs will be fully private within 5 years run by Insurance Companies or US groups and charging User Fees

[Tory T]

Andrew Pelling mentioned as possible defector

[Joseph]

Anon:
Very serious question, please can you offer an explanation as to what exactly Three Hundreds of Chiltern are and what does it entail, eg: origins etc?

Another question, is this the prerogative of the Chancellor or was that just a simple error, forgetting he has just become PM?

If Anon is no longer blogging on this thread can someone else please answer.
Many Thanks Joseph.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has this day appointed the Right Honourable Anthony Charles Lynton Blair to be Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern.

Posted by: Anon | June 27, 2007 at 17:19

[Richard Weatherill]

What with The Quartet and Macavity it's beginning to sound like a screenplay from T S Eliot.

[By Election Predictor]

Oh, what a shame in July ... with low turn out and not much of a Brown bounce

Ealing Southall 2005

Labour 22,937
LibDem 11,497 24.44%
Conservative 10,147

Ealing Southall 2007 by election - CON GAIN

Conservative 12,543
LibDem 12,051
Labour 7,222

Sedgefield 2005

Labour 24,421
Conservative 5,972
LibDem 4,935
Ind 4,252

Sedgefield 2005 by election - LIBDEM GAIN

LibDem 15,233
Labour 14,322
Conservative 3,222

[Iain Murray]

The Chiltern Hundreds is an office of profit from the crown and is appointed by the Chancellor, essentially on demand. There's a full description in a Parliamentary pamphlet available at http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/p11.pdf

[Comstock]

Joesph, have a read of

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiltern_Hundreds

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resignation_from_the_British_House_of_Commons

[Ted]

Joseph

Additional to the Chiltern Hundreds there is also Steward of the Manor of Northstead (MPs wishing to resign apply to them alternately). I assume Blair applied for the Stewardship before going to the Palace as after he resigned his Government there was no Chancellor. He doesn't have to be an MP to be PM - stays PM when Parliament has been dissolved.

He will remain Steward until the MP after next resigns.

[James Burdett]

Amos seems to be out too!

[Joseph]

Iain, Comstock and Ted, thank you all very much

Joseph.

[Richard North]

Dahlink ... chancellor.

[Reality check]

"Andrew Pelling mentioned as possible defector". By who, Tory T?

My sources say that a big name will defect tomorrow. John Bercow's name has been mentioned as International Development Secretary but I doubt that he would risk it. He has a nice safe seat.

My money is on a former Cabinet Minister who has his eye on a big job now (after being snubbed by Dave) and a Peerage after the next election.

[Yet Another Anon]

It is confirmed that Blair will be quitting as Sedgefield's MP. That'll stretch the LibDems' by-election operation.
I can't see the Liberal Democrats even coming close to taking Sedgefield.

[Yet Another Anon]

My sources say that a big name will defect tomorrow. John Bercow's name has been mentioned as International Development Secretary but I doubt that he would risk it.
I imagine Quentin Davies was a one off, it's always possible of course that David Cameron might agree for a Conservative MP or Lord to serve in a role on which there is a concensus - probably a non-cabinet role though. I think that for there to be a cabinet role then some kind of formal coalition arrangement might be expected.

If Conservative MP's on the more One Nation\SDP sort of side start defecting though that would undermine David Cameron and could lead to his replacement by the end of the year and show that such opportunistic careerism such as many politicians have been indulging in is starting to backfire - if someone in opposition changes to become more like the government then there is always the risk not only of putting off those with a radically different view, but also of those with the most similar views jumping ship and joining the government and so having a fast track to power.

[Tory T]

Rumours, reality check, same place you heard yours about (I presume) Rifkind. Who knows what is true now? Many MPs to the left of the party will be mentioned - I dareay most of it is wishful thinking and hothouse gossip.

Shirley Williams to be a LibDem defector, says Iain Dale and Sky.

[Reality check]

Peter Hain has been closing grammar schools in Ulster. Williams may be asked to go back to education and close down the remaining grammar schools in England as Cameron and Willetts don't want any more.

[Paul Kennedy]

Don't want to be ageist but she is 77.....so Sir Ming needs her to make him look youhful, and as I recall she didn't have an enviable track record as a Secretary State in either of the offices she held.....but of course I stand to be corrected. ;)

[Richard Carey]

We'll have to wait until tomorrow for the reshuffle proper, it seems, but we have seen a very quick appointment of Brown's senior staff. Well, he has been "in waiting" since '94.

Some very political appointments, as anticipated. Interesting to see the spinless, straightforward Brown already has a SpAd in No 10 dedicated to "political press issues".

[Ash Faulkner]

Richard, to be fair to Brown though, he has withdrawn the Order in Council that gave advisors permission to order civil servants around. Campbellesque bullying shouldn't be so frequent, at least.

[Ted]

Ash
That power was granted to two named individuals in Blair's office. Both had gone some time ago so it's a meaningless gesture (Brown's press officer admitted as much). Spin is dead, long live spin.

[Richard Carey]

Richard, to be fair to Brown though

Why would I want to do that?

[Tory T]

BBC just said the Guardian speculating on Rifkind, Patten and Williams

[insurance man]

Some talk on Dale about Brown bringing back two old friends Nick Brown and Lord Chris Smith.

[insurance man]

Some talk on Dale about Brown bringing back two old friends Nick Brown and Lord Chris Smith.

[animal farm]

Brown seems to be trawling around for stooges to help him in his quest for a one party state

[John Waine]

"BBC just said the Guardian speculating on Rifkind, Patten and Williams"

Is the speculation that Rifkind &/or Patten may defect to Labour or merely that they might agree to serve in Brown's gov't in response to his pretence of "reaching out" to include non-Labour Party members? Either way, Patten's no great loss (VERY "yesterday's man") but it would be a shame if someone of Rifkind's intellect were to be taken in by this nonsense (even if he has gone a bit "pinko-liberal" since his return to parliament - a bit like Portillo; is it the air in Kensington & Chelsea?).

However, if any Tory MP (or Peer, for that matter) does agree to serve Brown in some capacity, the Whip ought to be withdrawn from them forthwith. (For reasons, see Janet Daley's column in Monday's "Telegraph")

[Mark Fulford]

If Brown does offer jobs to these "wets", I suspect it is because he is trying to a) cause division and b) get the Conservative right up-in-arms, thereby shifting the perception of the Conservative Party away from the centre-ground.

[Scotty]

Ben Brogan has blogged on the possible defection of Rifkind and his reaction when asked about it.

[Scotty]

Mark, that is exactly what Brown is trying to do and I hope that none of our MP's or Lords oblige by defecting or causing further turmoil in the party. This is going to be our toughest week since losing the 2005 GE and I would love to see a united party staring back at Brown every Wednesday at PMQ's!

[Tory T]

Scotty I saw that, Brogan is unmissable, best blog outside of ConHome & Iain Dale. Good for Sir Malcolm.

[TomTom]

I wonder if this split of Education into Post-16 and Pre-16 will be replicateed in Scotland ?

They have already merged Child Social Services with Education - but Post-16 the Learning & skills Councils run things. No doubt schools will now be stripped of 6th Forms and merged into CFEs where costs are lower

I wonder if this has any connection with the EU Commission plans to harmonise University Education in the EU to compete with the USA. They think there are too many research centres in Europe and that degree courses need harmonisation.....Germany has already introduced Bachelors and Masters degrees and proposes elite universities so that too may be a forerunner of EU plans.

[Scotty]

Outside the two biggest jobs of FO and Treasury I have been waiting with interest to see who got the poison chalice of Health. I wondered if Brown would put a trusted lieutenant in there or a Blairite that he had to find a job for, it seems he has gone for the latter who will have a tough job on their hands.

[Comstock]

Considering the defeat of Patten provided one of the very few high points of election 1992, I certainly don't want him in Labour.

Quite apart from owt else there is the small matter of him not currently having a seat. The voters of Sedgfield and especially Ealing might well have something to say about any attempt to provide him with one.

[TomTom]

It is brilliant to put Alexander at DFID with his experience of a developing country in Scotland being showered with economic aid from a richer neighbour......

As for Miliband it could not be worse....son of a Belgian Communist and grandson of Polish Jews, he is likely to be a disaster in the Middle East and treated as lightweight by Washington and Moscow and Berlin.......and have a peculiar position when dealing with Tony Blair as Middle East Envoy - then again Labour has had disastrous foreign secretaries since Ernest Bevin....but I should have thought Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran needed someone with a better grasp of British history and interests than this clone........I think Steinmeier will run circles round him.

Take it for granted Britain is now officially a Euro-Region and no longer a sovereign state

[a-tracy]

In response to “Alan Johnson is going to health because Brown thinks the NHS isn't so much in crisis but has very bad PR and Johnson, as a great communicator, will be able to calm voter anxieties” and Tom Tom “It wasn't badly negotiated - it took years to negotiate.”

Our local GP’s didn’t do their 24 hour on-call cover it was contracted out to locums for years, however, they did have a Saturday morning emergency clinic, a Sunday morning one hour clinic locally and an emergency clinic from 8pm to 9pm on rota between all the GP’s in the town. These clinics were all telephoned triaged, in other words you couldn’t get a routine appointment out of hours; they were predominantly used by local parents for their children. From 2004 these clinics were cancelled – now you have to take your sick children to hospital 15 miles away or call an ambulance. So we paid more for a reduced service on say £20,000 pa the employee and their employer contributed an extra £300 pa multiply this and that’s a lot of money. I call that badly negotiated on behalf of the taxpayers/patients but it was I agree well negotiated for doctors.

[Andrew Woodman]

Poor Alan Johnson. Wonder if he'll give the same reaction as John Reid.

I think we can make something of Brown not taking Int Dev seriously though.

[Don Hoyle]

Glad to see horse-face was the first one to be put out to grass. (Becket of the FO told to FO).

[ToMTom]

From 2004 these clinics were cancelled – now you have to take your sick children to hospital 15 miles away or call an ambulance

That's the choice of the PCT - they have responsibility - read the GP contracts - they were signed with blank sections which the government decided it would fill in after doctors had signed them.....neat trick really...does anyone on this site sign employment contracts with sections left to the discretion of the employer to fill in later ?

Locums are very hard to find nowadays - most of them are GPs anyway who volunteer to do out of hours or who run coops. The issue is now choice for work-life balance but the preposterous idea that patients should have access to their own personal physicia 24/7 is too ludicrous to even debate.

[James Maskell]

The Chiltern Hundreds is one of those typically English eccentricities. The Americans for example just wouldnt get it...

What I dont get is why its Darling in for Chancellor. I still know nothing about what justifies his appointment. Thinking about it another way, I guess hes at least keeping his nose clean...

[Tory T]

I am very glad we are keeping Patten and Rifkind who have many other strengths despite their beliefs on Europe, as does Ken Clarke.

Let's hope Labour are going to have to stick with Quentin Who.

[a-tracy]

"the preposterous idea that patients should have access to their own personal physicia 24/7 is too ludicrous to even debate"

who is debating that?

Have you not heard of shifts or rota duty?

[malcolm]

James, Alastair Darling is Gordon Browns mate, whatever justification do you need? After all Brown has seen first hand what happens when a PM and Chancellor don't get on.

[Andrew Woodman]

Phil Wollas has just declared that Milliband is respected across the world. This is 2 days after saying Davies defection was the most significant defection since 1945. Perhaps he could become Minister for exaggeration!!

[ToMTom]

Have you not heard of shifts or rota duty?

Posted by: a-tracy | June 28, 2007 at 10:10

Yes I know the GP rota duty - it was stupid and exhausting. There are simply too few GPs for the huge volume of patients. What is needed is access-control because noone can afford the demands placed on the primary care service - it is simply unsustainable and beyond human capacity to service

[Liberal Tory]

Alastair Darling is Gordon Browns mate, whatever justification do you need? After all Brown has seen first hand what happens when a PM and Chancellor don't get on.

Also, Chancellor is the second most senior job in the Cabinet, and along with Jack Straw and Margaret Beckett, Darling is the only person left who's been in cabinet since 1997, as Chief Secretary, Work & Pensons, Transport Secretary and now Trade, so very experienced.

Would we prefer Margaret Beckett as Chancellor? Now that would be a shock...

[Edward]

BBC says Milibabble confirmed FS.

[Victoria Street]

Let's not fall for all this guff about a ministry of all the talents. Remember Blair giving Heseltine a role in relations with China and sitting on a platform with Clarke to set up a group on the future of Europe. Blair invented the non-political Tsar for drugs and other issues.
All PMs do it, and Blair did it the most. None of what Brown will do - Shirley on nuclear proliferation ? perlease ! - is going to be new in the slightest, so let's not fall for the spin, eh?

[James Burdett]

At least we now know Milibland's price for giving Gordon a clear run!

[James Maskell]

Harman for Chancellor, please! Incidentally since shes been told she wont be Deputy PM, Im guessing that he simply wont have a Deputy PM...

[Scotty]

"Let's stop the defection gossip! Slap on own wrist included." Agree whole heartedly with that, but just one little nugget I have just heard on the radio before I shut up.
John Pinard mentioned on 5 live just now that Bercow did mutter about recieving overtures, and I thought it interesting that one of the first appointments today was Douglas Alexander to the post being hinted for him.

"It is brilliant to put Alexander at DFID with his experience of a developing country in Scotland being showered with economic aid from a richer neighbour......" One of your more unpleasant jibes Tom Tom, in fact I find it increasing depressing reading your posts which never seem to have anything positive to say. IIRC just recently you were moaning about posters making childish comments regarding Brown!

[a-tracy]

"There are simply too few GPs for the huge volume of patients"

So why is it that there were no jobs under the new system for doctors completing their training this August or were all the newspaper reports bogus?

The rota system I said that we already had locally wasn't too onerous, most medical staff work shifts in hospital now, this put a tremendous amount of extra work onto local paramedics and the local hospital workers.

If this was so well negotiated and our doctors are doing half the hours now, why are we paying so much more?

[Liberal Tory]

Incidentally since shes been told she wont be Deputy PM, Im guessing that he simply wont have a Deputy PM

If Gordon Brown has any sense (and I think he has, to be honest) he MUST name a Deputy Prime Minister - probably Jack Straw? He might do it with the title First Secretary of State, though.

Why? Because if he doesn't... under the Labour party constitution, if anything happens to incapacitate Brown, then Harman automatically takes over.

That's only ever happened while Labour's been in opposition (in 1963 and 1994), but if Brown names a senior deputy, as Cameron has done with Hague, then that would provide an "emergency fallback" leader.

Of course, no doubt many Tories would be cheering on Harman as PM... As someone who regards the country's interests as of primary importance, I can't share that wish.

[William Norton]

Liberal Tory: Chancellor is the second most senior job in the Cabinet...

Technically, a rather junior post. Chancellor of the Exchequer ranks after a Secretary of State - the younger son of an earl would take precedence. Brown's a privy councillor so he actually jumps a few points ahead of his office and would come just after a Knight of the Thistle.

On becoming PM Brown vaulted very high up the order of precedence and now ranks after the Archbishop of York.

Straw, as Lord Privy Seal, would be technically demoted on becoming Secretary of State for Justice - unless he is also made Lord Chancellor (like Falconer) in which case he moves ahead of Brown.

[Andrew Woodman]

Hutton staying then. I bet their meetings will be interesting to watch.

[Liberal Tory]

Technically, a rather junior post.

OK, I should have said:

"Chancellor is regarded as the second most senior job in the cabinet"

Of course the order of precedence can be found in historical record, but in practice each PM publishes an order of seniority each time they appoint a cabinet.

[Scotty]

One last thought on the almost surreal way the way the hand over of power from Blair to Brown has unfolded. While both of them have indulged in their own personal ego trips in the last few weeks and now with the cabinet reshuffle dominating Brown's first few days in charge, do we still have the civil service running the country in the absence of a competent government?
Looking at the flooding situation, looming postal strike and further chaos in the NHS will the voters be satisfied with this bout of naval gazing from Labour?
Brown needs to get a grip on this matters before he embarks on his grand strategy to rip up departments with the added work load in already over stretched area's?

[Patsy Sergeant]

If Shirley Williams accepts this job, I think it says everything about the privileged, narrow-minded woman who having the best education that money can buy herself, really felt that the rest of the public were not up to her academic ability and that therefore grammar schools were an irrelevance that should be done away with. The same woman who in Question Time, went on and on and on about other panel members not giving her enough time to waffle on with her view on some topic - I have forgotten which one!

[Stephen Alley]

By offering jobs to the Lib Dems, Paddy Ashdown and Shirley Williams, Gordon Brown is preparing for the inevitable hung parliament in 2010. If the Lib Dems are already in the "cabinet", Labour will seem the "natural party of government", and Brown will get his second term.

I think he very much has his own interests at heart here.

[Oberon Houston]

I am really curious as to where this "all talents" thing is going. Is Brown looking to cement a labLib coalition before calling a snap election? There is something very strange going on here.

By building a common coalition against the Conservatives could he achieve tactical voting on the grandest ever scale? Or am I missing something here (likely).

[Stephen Alley]

I see with the appointment of Ruth Kelly that transport is once again being treated as a non-issue.

After six months away from London, the large number of people (men and women) cycling through London in the rain last night, reminded me just how bad public transport is in this country.

Oberon, I don't think there will be a snap election, just manoeuvring the Lib Dems into a position where a LabLib coalition feels inevitable.

[Deputy Editor]

Best to make further comments on the new thread.

[ToMtom]

Looking at the flooding situation...

That's down to George Bush....I thought the BBC would air public schoolboy Matt Frei's reports to show how George Bush cut back on flood defences in Sheffield - after all they had a major flood in 1864 - so it must be GWB's fault.....the BBC hasn't cranked up its campaign yet.....

As we spoke, a tour bus crammed with open-mouthed white faces drove by. Surveying the damage is one of the most popular tourist attractions today - $35 (£20) per person for a two-hour trip through hell.