What did we learn from Tony Blair's news conference today? More than you might think.
1. He IS considering standing down as an MP after he stops being PM. "I've taken no decision" on this he said.
2. He is not planning to live in New York after leaving Number 10.
3. The Cabinet have not been consulted about whether Britain should site parts of the US missile defence system.
4. Unlike Alan Johnson he is not ready to attack Tory ideas to support marriage choosing instead to say it's a legitimate debate while insisting it's a distraction from the "real issue" of targeting help on problem families.
5. The government is planning to introduce what he calls a "something for something bargain" in the benefits system and provision of council housing. This begs the question - if you deny problem families benefit or housing, what then happens to them?
6. He warned the Labour Party to be "very careful" about attacking the private equity industry.
What are Charles Clarke and Alan Milburn up to? The two former Cabinet heavyweights (OK - one's slightly less heavyweight than the other) have summoned the media to the launch of a new website which "aims to facilitate debate as to where Labour goes next at a crucial time for the Party". Last night they with this message - "After ten years in office we will need to demonstrate that we have the vision and the policies to successfully meet the future challenges faced by our country and the wider world".
Now, you might think, why don't they simply wait for Gordon Brown to come along with the "vision and policies" he'll be guided by when he's prime minister? The answer comes in the next sentence of the email "Like many members of the PLP we believe that requires an open participatory debate". In other words, waiting for Gordon isn't good enough. Messrs Clarke and Milburn have repeatedly urged the chancellor - both in public and in private - to spell out what he'd do as prime minister and to involve the Labour Party and the country in a debate about the next ten years. Policies handed down from the top will not, they believe, do. In recent months they have produced some of the most original and thought-provoking speeches and ideas in a period when most politicians appear to be treading water waiting for Tony Blair to go.
They had the opportunity to say all this to Gordon's face when they met the Chancellor yesterday to brief him about their plans. Brown's aides say this was a friendly discussion and an initiative he was happy to support.
If Alan Milburn and Charles Clarke want to start a debate on the future of the Labour Party why, you'd be forgiven for asking, doesn't one of them run against Brown for the leadership? It was a question that went unasked yesterday and remains unanswered. Until it is, Clarke and Milburn are set on the extraordinarily difficult task of stimulating a debate which their current leader isn't leading and their likely next leader isn't prepared to lead. To act, if you'll forgive the unpleasant metaphor, as a laxative to a party that is in danger of being unable to produce the new ideas needed after ten years in office.
"The safe door swung open," when he fooled Margaret Beckett into thinking that he was Gordon Brown. Really?! I couldn't spot a single newsworthy story in his trick conversation with the foreign secretary.
Imagine if this conversation had been illegally taped as the Royal Family's were. Would any part of it have made the front page of any self respecting paper. "Don't risk Byers" isn't the grabbiest headline for a story in which Beckett advises Gordon Brown that it would be risky to bring his arch enemy Stephen Byers back into the Cabinet. "Hewitt out of depth" would be the best you could do for Mrs Beckett's failure to disagree with the future prime minister that some people thought that Pat Hewitt was out of her depth at the DTI.
Hardly material for a Pulitzer.
No, there were no great revelations in this call. Unless, of course, you find it surprising that politicians gossip about one another's strengths and weaknesses, are not always entirely loyal to all their colleagues and say what their bosses and future bosses might want to hear. That would never happen where you work, would it?!!
Moss Side, Manchester: I am in the city once dubbed Gunchester with the prime minister after watching . Just down the road, as it happens, is the Tory leader, who's also come to talk about guns and kids. Ming Campbell's chosen the same subject for the day but a different city. He's in Bristol.
Still ringing in my ears is the warning of one of those at the summit - the Rev Nims Obunge - that "we might be raising urban child soldiers". The senior police officers there agreed that although gun crime had gone down in the past year, guns were being used by younger and younger people for more and more trivial causes.
What was striking too was that not one of those there - whether police or community leaders - used the summit to demand new laws. Assistant commissoner of the Met Steve House, who is in favour of the legal changes the government is proposing, said nevertheless that listening to the stories of the anti-gun campaigners in the room - who included a mother whose son died after a shooting - "makes you wonder whether new legislation will really have an effect"
The chief constable of Manchester, Mike Todd, told the summit that "we should treat this as a child protection issue" by giving support to those about to be sucked into gang and gun culture.
Funny, then, that the headline story of today is likely to be promises of new laws.
"We should not apologise... I can鈥檛 take responsibility... I don鈥檛 think we created this phenomenon."
Clearer than ever before we heard Tony Blair鈥檚 answer this morning (hear the interview here) to those who say that he and George Bush are to blame for what has been unleashed since the invasion of Iraq - both in that country and beyond it.
His case was simple. First, the only people to blame for terrorism are terrorists. Secondly, the ideology and the infrastructure of Islamic terrorism existed well before the invasion of Iraq and the election of President Bush. Thirdly, it is in this country鈥檚 interests to go after the threat and not to wait for it to come after us.
His critics usually highlight the missing weapons of mass destruction, the failure to get UN backing and the failure to plan properly for the post war situation. The arguments will roll on for years, decades even, to come.
Too little time, in my view, is spent on the philosophy which underpinned this war and which made it it unique. The philosophy - if that鈥檚 not too grand a word for it - is pre-emption; i.e. countries are justified in taking military action to head off a future threat because it鈥檚 too dangerous to wait for it to materialise.
The argument about whether that is right or wrong cannot and will not be left to the historians, or those arguing about the rights and wrongs of Tony Blair and his legacy. It will shape how our country reacts to future threats - not least, the one that may be posed by a nuclear-armed Iran, and may be posed soon.
If you're hoping to hear Tony Blair announce the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq you're in for a disappointment. There will be no date for the last British soldier to leave Iraq. There will, instead, be a confirmation of the defence secretary's cautious prediction in a that "by the end of next year I expect numbers of British forces to be significantly lower by a matter of thousands".
In that speech, Des Browne said that reducing the size of the British contingent in Iraq did not mean that Britain was withdrawing, and said that there was no timetable for a full pull out. "We need to be clear: the handover does not mean withdrawal". I expect the prime minister to echo that today.
The real story here is that this is a slower withdrawal than many in the British army had hoped for. You will recall the comments of Sir Richard Dannatt, the chief of the general staff, who that the presence of UK forces 鈥渆xacerbates the security situation鈥 in parts of Iraq and makes our troops a target. You may also recall a predicting a halving of British forces by the summer - not by the end of the year as now looks likely. They quoted an unnamed general. It is rumoured to have been Major General Richard Shirreff who was the British commander of forces in the south of Iraq.
It would be intriguing to know what pressure the Americans have put on the Brits regarding the speed of withdrawal. The comments of former presidential candidate John Kerry show how awkward the apparent difference in their approaches is politically however many times the governments in London and Washington proclaim - not unfairly - that the situations in the north and south of Iraq are different.
Today's announcement is however driven, in part, by politics. It reflects a desire to be seen to be withdrawing before commemorations of the fourth anniversary of the start of the war, before the local elections and before Tony Blair bows from the stage. It will not mark the end of Britain's involvement in Iraq but will mark the beginning of a long process leading to that end.
Final proof that it is MPs and not journalists who are the biggest tossers came this morning.
A media team of Shrove Tuesday tossers was beaten by a group of Labour MPs led by Lindsay Hoyle. Far be it for me to complain about cheating but allow me to observe that each member of the MPs' relay team had their own pan rather than passing the pan as the rules required. In addition, our freshly made pancake was less aerodynamic than their mass produced, straight from the packet pancake.
Bad loser? What do you mean?!
Compare and contrast.
A single crime horrifies the nation and captures the imagination - it is the death of a child. A young leader of the opposition declares that this crime typifies what is wrong with British values. His message is clear - only his election can bring about the necessary change.
The killing - Politician A says - is 'a hammer-blow against the sleeping conscience of the country'. It is time, he went on, that we accepted we 'couldn't have rights without responsibilities'.
Listen now to Politician B talking about another crime. He called for a "complete change in our values" declaring that "we have got to sit up and realise we are running things by the wrong values".
Politician A was Tony Blair speaking about the murder of James Bulger in 1993.
Politician B is David Cameron speaking about the murder of Billy Cox in 2007.
In response, no wonder Prime Minister Tony Blair said the killings were not "a metaphor for the state of British society". He knows the power of a single speech. It transformed his image as shadow home secretary and catapulted him towards Number 10. David Cameron knows that too.
Global warming is bad for skiing, but better for blogging. News reaches me - on a rain soaked visit to the Alps - of .
Much of the talk about it appears to begin with the premise that it must be a huge embarrassment for the PM's own website to be used as a vehicle for opposition to government policy.
That is to ignore the fact that the boys behind the scenes at Number Ten have gone out to make this possible and to turn it to their own purposes. Next week over a million people will get an e-mail direct from the government debating the issue - an engagement which will bypass those of us in the media. This gives ministers some control of a debate which would otherwise be dictated by the enemies of this policy.
By the way, there's still time to . Danny Finkelstein of The Times has gathered (at time of writing) to get Ringo a knighthood. is an excellent link to much that's best on the web about politics.
Welcome too to new fellow 大象传媒 bloggers Robert Peston and Evan Davis. Back if it rains again, or after the vin chaud wears off!
Who do you think was awaiting Tony Blair as he emerged unscathed from Prime Minister's Questions today? No, not Yates of the Yard. Not a fellow prime minister or president. It was someone much much more important than that. I talk, of course, of Shilpa.
We know he's likely to leave the House of Commons a year or two after he vacates Number Ten. He couldn't be thinking of trying his hand in another house could he? After all, it worked for a Thatcher...
A Cash for Honours puzzle for you. How can it be that No 10 says it is giving "full co-operation" to the police and yet one of the key aides there - Ruth Turner - has been arrested on suspicion of not fully co-operating? She was arrested, you may recall, on "suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice" which, in layman's terms, is suspicion of, at worst, a cover-up and, at best, not fully co-operating.
The Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell, has just told a Commons committee that previously the police had accepted that they were receiving full co-operation and "there's no reason to think that's changed... We've complied fully with all requests." In response, I asked the prime minister's official spokesman whether the PM thought his staff, including Miss Turner, were "fully co-operating". He replied that "there's no evidence to the contrary" but declined to solve my puzzle. He even went so far as to hint that I might ask the police directly adding "it's not been difficult to find out what other people have been thinking" - which is the closest we've come to an official whinge about police leaking.
I can't leave this topic without mention of the - the head teacher whose "indiscreet" conversation with an undercover reporter about honours for sponsors of city academies - kick-started this investigation. Curiously, it seems to me to tell us very little about whether or when charges may or may not be brought against anyone else.
It does remind us though that you're innocent until proven guilty.
"Mine's a G&T" has long been the derisive and patronising shout from the Tory benches whenever John Prescott stands up. He was, as is well known, a steward before he became our deputy prime minister. In a delightful Radio Four documentary - '' - JP recalls the cruise fifty years ago on which he served Sir Anthony Eden. Eden was fleeing his troubles after an unpopular war (I know what you're thinking...).
Prescott talks with fondness of his days afloat and "a real Tory gent", and there are insights into the class system and politics. My favourite moment is the media "doorstep" with Eden when he's asked by one of my predecessors whether he'd care to reflect on his recent troubles. These days we shout "yer goin t' resign?".
Not sure we can claim things have improved.
You can listen to the programme here or it's repeated on Sunday morning.
After listening to the prime minister's interview on the Today programme, I think it's clear that anyone hoping that the 'cash for honours' investigation might persuade him to go early will be mightily disappointed.
He's clearly set on sticking to his timetable, and that phrase - "you'll have to put up with me a bit longer" - sticks in the mind. He spelt out his reasoning when he said, "It wouldn't be a very democratic way to decide who's prime minister".
Tony Blair is determined to sit this one out. He clearly believes that he's done nothing wrong, and is not intending to go, even if people think he ought to, merely to help Labour out.
Perhaps surprisingly, he seemed a man at ease with himself. Of course, that's also what he wants us to think - why else would he volunteer to be interviewed by John Humphreys at this time?
I suspect he thinks that the only antidote to what's going on at the minute is to be out there, to look relaxed, to be appearing to get on with his job. It's almost as if there are two worlds for the prime minister; the world of the media - where he's continually under pressure and where it's said his authority is shrinking - and what he sees as the real world (quite often outside this country) - in which he is praised.
On the day he was interviewed by the police, he travelled to Davos in Switzerland and was . Yesterday, after the news emerged, there was another at a sports college he visited.
Tony Blair has, of course, lived through something very similar - the Hutton Inquiry. Then, like now, there was an almost daily revelation which was damaging for him. Then, like now, many were concluding that he - or at least his inner circle - were guilty. It's worth remembering that now, like then the official verdict may still be "innocent".
More information emerges. It is another piece in a jigsaw. The 大象传媒 has learned that Lord Levy - Labour's chief fund-raiser - was asked by police about notes of meetings at which he's believed to have discussed honours with senior staff at Downing St. The notes of meetings, which the 大象传媒 understands were obtained by police from within No 10, were put to Lord Levy on Tuesday for the first time.
Lord Levy's refused to comment after his but, he's always protested his innocence telling friends that "only one person can nominate people for honours and it isn't me". I think we know what - and who - he's referring to.
Here is that statement from Scotland Yard:
"The prime minister has been interviewed briefly to clarify points emerging from the ongoing investigation. He was interviewed as a witness, not as a suspect and co-operated fully.
We requested the meeting was kept confidential for operational reasons. We are not prepared to discuss further."
So we still don't know the reason for the police's request for confidentiality. Could it have been to avoid tipping off Lord Levy who the police questioned four days later? On the other hand, the interview with Levy was fixed with his agreement so this explanation would only hold if the police booked the appointment the day before they arrested him.
PS. What it does show is that for all the talk of leaks, both the police and the politicians kept this one firmly under their hat.
"Nothing has changed." That's what journalists have been told each and every day when we have asked whether the prime minister has been interviewed by the police.
At this morning's Lobby briefing, a grim-faced Tom Kelly - the prime minister's official spokesman - revealed that, in fact, Tony Blair was questioned as a witness by police for the second time last Friday morning.
Had Kelly misled us? He insisted that he and the entire Number Ten media team were themselves unaware of this news until late yesterday, and therefore he had never knowingly misled journalists. The interview had been kept secret, he said, at the specific request of the Metropolitan Police. We await a statement from them with interest.
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