Implosions

Even a quick look at the political landscape in Britain right now reveals the seismic changes that have already been brought about by last Thursday’s result. I'm a very, very long way from a political expert, so can only say it as I see it, but it all rather suggests that the front each party presents to the electorate has been tissue-paper thin all along. I suspect that would surprise nobody (and could fill an entry all of its own), but it’s nonetheless a bit worrying.

On the one hand, the Tories are going through a leadership election that was always going to happen if the vote went against Cameron. The declared runners at time of writing are few, with likely candidates like Boris Johnson* and Jeremy Hunt announcing they’re not running. but even so - you know it’s grim when you’re looking at the selection and thinking to yourself ‘I hope Theresa May wins’. And she’s been backed by ‘Corrible’ Hunt – I’m sure she’s delighted.

Obviously though, being instinctively a lefty, it’s Labour’s leadership issue which most concerns me. I confess to having felt mixed feelings about Corbyn specifically – it’s not easy to support a man the majority of whose parliamentary party is against him, simply because it makes things easier for the Tories at a time when their own divisions should be being exploited.

That said, ultimately those MPs are (supposedly) elected to represent their constituents, and many of the rank and file Labour Party members who voted for him in large numbers come from those constituencies. So overall, I think the PLP should shut up and get behind a man who has a clear mandate from the membership and would likely win again in the event of any formal leadership challenge. Indeed the Labour Party membership jumped specifically before his election, with many joining so they could vote for him. Those members haven't gone away, as the rising membership of Momentum demonstrates. The Parliamentary Labour Party should not be distancing itself from the very people who put them there, even if they disagree with many of them on the specific issue of the EU. Corbyn’s support of Remain may not have been convincing but he did support it, at least publicly. He did what was right when it mattered – the PLP should do the same.

The biggest concern for me in all of this is who’s likely to exploit any political vacuum caused by the splits on both sides. Usually the centre ground would benefit from such problems, but the Lib Dems are still reaping the whirlwind of their own voters’ ire after they coalesced with the Tories, so that’s not necessarily the case now. That leaves the worrying possibility that more extreme parties, of whatever persuasion, stand to gain from the chaos. Imagine a general election where the Tory vote is split or lowered because they’ve lost the support of Remain voters in London and elsewhere, the Labour party has split in two, dividing their votes with them, and nobody wants to vote Lib Dem. What you’ve possibly got then is a very low turnout and UKIP and others improving their share of the vote dramatically.

That doesn’t bear thinking about, but the referendum result has generated such turmoil in politics in Britain right now that it’s the kind of hypothetical scenario that we have to.

*Has it all got a bit real for Boris, such that he suddenly doesn’t want anything to do with it? He and Gove looked like rabbits in headlights in the direct aftermath of the Leave victory, and it’s since become clear that they’d done not an iota of planning between them for such a result.

True colours

I've always had, like all the 'bleeding-heart lefties' they so despise, a healthy contempt for the Daily Mail. It's always been a sort of vaguely amused version though, the sort of feeling you get when confronted by somebody whose views on race/immigration/sexuality come straight out of a 70s sitcom. They have, though, these past few days, revealed just how vile they really are.

Last Saturday they ran this article on Ed Milliband's late father, attacking a man who was in no position to defend himself any longer. When Milliband used his right of reply on Tuesday to point out that his father had in fact served this country in the Navy during World War II, and that he did not share the dead man's political ideology, they responded with this. Far worse, though, they printed a picture of the man's grave, with the caption 'Grave socialist', and it emerged they'd sent journalists incognito to infiltrate a Milliband family memorial service, something for which even they have had to apologise, calling it an 'error of judgement'.

Perhaps to bring into sharp focus just how far out of line they are, even Cameron has criticised the piece, saying that if someone attacked his father he'd 'do the same thing' as Milliband, who's demanded an apology. (Cameron, I have to say, has again showed his human qualities with his response to this, just as he did after the rugby player pulled the 'bunny ears' stunt outside Number 10. What a pity his politics are as they are.)

With the exception of that grave shot, the Mail remains unapologetic, and in this whole affair have shown their truest colours in all their infamy. How quick they were to (rightly) criticise people who joyfully danced on Thatcher's grave so recently, and how hypocritical to do so as blatantly as they have on the grave of a political opponent's father.

I'd usually shrink from ever linking to Mail articles on this blog - many of them are simply deliberately provocative, designed to stir up righteous indignation and visits to their website - but these have to be seen to understand the true nature of this rag. I can only hope, in time, that this kind of tactic backfires on them where it really matters; circulation. Regrettably though, I suspect that the type of people who actually buy the Mail wholeheartedly agree with not only the sentiment expressed in these pieces but the way in which they've been expressed at the expense of a dead man's reputation.

Horribly for me, this has resulted in me having to agree with Alastair Campbell, never my favourite Labourite, in calling the Mail 'vile', 'backward' and 'far-right', and suggesting it represents "the worst of British values posing as the best". A plague upon them.


Follow-up edit: An excellent run-down of the generally cheering web-sphere response to this whole thing can be found here. I particularly like the tweets where other people explain how their fathers 'hated Britain' too, especially, "My dad shouted 'Bugger it!' when he couldn't find a car parking space in Hemel Hempstead in 1979."

A good day for equality?

The Parliamentary vote on the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill was, in many ways, something of a landmark. That it should pass with such a strong majority should, I suppose, be viewed positively. But something in the breakdown of the votes still irks me.

The motion was passed by 400 votes to 175, giving it a strong mandate as it moves to the Lords (one wonders what they will make of it!). It's that 175 that gives rise to disappointment. This was a free vote – no whip was issued, giving MPs free rein to vote as they, or their constituents in an ideal world, saw fit. 136 of the 'nay' votes were Tories – almost 80% of them. That's nearly half the Parliamentary Tory members. Given that 35 Tories abstained, this means only 127 of them actually voted in favour – fewer than voted against.

This means that the majority of the rank and file MPs of the largest party in our government believe that people should be denied the same rights as everybody else simply because of their sexuality. And that's what it boils down to – they may make indignant noises about the sanctity of the union between  a man and a woman, or various other bollocks, but that's just Emperors' new clothing over the naked truth of the matter.

I'll be watching this one through the Lords with interest, because I can't see it passing into law unscathed – there will be objections from a Lords which is rather less representative of the general population than the Commons, and the disquiet among so many Tories will surely give Cameron cause to think, and possibly water it down to keep his own party happy. Cameron himself, to give him credit he rarely receives in these pages, has vocally supported this bill. But he's got a problem on his hands with so many of his party in open opposition to it.

Assuming this does, down the line, pass into law, all that will then remain will be to give heterosexual couples the right to civil partnerships currently only enjoyed by same-sex couples. Then we really would have across-the-board equality in these matters. For now, on balance, I think this was a good day for equality – a single step in the right direction, at any rate.

On the response to the Leveson Report

After months of investigation, interviews with hundreds of witnesses, and a pretty thorough investigation into the practices of the press in this country, the Leveson report was predictably damning. Also predictable was much of the response to it, particularly from within Westminster. To, very, very briefly summarise the report's 2000 pages, the stuff which seems to have been picked up for highlight is:

A new regulatory body, entirely independent of the government, of serving newspaper editors and of business, should be established.

Some politicians have been much too close to the press.

Press behaviour has, at times been 'outrageous' (see below).

The report is critical of the relationship between John Yates (former Assistant Commissioner at the Met Police) and some elements of the press.

Interestingly, possibly anticipating much of the likely response to his report, he also suggested that legislation should enshrine in law the obligation on the government to protect the freedom of the press.

There are also, of course, ongoing criminal cases with regard to some of the practices that have been uncovered recently, which could add further context to anything Leveson says.


So, what we've got is a call for regulation to punish press excesses, but a recognition that the press freedom which is so long-standing and so valued in this country is to be protected. And a bit of a bollocking for their conduct, of course:

"There have been too many times when, chasing the story, parts of the press have acted as if its own code, which it wrote, simply did not exist. This has caused real hardship and, on occasion, wreaked havoc with the lives of innocent people whose rights and liberties have been disdained. This is not just the famous but ordinary members of the public, caught up in events (many of them, truly tragic) far larger than they could cope with but made much, much worse by press behaviour that, at times, can only be described as outrageous."

I entirely agree that the freedom of the press, so easy to take for granted when it's such a fundamental part of our culture, must be protected. But it's possible to rein them in without damaging that freedom. It would not be difficult to frame some kind of legislation compelling retractions and apologies to be published on the same page, at the same size, as the original story if that story turns out to be false, for example. This would still leave papers free to publish the stuff in the first place, but would perhaps make them more careful to check their facts (a sadly forgotten old journalistic habit anyway) before they ran something. Or perhaps moderate their tone when they run something which basically calls an innocent man a murderer before any trial has been conducted, to cite just one of their recent shameful episodes.

Anyway, needless to say, the politicians have been prompt to respond. Cameron, in typical Tory fashion, has been chief among them in urging caution in implementing legislation. God forbid a Tory government ever had to actually be responsible for something. To be fair to him though, he's accepted most of the report's findings and called for prompt action, as have all the major parties. But he said in his Commons statement that statutory regulation would make the country 'less free'. A glib generalisation, for me, though it's very gratifying to hear politicians of all stripes arguing against regulation of the press - the debate in the Commons this afternoon was pretty intelligent and reasonable by their usual standards, which goes some way to showing how importantly this issue is viewed by all sides of the House.

Clegg, a Liberal in both senses of the word, felt sufficiently differently from the PM to make his own statement, rather than let Cameron speak for the coalition as a whole. He felt the proposals for legislation were workable, and that the press had gone too far to be trusted to act responsibly in future without them.

If I've understood the proposals correctly, it seems that any legislation would only underpin the authority of the new, independent regulatory body, it would not regulate the press itself. For me, the press have pissed away the rights and privileges of 300 years of complete freedom by using those freedoms as an excuse for some of the most outrageous, immoral and apparently illegal practices in the hunt for sensationalist bollocks. With digital media threatening the printed press much worse than any legal responsibilities ever would, that behaviour is not likely to change if it isn't forced to. It's time to do something - like Clegg says, the 'worst thing would be to do nothing'.

Leveson's lessons must be learned, for the good of our society as a whole. Let's hope they are.

Doing your bit

That most unseemly of modern-day phenomena, trial by tabloid, has plumbed new depths this past week. A certain Phillip Schofield somehow managed to make himself look like a complete tit and make David Cameron look good with his utterly ludicrous effort to ambush the PM on TV. He is, obviously, being heavily criticised for it from most quarters, but the damage may already have been done. "Paedo Tories outed on TV," screamed the Star, in typically measured tones.

As a result, senior politicians have been forced to defend themselves against this worst possible accusation from a man who freely admitted he'd just got the list off the internet. The same man who, when equally baseless rumours circulated around a decade ago that he was Jason Donovan's partner, dismissed them as 'just rubbish you find on the internet'. How times change, eh, Phil?

Cameron's response was admirably restrained, to be honest. In hitting out at the move, he urged people to think very carefully before making such accusations about people without evidence, and of course, that such accusations should be made to the police.

With the Leveson Inquiry now formally closed for new information 'except in exceptional circumstances', it's a pity Schofield and/or This Morning's editor can't be dragged in front of it to explain themselves. It was a horrible, base and idiotic thing to do, which could have ruined the lives of anybody unfortunate enough to find themselves on such a list. Schofield and the editorial team should be utterly ashamed of themselves.

I would never usually advocate such a thing, but there is a demonstrable need for legislation to stop this type of gutter journalism. It's particularly outrageous from a publicly funded organisation, by the way. The Beeb's DG has resigned this past week in the swirling scandals generated by Jimmy Savile and a subsequent piece on Newsnight which made similar, if probably better-worded accusations about a senior Scottish Tory. He, perhaps alone in this, has acted honourably - it's time for others in the press to follow his example and have a look at themselves.

Justice for the 96

Back in November of last year I wrote this piece, on the successful efforts of countless thousands of people in applying sufficient pressure on the Government to fully disclose documents relating to the Hillsborough disaster.

Those documents would not ordinarily be released for another 7 years, and their content shows that there are plenty of people with good reason to wish they hadn't been. Many of the families, and many within the football supporting community as a whole, have suspected all along that there was a cover up of the facts of the case. But just how shocking some of the revelations are has led to the Prime Minister standing in a packed and silent House of Commons to offer a formal apology for what he called the 'double injustice' of the original disaster and subsequent smearing and blame of the Liverpool fans.

Some of the main points raised by the independent review, but never published before today, include:

• New evidence about how the authorities failed, including documents which show a delay from the emergency services when people were being crushed (evidently up to 41 lives could have been saved if the emergency services had acted differently)
• Shortcomings in the response by the ambulance service and other emergency services in addition to failings by police
• Rescue attempts were held back by failures of leadership and co-ordination
• Victims' families were correct in their belief that some of the authorities attempted to create a "completely unjust" account of events that sought to blame the fans
• "Despicable untruths" about the behaviour of fans were part of police efforts "to develop and publicise a version of events that focused on allegations of drunkenness, ticketlessness and violence"
• Police officers carried out police national computer checks on those who had died in an attempt "to impugn the reputations of the deceased"
• 116 police statements amended or shortened to remove negative comments about South Yorkshire police's handling of the incident

These quoted from the BBC's website. 

23 years of campaigning for the truth are finally over, but this must not be the end. The findings of the original public enquiry must be quashed, and the people who have lied, the people who have covered up, and the people who have blamed the fans must be punished. The police's part in this must be revealed to the full glare of public scrutiny, and those responsible both for exacerbating the disaster and then smearing the victims in the aftermath must be punished.

I particularly want to see Kelvin MacKenzie sued for what he did. "The Truth", screamed his despicable rag, The Sun, while the victims still lay in the morgues. Liverpool fans caused the crush. Liverpool fans robbed the dead. Liverpool fans spat at, abused and urinated on police officers. It must be true, right? Football fans - tribal, snarling, atavistic scum, right? The Sun said it was their fault, and millions believed them. All now proven, as has been said all along by those who were there, to be utter lies. His former paper's forthcoming apology will cut little ice in Liverpool, where sales of The Sun have never recovered after what they did, and never will.

I want to hear Thatcher apologise for basically demonising football fans for years afterwards, choosing to believe the lies of a police officer over what eye witnesses were saying, and for her government's refusal to properly and impartially investigate what happened.

There is no sense of celebration, of course. The families and friends of the victims have vindication but not yet the full justice they crave. But they will. As I said back in November, the truth will out in the end. Tireless work by campaigners, notably among them Andy Burnham MP, who deserves great credit for his determination on this matter, is finally going to get justice for the 96.

It's not just footballers who should learn an Olympic lesson

We've all seen the pictures of the Chancellor being booed heartily by the crowd in the Olympic Stadium when he took part in a medal ceremony. The reaction of most people seemed to be amusement and it is, in fairness, always slightly funny to see a politician getting the bird when they stick their head above the parapet.

But the Tories should be careful to heed what was a pretty emphatic warning. The sound did not come across as a few malcontents - it seemed as though the entire stadium, 82,000 people, were joining in lustily. That is a significant and representative sample of the electorate they have to face at the next general election, letting a deeply unpopular Chancellor know what they think of him. Not that I believe it was an entirely party political thing - witness the reception Cameron and Boris Johnson, Tories both, received at the parade of Olympians outside Buckingham Palace on Monday 10th.

Rather, this was, I believe, a firm statement of the distaste people feel for a man who's making savage cuts to budgets across the public sector, across services that affect everybody, and ignoring the howls of protest that he's doing so too quickly and too deeply. The reshuffle (or rearrangement of the Titanic's deck chairs) they just undertook left Osborne bizarrely unaffected. He seems absolutely bomb-proof, of all the possible candidates Cameron could have moved. I don't know if this represents blind faith in their dogmatic approach to spending policy, blind faith in Osborne himself or simple, stubborn stupidity.

Whichever it is, the Tories may find out to their cost just how heartfelt those boos were, how indicative of the strength of feeling against the Chancellor, if they do not heed them.

Not exactly selling the family silver, but still stupid

The Tories are, once again, demonstrating their blind dogmatic belief that they can solve any problem by simply selling stuff off and ridding themselves of responsibility for it with this news that they're looking into privatising the road network.

No doubt, exactly as with their plans for the NHS, fierce opposition from much better-informed parties will not stop them charging on with their eyes closed and nothing more than a bull-headed belief that they're right to sustain them. The AA, who should know a thing or two about the roads, already think it's a bad idea. But why listen to them when there could be money to be made and more responsibilities discharged into other people's hands? Batter against the door of reason with a thick enough forehead and eventually it will give way.

Look at the disaster that the national rail network sell-off has become. Companies driven exclusively by profit giving rise to increasing fares, increasingly packed trains, increasingly poor service and the various stakeholders simply blaming each other when there's a problem on the network. My own brother used to work maintaining the railway network, and he told me stories of work going undone because the company which maintained the infrastructure would not pay the companies who owned the trains to get their crews to the sites which needed work. You can imagine the ramifications for service and safety something like that had – but it's an almost inevitable consequence of privatisation. Had that sell-off not happened, instead of pushing through an environmentally catastrophic agenda of expanding road capacity (which, as has already been demonstrated in the Smeed report, merely increases traffic levels), the government could pump money into improving public transport. But they can't – they sold it during John Major's administration.

Clearly they've learned nothing from this. We'll end up with a huge increase in road building, cutting a swathe through already damaged green areas of Britain, sticking extra lanes or new roads down for drivers who can barely afford to run their cars now. Just take a look at the different traffic volumes on the M6 toll compared to its free sister road for an indication of how many people are prepared to pay to use a road.

The idea is so stupid that it has in fact, some years ago, already been parodied quite effectively in Ben Elton's Gridlock. That this government is considering measures which have been used as material for jokes before would be funny if it weren't quite so potentially damaging. Not a peep from their Lib-Dem bedfellows yet, of course. Unless the coalition collapses, 7 May 2015, the likely date for the next general election, already cannot come soon enough – one can only hope this bunch of neo-Thatcherite dogmatists are removed from office before they can do too much permanent damage.

First Warsi, now Cameron not recognising the facts

David Cameron's recent assertion that Britain is '...a Christian country, and we shouldn't be afraid to say that...' is irritating to those of us whose secularism is important to us, but more importantly, it's not backed up by the facts.

It's true that in the 2001 census, some 73% of the population described themselves as 'Christian'. But that is a hugely broad, poorly defined and easily misinterpreted figure, especially when you take into account the actual practices of a lot of those people. Indeed, the PM himself said he was a 'committed but only vaguely practising' Christian, whatever that means.

Much more recently, the National Centre for Social Research conducted its 28th survey into British Social Attitudes, covering pretty much everything from politics, through transport, the environment and religion. This does not just ask people to define themselves as Christian, other, non-religious etc. It actually asks people about their religious beliefs and practices. Its findings bear little resemblance to the picture of Britain that the PM, and recently Baroness Warsi, would paint. The NCSR found that 50% of British people characterise themselves as having 'no religion', while 20% see themselves as CofE, 15% 'other Christian', 9% Roman Catholic and 6% 'non Christian', presumably other faiths. Full results can be found here. Of those who do count themselves religious, more than half never actually attend a service of any kind. Most tellingly, only 14% of the population actually attend services weekly, and the numbers are falling - affiliation to the Church of England has halved since 1983.

This doesn't look like a Christian country to me. It looks like a largely secular, but at the same time multi-faith country that should not be being governed by, or in the interests of, any one of those religions. It's another example of those in power conveniently ignoring the facts in favour of their own world view, and it's particularly frustrating to people like me who think that government should be secular, with the Church (of any faith) having absolutely no role in policy making when those policies affect everybody.

Cameron did, at least, leaven his comments slightly - more on what he said here. But his central assertion that the 'Bible has helped to give Britain a set of values and morals which make Britain what it is today' rings pretty hollow to the millions of us who, like me, have somehow managed to piece together our own moral code without ever having read the thing.

Politicians' conspiracy of silence on AV

On May 5th there's a referendum on what may be one of the most important and fundamental changes to our electoral system for decades, but you'd never know it from the almost complete absence of coverage on it in the media.

I think partly this can be blamed on the almost total silence on it from the mainstream politicians. We were told that Cameron and Clegg, despite their coalition, would be freely and openly campaigning on opposite sides of the argument. Well, having occasionally seen Clegg say a few words on AV, I've seen absolutely nothing of Cameron on the subject. Or Miliband, for that matter.

The fact is that the existing system has served the two main parties rather well over the last few decades, giving each of them long periods in office at various times. I think both Labour and the Tories think that if they say nothing, it'll keep the profile of the forthcoming vote low, and the turnout will be correspondingly poor, giving no real mandate to the winner regardless of the result.

It's got bad enough that I've been picking up any leaflets being handed out on this at tube stations etc, simply to get some information on the arguments either way. I suppose at least, in an environment reasonably free of the mud slinging and overblown rhetoric which often characterises election campaigns, people will be left to make their minds up based on the actual facts offered by both arguments rather than who shouts loudest.

For my own part, I think I'm going to vote in favour of change. The current system does not exactly encourage change or innovative government, leaving as it has done the two main parties bickering like children over ownership of the same stale bag of biscuits which changes hands between them all the time. Also, the argument against it that 'one person, one vote is fair' is frankly rubbish when boundary changes, social demographic distribution and gerrymandering can mean that 20,000 votes in one constituency can return one MP and 3000 votes in a neighbouring constituency produces the same return. If you happen to live in an opponent's heartland you go into the booth knowing that your vote is likely to make no difference.

But the best reason I've heard is that AV reduces the impact of votes for extremist, minority parties like the BNP. That's reason enough for me, frankly.

Cameron's spots the same as Thatcher's stripes

So David Cameron wants fundamental changes to the NHS which will, among other things, create more 'competition' between it and private medical services, and which have been branded as little more than privatisation by critics. Leaving aside the commitment in their coalition agreement with the Lib Dems, in which they said, and I quote, "We will stop the top-down reorganisations of the NHS that have got in the way of patient care," this is a bizarre concept to introduce to a publicly funded, not-for-profit organisation, the sole purposes of which should be to care for ill people and offer preventative advice. Exactly what sort of competition does he envisage?

"Undercut BUPA for a week's stay in intensive care and win a year's supply of Walnut Whips! You could even, if you perform exceptionally, win some medical equipment!!!"

We have, of course, yet to see the full text of the proposals, but I simply can't understand how you can introduce competition into an organisation like the NHS. Is it to remain free, apart from the bits you have to pay for? But never mind, according to Cameron on the Today programme this morning, the NHS is 'second rate' anyway, so any change is bound to be an improvement. Again, I quote: "I don't think we should put up with a second rate - with coming second best. We should aim to be the best."

See, that's where the NHS has been going wrong all these years. Instead of all the people who work their arses off within it wasting their time and energy caring about patients and making people well, they should be focusing on being better than Germany, or Spain, or Italy's medical care provision. That's what's really important.

So, Cameron will doubtless press on, trying to take the Lib-Dems with him. He clearly knows his stuff - I had no idea he was a medical practitioner, but evidently the negative comments from the Royal College of GPs and the BMA, apolitical organisations both, that the changes are unneccessary and savings and improvements could be effected without such drastic changes, have made little impact on a man who obviously knows better than they do. The plain fact is that the Tories will push on with stuff like this regardless of the advice from significant sections of the medical profession because they're idealogically compelled to do so. They can't not, because the NHS is one of those organisations that they simply can't understand. It's not there to make money, it's not there to make anybody rich, so it's an utterly foreign thing to them. A bizarre, huge, complicated abstraction that clearly does something, but the arcane depths of its function and its reason to exist are utterly opaque to them.

This hasn't changed since Thatcher's time and never will. I'm pretty sure that if it wasn't such a hugely important national institution that millions of people rely on, they'd ditch it altogether, and leave us with something like the American model, where you need a credit card when you need an ambulance, or you rely on charity. They know that would be catastrophic for their vote, so they can't take it that far and have to come up with some sort of fudge which satisfies their dogmatic impulses but can be twisted to sound like improvements to the service. The new caring, sharing Tories? Bollocks.

Tuition fees debate could define this Government

Most interesting to see the goings-on in Westminster today. With anarchy on our streets, mass hysteria, dogs and cats living together, Cameron sat behind Vince Cable as he delivered his speech, mugging furiously for the cameras as all MPs seem to do nowadays when they're sitting down. The moment, the very moment Cable sat down, he patted him on the shoulder... (Why do they always do that? Even when the Chancellor had to stand up and deliver a bitterly divisive austerity budget, he got congratulated by his front bench like he'd just won an Oxbridge debating competition. They should have been sitting there grim-faced.)

...anyway, he patted him on the shoulder and left the Chamber. He didn't even remain to listen to Cable's Shadow's response. Not only is this faintly discourteous, it also shows a lamentable complacency on his part, I think. With rumours of up to 20 Lib-Dems prepared to vote against the Motion (at least before Cable's latest amendments) and who knows how many abstaining, he could have been walking away from the first defeat the coalition faces since its formation.

I recognise that, as PM, he's probably got one or two other things to be getting on with this afternoon (that laundry won't do itself, and then there's the groceries to be collected...), but this could be a defining (and divisive) debate for the coalition. The debate still goes on as I type, some hours after the initial statement, but would it have killed him to show willing and sit there at least long enough to hear the Shadow's response?

A very, very interesting division bell will be rung this afternoon, I think.