Terrific column by Nick Cohen in The Observer today. The best bits:
 

I could not agree with him more when he says that "the polemicist in me is offended by the gaucheness" of the efforts of Blair's opponents in alleging that he and Alastair Campbell lied when they cannot prove it. "As a matter of low tactics as much as high principle", they ought to confine themselves to the "charge that he had made a monumental policy blunder", which is arguable and in some demonstrable respects even possibly true. Cohen is critical of the management of the British occupation of Basra; and it is only obvious that in domestic political terms joining the Iraq invasion was an error that shortened Blair's tenure as Prime Minister.
 

Still catching up. James Purnell's article in The Guardian on Monday was very good, not least because he wrote of "paying off the debt at the right pace for the British economy", instead of the recently fashionable "paying down debt".

But he also had a confession: 
 

And he had at least one good practical proposal:
 

This was an important point, well made: 
 

He also said that:
 

Wicked? An interesting word to use.

It was an important article, and not the first, that confirms my view, expressed in The Independent on Sunday last weekend and to which I return tomorrow, that Purnell has a leading role to play in the Labour Party after the election. I see him as David Miliband's shadow chancellor, and one of the reasons why all would not be lost when the defeat - that he tried to avert - happens.

Meanwhile, a not-so-good opinion poll in a rival newspaper asked people if they believed the propaganda pumped out by the unholy alliance of right- and left-wing newspapers and public service broadcasters that now includes all of them:
 

The ComRes poll in tomorrow's Independent on Sunday puts the Conservative lead at 13 percentage points:

Conservative      42% (+4)
Labour                 29%   (-)
Lib Dem              19%   (-)
Others                 10% (-4)  Including Green 3%, Ukip 2%, BNP 2%
 
(Changes since ComRes for The Independent published 22 December.)

Martin Baxter gives this as a Conservative majority of 70.
 
Commentary by Andrew Hawkins, CEO of ComRes:
       ‘Others’ have been steadily declining since their high point of 19% in November ... is 10% now about the right level?
       The Tories are 20 points ahead among men but only 6 points among women.
       They have also slipped back into second place among DEs and among voters in the North.

We also asked if respondents agreed or disagreed with the following statements:
 

ComRes telephoned 1,005 GB adults on 13 and 14 January 2010. Data were weighted by past vote recall. Full tables at ComRes.

Quotation of the day, from Peter Mandelson, in his interview with The Daily Telegraph, on Gordon Brown's way of working:
 

Photo: REUTERS
 

Right. I have a bit of catching up to do. First, from November, this disappointment to the fantasies of the Blair haters. It is the letter from the German Attorney General (I think that's his office, right) dismissing the request by a "peace" group that Tony Blair be charged with crimes against international law:
 

Many thanks to Julie, one of "we few, we happy few", who reported this two weeks ago and has now provided a translation (Google Translate is good, but not that good).

Two more contenders for the title of "Worst Quotation of the Day", and they are both also from the Prime Minister's speech this morning. One has already been picked up by Chris Dillow:
 

The moral ambition of those "dreams" falls a little short of, say, that of Martin Luther King. 

The other was this strangulated piece of robot clunkspeak:
 

Photograph: PA

Who was first with the insight that the Mail newspapers' obsession with Alastair Campbell is sexual in nature? 

It was not Tom Baldwin of The Times, who told me in 2007:
 

It was David Aaronovitch, who reviewed the book about Campbell by Peter Oborne, now of the Mail, and Simon Walters of the Mail on Sunday under the headline above, in 2004:
 

Gordon Brown has just said it in his speech to the Fabians. It is now banned forthwith. Jessica Asato is right.

Tell you what. The problem with the Labour Government, the real problem with Labour since 1997, is that it has not changed the names of government departments and restructured them often enough.

To be fair, Gordon Brown has accelerated the generation of multiple department names started under Tony Blair. Nearly every department of state now has three names, or at least three words in its name, a 200 per cent rise in many cases over the past 13 years. (Children, schools and families; business, innovation and skills; energy and climate change; culture, media and sport; environment, food and rural affairs; communities and local government.)

But now David Cameron promises to get serious. As he says, we can't go on like this. Earlier this week Andrew Lansley promised to change the department he shadows to Public Health. Today, Cameron promises the next era of the Post-Bureaucratic Age:
 

This will cut across - I mean bring together - the Ministry of Defence, the Department for International Development and the Foreign Office.

What could possibly go wrong? 
 

Sometimes the lynch mob atmosphere on BBC Question Time is genuinely frightening. I understand that people who want to be in the audience tend to feel strongly about issues that are likely to come up, but the wall of ignorant hate faced by Peter Hain was nearly unprecedented.

You expect some members of the audience to be ill informed. One man thought that the vote in the House of Commons to approve military action in Iraq was carried by a majority of 11. The majority on 18 March 2003 was 179. He thought the September 2002 dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was "copied off the internet". That was the "dossier", or briefing note, of February 2003, parts of which may have been copied from the internet but which was a sound analysis of Saddam Hussein's concealment and deception. Then he said the country was led by "liars who are prepared to kill in the name of oil".

A woman became annoyed with Hain's claim that the country had been "split down the middle" by the issue of Iraq and said "80 per cent of the country" was opposed to it. Even after the war, in June 2003 to take one example, ICM found (pdf) that 48 per cent believed the Iraq war was justified, 40 per cent did not.

But what was surprising was that Ken Clarke repeated that the Iraq vote had been won by a majority of 11, and said that the House of Commons should have been given the opportunity to vote at a time when it was possible to stop it. Leaving aside the detail that it was not possible for the House of Commons to tell the Americans what to do, it gave itself such an opportunity on 24 September 2002, when 53 Labour MPs rebelled against their Government in a symbolic adjournment vote, 25 November 2002 (32 Labour rebels on a Liberal Democrat motion) and 26 February 2003 (122 on an amendment in the name of Chris Smith).

Everyone in the studio except Hain was convinced that Blair had "committed the UK to war" in secret letters to George Bush, regardless of the obvious defect of logic that it was not in his power to do so, having conceded, unlike all his prime ministerial predecessors, that Parliament would have a vote. 

My admiration for Peter Hain he stood his ground knew no bounds.

The Independent spins it ... with its headline including 'Blair's promise to Bush' and an opening paragraph saying that Blair, in his letters to Bush, had committed Britain to joining a US invasion. A Guardian editorial, in turn, has Blair 'writing private notes to George Bush promising that Britain "will be there"', and Jonathan Freedland in the same paper construes Campbell's words as being in contradiction with Blair's statements at the time that the decision about war had not yet been taken. Two other Guardian columnists say 'Campbell revealed that the former prime minister had assured President Bush' that Britain would join a US-led war; and The Daily Telegraph, for its part, goes one better on Blair's having given Bush an assurance, by adding that this was a commitment 'the then Prime Minister did not trouble to share with Parliament or the British people'.
 

What a cartload of cat litter that all is. It's a cartload of it for reasons I gave a month ago. Blair and Bush will both have known, as all these commentators seem not to, that the most the British prime minister was in a position to offer in the circumstances then prevailing was a conditional undertaking, a commitment over how he, Blair, would behave should it come to war - behave in arguments to his cabinet, behave in what he would put before Parliament. He would support the case for war. This was nothing so unconditional as a promise about Britain; and if it was an assurance, which it was, it was an assurance of Blair's intentions and not of Parliament's, which he could not yet have been certain of. The critical decision had, therefore, not yet been taken, because the matter had still to be put before the house, as it duly was - making the Telegraph's complaint both feeble and irrelevant.

For anyone who does understand some of the elementary conventions of social life, Blair's assurances, as relayed by Alastair Campbell, amounted roughly to the commitment 'I'll be there - and so I hope Britain will'. If you remember that a person can't give a cast-iron promise in matters where they do not have the authority to do so, then this is something you'll understand without difficulty. Why, even some actual promises, where the word 'promise' itself is used, we know to be conditional - as when you promise you will do something for a friend on your trip to town, and assume you will not become violently ill before you get to the task. Tony Blair believed he had to put the issue of war before the House of Commons and he did put it before the House of Commons. What he said or wrote to Bush before that could not have been a promise about Britain's participation in the war. It really takes something - some mental attitude or other - to overlook so obvious a point.

*Without mentioning the Daily Mail once. 
 

Those of us worried that the Conservative Party, on the brink of assuming office, has no policy on the National Health Service beyond unconditional surrender to the British Medical Association can rest easy. Andrew Lansley, Tory health spokesman (right), published an important policy document yesterday, which is available on the internet in a whizzy Issuu pdf viewer. There would be one important change: 
 

Don't give me your huddled bankers



I'm not sure what to make yet of the Obama Administration's new bank levy. It certainly doesn't address the heart of the problem of the overweening political power, the unjustified public protection and the sheer economic threat posed by a bloated global banking sector. See this by Simon Johnson for the best analysis.
 

But I do suspect that the levy will have a dramatic effect on the debate here in Britain over bankers' bonuses, regulation, taxation etc.

The argument of the UK investment banks and their supporters has generally been: don't annoy us or we will take our wealth-creating talents to where they will be more appreciated.

But Obama's new tax - whatever its pros or cons from a public policy perspective - certainly makes it difficult to argue that America, at least, is a place where disgruntled British-based investment bankers will be welcomed with open arms. The White House is finally proposing a policy that inconveniences, rather than rewards, Wall Street.

Of course the bankers can still threaten to decamp to Switzerland or Singapore. But the fact remains that one of the big propaganda threats of the UK financial services lobby suddenly looks very much less convincing.

photo: White House

Typical Daily Mail yesterday. A front page headline all about itself.


 

The coverage of the Iraq Inquiry is "so maddening, so uniform in its bias, and so absurd (because there's no real new news they keep having to invent 'revelations' that aren't) that I can hardly bear to read/watch it", says Ian Leslie. He is good enough to say:
 

If only I were. There is just so much of this propaganda that no one could rebut it all.

But I can catch a few pieces of stray litter as they fly past.

Paul "Anti" Waugh had a brilliant summary last night of the key points of Alastair Campbell's evidence, albeit built around the idea that Campbell is arrogant to stand by his views when alternative views are put to him. (And Campbell did not use a pin to stab his hand when he felt his temper rising when he gave evidence to the Foreign Affairs select committee in 2003; it was a paper clip.)

But then he says:
 

I have said before that the case against the Iraq war is strong enough not to require the death toll to be exaggerated by a factor of up to 10. I have no idea where Waugh gets a figure of "nearly a million" from. I suspect it is simple extrapolation from the Lancet's 600,000 figure from 2006. But that figure does not stand up to close scrutiny. The most robust estimate is between 100,000 and 200,000, and probably below 150,000.

It was at the climax of a sustained broadside at the growing chasm between the haves and the have-nots in British society. “The middle class have got better and better at actually privileging their children through the education system,” thunders a talking head, declaiming across pictures of poor kids in blue polyester uniforms kicking tin cans across a needle-strewn concrete wasteland. These scenes of deplorable educational decline segue into fresh ones – of louche young chaps with floppy hair and jaunty sports coats, strolling languorously through a grand old and weirdly familiar cobbled quad.

“The working class kids’ opportunities have massively shut down,” another head emotes, before the pictures change again – this time focusing in on an especially callow, sneering youth with huge posh hair and a regrettably ugly tie. My jaw drops – “…and those whose parents can afford to support them are succeeding.”

On screen, our lugubrious posho leers indolently back and forth in the slightly slowed motion of the truly evil – triple-underlining his grotesque, unearned privilege. What a ghastly specimen, the composition suggests for a few poignant/opprobrious seconds, before the subject is breezily changed to talk of chavs.

I have, or at least my innocent 17-year-old self has, just been used as a bloated totem of class oppression, right there on the BBC. I can’t help but feel a mite libelled. I show the clip to a couple of friends; ‘what a horrible tie’ is a popular response, as is amused commentary on my luxuriant centre-parting.

I’ll get my excuses in now: yes, I did go to Winchester College, but only ‘cos my mum taught there and we got a discount, rather than because my great-great-great-grandfather looted the orient. Yes, it is a horrible tie – that was the whole point. We all wore them! One of my friends had one festooned with multicoloured anthropomorphic condoms. We were trying to be funny, but this tiny and formerly inconsequential act of rebellion has now very thoroughly backfired, and I’m now forever enshrined in the BBC’s video archive of braying sloanes as their go-to guy for footage of simpering, feckless, punch-pleased upper class twits. I can’t even begin to excuse the hair, of course, but I will say that I was not ejected into this world as a fully-formed fashionista, and that the ‘do probably hasn’t been my only faux-pas.

But beyond all this, though, beyond the fact that thanks to the BBC I’m probably to be first against the wall when the next revolution comes, and beyond the fact that my late teenage self has been exposed as a sartorial null point, is the inescapable fact that, in the last eight years, I seem to have put on about eight stone.

Tom Mendelsohn is a freelance journalist

Brands aren’t about logo, They’re about meaning. A truth powerfully illustrated by the Tories’ campaign posters which don’t even feature the rather bland scribbled tree. Instead there is   Mr C in his crisp open-necked shirt. Leader as logo.

Effective brands have four key elements: being authentic, being compelling, being highly distinctive, and being good at something.

Apple is a great brand because it is authentic and true to itself and its design aesthetic and commitment to innovation. It's distinct from competitors in every way. It's utterly compelling in its products and its communications. And its good at something (i.e. its products are self-evidently excellent).

But what about brand-Conservatives? 

Authentic? The fact that its enemies continually knock Cameron's Eton background is one indication that the Tories have somehow remained truer to themselves than Labour. Like it or not we have a sense of where they’re coming from.

Distinctive? Probably not distinctive enough, except in some fairly marginal (and rather wobbly) ways. Cameron's stance on marriage and his broken-Britain message, and his European position are all distinctive: but they are not yet about things that are actually core to the concerns of British people.

Compelling? Cameron's never-ending Cameron Direct roadshow is a compelling story. He can be a charismatic figure, and though a figure of mockery for some is nevertheless an accomplished orator and compelling to watch in action. Obama he ain’t though. Cameron's lobbying for TV debates (at which he will excel) is compelling and positive for them. But they need to turn their narrative into real policies that are relevant and credible.

Are they good at something? Short answer is we don't know. They have the massive advantage of not having had the opportunity to screw up yet. 

Overall brand-Tory is a very different animal under Cameron than under any other leader in recent history. They’re right to make him the hero of the campaign: but the weak spot is fulfilling Cameron’s clear brand promise with policy.

Contrast with Labour.

Authentic? Arguably Brown’s Labour is a little truer to itself Blair’s. It's a bit more old-Labour. But this is a tricky path for the brand: so their authenticity is fragile at best.

Distinctive? Well, more so now than under Blair, in the sense that they are more markedly different from the Tories than previously. But attempts to own part of the Liberal Democrats' agenda weakens this.

Compelling? No, sadly. Brown's attempts to remind us of the great achievements of Labour historically look backwards not forwards. Even a powerful challenger for the leadership would give some kind of compelling narrative, but there isn't one.

And is Labour as a brand perceived as being good at something? Resoundingly ‘no’. Not lately anyway.

Whatever your politics, from a brand perspective the Tories are way ahead right now. Whether or not that new brand power can win them the votes to win a convincing victory is another matter of course.

Simon Middleton is a brand strategist: www.thebrandstrategyguru.com