Bob Ainsworth

Ok, Bob Ainsworth may not be everyone’s cup of tea as Defence Secretary. If I were him I probably wouldn’t want to read my morning papers. Phrases like “not up to the job” have followed him everywhere since his surprise promotion from Armed Forces Minister to Cabinet rank as Defence Secretary in June.

One of the few MPs in the Commons to have a background in manual work – he was a sheet metal worker and fitter with Jaguar cars – you wonder what Bob “Bollocks” Ainsworth (a nickname he is said to regard as undeserved, denying that he uttered the words in the Commons) makes of the condescension that seems to flavour a good deal of the coverage he receives. I have a notion that many who actually listen to him think he comes across as sincere and down to earth.

He is under huge pressure at present regarding the court action to limit compensation payments to British servicemen, and, yes, I recognise it’s an incredibly sensitive and serious issue where many of us are offended by what the Government are doing. But when I read that he was, disgracefully, on holiday and should be forced to return – as indeed he did – I began to feel uneasy. Am I the only one to find this perennial campaign every summer to bring a minister back from his or her holiday to “face the music” deeply unsettling? And I say it because, unpopular though the sentiment is at the moment after a year of ugly revelations about MPs and their expenses, many of them work incredibly hard. And I do mean hard, long days that last late into the night, the pressures of many competing demands, and decisions that all of us would find extraordinarily difficult and challenging should we be making them. Yes, politicians are accountable to us and we have every right to demand explanations from them. But it’s one thing to be critical, it’s quite another to treat them all as idle buffoons spending most of their time on holiday sun loungers. It simply isn’t true, and by tyrannising them back home from their family holidays all we do is make it harder for any of them to get a proper rest or to make good decisions when they get back..

Never waste a good crisis

At a breakfast last week Sky’s Adam Boulton reminded us that Obama had made the phrase “never waste a good crisis” a guiding concept for his administration.

I was initially puzzled, until of course I realised what it means is that a crisis gives you an opportunity to say and do things you never could at any other time. You may be facing huge challenges, but if you’re a strong leader you can also appeal to people in such a situation to accept the inevitability of major change. Think of a family crisis, when all the old rules go out of the window, and you know what I mean.

And it is a tribute I have to say to the failure of most of our politicians that a “good crisis” – in truth one of the worst economic crises we have ever faced – is being squandered. An angry and very senior Tory aide spluttered to me last week “Talking to Gordon Brown is like standing on a weighing machine. You just get robotic comments, no dialogue.” And, taking the analogy a bit further, the wrong weight presumably. Because across Whitehall it is an open secret – blown open I see by the Sunday newspapers – that the mandarins are quietly working out all the true implications of our national budget deficit and drawing up plans to address them as soon as the politicians have stopped pretending that a lot of budgets can easily be protected. Our transformed economic situation and our huge national debt will be a part of all our lives until 2030 at least. Walking up to the problem, and deciding what we should be doing about it, is a NOW problem, not tomorrow. The Tories have launched an open challenge to Gordon Brown on this, and they are right – but they need to add their own reality too and explain what all of them know, which is that after 2011 virtually every government budget will be frozen or cut. The British people are very good at adapting to crises – heaven only knows we have had enough practice over the years - but they need to be told the truth.

Our new Speaker

My colleague Tanya Joseph quite rightly blogs about the task confronting our new Speaker. She also reminds us that, many years ago (and before he became an MP of course) John Bercow did some work for Westminster Strategy, the first public affairs arm of Grayling. It was at a time when Mr Bercow used to get written up in some satirical magazines as a very right wing sort of chap.

When I met him at WS, it was quite clear to me he was no such thing. I cannot now recall what it was we debated one day when I suspect we were both supposed to be doing something else, but I remember the realisation that he wasn't ultra-right wing at all, and indeed that we appeared to share some markedly similar middle of the road views. And he could laugh at himself, which made a change from quite a few politicos I have met over the years.

For those reasons, I have followed his career at a distance with interest. Of course I never expected him to become Speaker, but then who would you expect to take on a role like that? Decent as she is, I am jolly glad it wasn't Margaret Beckett. I just don't see how you step out of Government and turn into the Commons Champion.

But the sight on TV last night of John Bercow in a robe made me realise not only that a few years have passed - I am not prepared to say how many! - but also that be seemed to me to become it. He's an interesting chap, someone who has thought a lot about his views and not been afraid to express them. It's going to be very tough, but the Commons needs a Speaker who can rise above the entire appalling spectacle of the last few months, and let's hope Mr Bercow will prove he is the one.

Le Déluge

In the Commons last night where MPs look totally shell-shocked from a week of astonishing drama. The situation is so grim it's moved beyond party politics. Conservatives are openly as alarmed as Labour by rumours that Labour might drop to fourth or fifth in the polls tonight. Just at this moment they all feel the tumbrils are rolling.

The tide of public hostility is so strong and deep Parliament has something of the atmosphere of Custer's last stand. The demonstrations in Parliament Square - where last night the voice of a protestor shouting through a megaphone seemed to bounce off all those Victorian Gothic walls with particular resonance - add to the feeling of encirclement.

And one thing's for sure. No-one really has the faintest idea what IS going to happen when the votes are counted after today's polls. "I have never seen anything like this in my life," said one deeply worried Member.

It's just not cricket

Watching a village cricket match, a commotion breaks out in the corner of the field. Players start running from all corners. Turns out the the scout shed, which stands under trees in a secluded corner, is being burgled as play takes place. Match is brought to a halt as our brave lads circle the miscreants and demand that all the paddles - being placed in a car boot before the kayaks - are put back. After a lot of swearing and threats, said miscreants do so and drive off. Registration numbers are taken.

That's the good news. The bad? The players don't think the police will take any interest. And they think the thieves - bold as brass after all to do this with a match in progress - may indeed make good their threat to return one night and burn the shed down. "And the police still won't do anything," said one player, gloomily. I don't know whether he's right or not, but it disturbed me how little faith any of those present had in the blue line. I wondered what our politicians would make of it. Then I remembered most are far too busy explaining their conduct at the moment to have much time for the ordinary goings-on of our lives. That's the whole problem.

Cromwellian nightmares

What kind of Parliament are we going to get after the next election? The Telegraph’s Charles Moore reminds us Oliver Cromwell promised to clean up Parliament too but his “Assembly of Saints” turned out to be creatures of the army.

A serious political thinker I spoke to last week said he feared our 'Manure' Parliament would be followed by a Commons even more in the grip of its leaders and whips. We have to hope that David Cameron's big constitutional speech today points towards a different future.

Electoral reform

Supporters of electoral reform must feel some cheer today to hear that Alan Johnson wants to change the way we vote in order to revitalise our ailing body politic. If anyone means what he says, it's straight-talking Mr Johnson.

But he will have to deal with the entirely understandable cynicism of Lib Dems that this has been offered many times in the past to keep them on side but cynically dropped the moment an election is past.

It's precisely this kind of behaviour which has led to a withering of our civil society. Let's hope Mr Johnson is going to break the mould, something the erstwhile “Gang of Four” who founded the SDP were unable to achieve.