Wilkes takes a break

Dear all - Following some thoughts over the festive period I've decided to suspend this blog for a period of around six months. The reason is that I've got my law exams coming up in June, applications for jobs etc before then, and the blog is just going to take up too much time otherwise. Because of the intensity of the course beforehand I was struggling somewhat, working on the site for a minimum of 15 minutes a day at about 1 in the morning, and it just all meant that I got much less sleep!

I hope to see you all back here soon - hopefully the end of June will be a good time to restart.

Sergeant Roberts would still be alive today... but no one wil carry the can

First of all, apologies for leaving so much time between the last post and this one. Wilkes has come to the end of term now at law school and judged that some time off was necessary. Since then I've been running over civilians on Command and Conquer Generals, and watching Arsenal train today at Emirates stadium. Nothing to think about... its been bliss. Still, things are starting up again tomorrow and so I thought this blog should.

I've been particularly drawn today to the final result of the inquest into the death of Sergeant Steven Roberts, who I believe was the first British soldier to die in the Iraq war. Why did he die? Well, because the MOD had failed to give him any body armour.

It's not the case that is so shocking (we are used to incompetence on defence supplies from this government, see here), but the reaction today. There's no one from the government willing to explain what happened or apologised, just some faceless MOD official who says that they will now look at the matter urgently (er.. why didn't you before we went into Iraq?). In particular, I notice that Geoff Hoon hasn't come forward and said sorry for his omission - which ultimately cost a man his life. The BBC was reporting tonight that Hoon's excuse was that he didn't want it to look like the government had already decided to go into Iraq before the final report of the weapons inspectors. Well - we all know that the decision had been taken, and anyway this is pathetic even by Hoon's standards. Surely if there is the risk of war occurring in the near future then it is the job of the MOD to ensure that soldiers are fully eqipped. Well no, Hoon effectively says, our first priority was to prevent bad PR.

I think that if elected poiliticians are going to take the decision to go to war with another country, then they assume a certain responsibility. This is to make sure that those who are risking their lives for this sorry escapade are given all the protection they can get.

It was an abject dereliction of duty - but I'd put very long odds on any minister falling on their sword as a result. I don't care about the crappy political scandals that are reported by the newspapers but everyone's forgotten about two weeks later. This however is different - it's incompetence that resulted in someone's death. Hoon in particular has some pretty important questions to answer.

Why aren't the Tory mayoral candidates opposing Livingstone's council tax rise?

Last week I posted on the Tory mayoral race, saying that it was incomprehensible that the candidates were not putting themselves about more. Today, I wondered if Nick Boles and co. had ceased to exist.

Those of you who are, like me, readers of the metropolitan media, will have noticed on page two of today's Evening Standard that Ken Livingstone has ordered a 5.2% increase in the part of council tax that he controls. This is despite the absolute cap put by central government on council tax rises, of 5%. It also totally disregards the good work of areas like my own council, Camden, which has declared (upon the changing of the guard at the last elections I might add) that bills will be frozen this year. They've proved that economies can be made, and recognised that the council tax situation is fast becoming totally inequitable for pensioners, young people and those on low incomes. But Ken continues to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on pointless advertising each year (above)*, and employs an army of press officers and research staff for his political operation.

This would seem a cut and dry story for the Tory candidates for mayor to get a bit of profile and criticise Ken for "tax and spend". But does the Standard report contain any objection from the Tories on the council tax issue? No. Instead we are left to the dulcet tones of Mike Tuffrey, Lib Dem group leader on the London Assembly, who criticises the bizarre move by the mayor to consult on the rise, when he's already announced that the increase is set in stone. Not a Tory MP, assembly member, councillor, or mayoral candidate in sight. Not even the two Kensington and Chelsea candidates who are running for the Tory nomination, and who are members of another council that has pledged a freeze on bills, have piped up.

It leaves you wondering whether there is any decent opposition to Livingstone at all, if the candidates cannot even muster one line in a newspaper. This was an ideal opportunity for someone to up their profile, and it has slipped away.

* The recent campaign to get us to all follow Ken's habit of not flushing the toilet after he goes for a pee also comes to mind.

Annan leaves the UN in a sorry state

Earlier on today Kofi Annan delivered his farewell speech as UN Secretary General. The speech has been widely interpreted as an attack on the U.S. government's record over human rights and the Iraq war, with Annan saying that U.S. unilateral action has had dangerous consequences.

Fair enough - but this is a regurgitated attack that has been often repeated in the last few years by the same man. More interesting are the deliberate allusions to Harry Truman that punctuated Annan's speech - and what they say about America's attitude towards the UN in present and historical terms.

Why did Annan choose to focus on Truman, and deliver his speech in Truman's presidential library? On this he is quite clear, setting out the context for his "five lessons" from his time as Secretary General:

I think it is especially fitting that I do that here in the house that honours the legacy of Harry S Truman. If FDR [Franklin D Roosevelt] was the architect of the United Nations, President Truman was the master-builder, and the faithful champion of the Organisation in its first years, when it had to face quite different problems from the ones FDR had expected.

Truman's name will for ever be associated with the memory of far-sighted American leadership in a great global endeavour. And you will see that every one of my five lessons brings me to the conclusion that such leadership is no less sorely needed now than it was 60 years ago.

An fairly thin veiled reference, you might think to America's current role in the UN.

Now, many people are quick to condemn the U.S.'s role in international politics; they point to the decision to go to war in Iraq when there was no security council authority for the action (whatever you say about Resolution 1441, the coalition did not get the second resolution it wanted), and Bush's appointment of John Bolton to the post of ambassador to the UN was deliberately provocative.

But the Bush administration's decision to sideline the UN is not the reason why the body has become so ineffective in recent years - as, for example it has over Darfur. In my view, the power structures of the UN are such that the body will always reflect the interests of the 4 or 5 most influential nations. The issues debated are not simple administrative matters: they are complex questions of policy, where leading nations' stances are dictated by their own self-interest. 'Twas ever thus. The consensus of opinion can be thwarted by one veto on the security council. Or the most powerful nations can choose to ignore the body all together and do their own thing. Such international organisations are worthless unless the nations within them actually want to get down and negotiate. Those on the left (principally those in the Labour party who felt that a second resolution was essential) who hold up the UN as some kind of panacea for the world's problems are completely delusional.

Those who are critical of the UN might say that the ultimate failure of that body lay in its inability to stop Operation Iraqi Freedom going ahead. But in my mind, its real failure was not to secure any sort of agreement between the opposing sides over, for example, more time for the inspectors to do their work. The UN's core job, if it has one, should be to persuade those involved in fractious situations to compromise and move closer to agreement.

But the UN can't do this when the unreformed structure of the organisation and fraud scandals render it totally redundant. How is anybody supposed to trust them? It's like having a judge who is at once both incompetent and crooked looking after what are literally life and death cases. The Americans have been quick to realise this, and while I was in Washington in 2005, bills were tabled trying to reduce the American conribution towards the upkeep of the organisation. The result is that Annan, or his successor, cannot speak from the moral highground on America's rights and obligations... the UN leadership is simply too discredited for that.

IDS hits back - but Iain Dale is right to stick to his guns

Following IDS' interview to the Sunday Telegraph today, quite a vigourous debate has been going on across the Tory end of the blogosphere. After Iain Dale's post on the subject, the comments streamed in and Wilkes had his say in a debate that at times was quite heated and ill-informed. Then, Tim Montgomerie posted on ConservativeHome, saying that it was all down to a journalistic abhorration, and that he was disappointed in Iain Dale for jumping to conclusions so quickly.

A few minutes ago I looked on Iain Dale's site again and saw what appeared to be a comment from IDS himself:

Actually Iain, I did not say gays were irrelevant to family policy, I would have thought you would have known better about me. I was replying to a question that implied that gay couples splitting up and who had children would have an effect on our figures about family break up. The point about being irrelevant was that the numbers were to small to effect the overall figures and were therefore not likely to make a difference to the overall numbers. The ST were looking to start a row and plucked the comments out of context and without showing everyone what the line of questioning was. I understand they added a paragraph to their second editions explaining this point, although it was too late. I explained this on the Politics show. I am sorry you made the assumption you did. I might have thought you would have read the item carefully and seen what they were up to. This is too important a report, (300000 words on breakdown) to be sidetracked by a contrived story. Iain DS

It must be one of the first cases of a senior politician directly responding to one of the big blogs. Anyway, this was after Iain Dale was forced to issue a semi-retraction here and after the clear consensus of debate had gone towards IDS' position that the comments had been taken out of context etc etc.

For what its worth, I think that IDS may have a genuine case here. All I can say is, the ST certainly did a good job of manufacturing the row and you have to wonder why a Conservative-supporting newspaper would sink to such depths. I'd expect it of the Mirror, but of the ST!

Nevertheless, I'm pleased to see that Iain Dale hasn't totally retracted his comments. IDS should have been better prepared for the line of questioning that came along and to put "gay" and "irrelevant" in the same sentence wasn't a good move. As an experienced politician, he should have known better than to use phrases like "they don't even register on the Richter scale" And of course, as I've said in the threads over on Iain Dale's site, given that the official government estimate is that there are 3-4 million gay/lesbian people in this country, gay couples aren't irrelevant to this whole question. I hope that the recent record of independence of thought in the Tory party doesn't go down the drain with this one episode, and that Iain sticks to his guns.

What I have been appalled by, though is the bigotry and prejudice that has been voiced amongst many of those commenting today. Comments like:

It seems that today everyone wants to do their own thing as an absolute right, morally or otherwise. Homosexuality, political correctness and all the other eyewash will someday be kicked into touch it has to be!

and

I really think this gay rights thing is absurd. If you want to do it, do it; but there is no reason to force your way of life down the mouths of the majority, and demand its equality with behaviour which is self-evidently natural and has centuries of social and religious tradition and security compacted in it.

Against this, there have been some people who thankfully have contributed some reason to the debate. I'm pleased they've done so. But this sorry media episode shows that many Tory party members still haven't changed and are stuck in the old ways of bigotry and prejudice. Wilkes believes this issue to be at least as important as other liberty issues like ID cards and 90 day detention plans; he hopes others do too.

UPDATE: the comment has now been confirmed by Iain Dale to be from IDS.

Arsenal 1-1 Chelsea - an outstanding performance

After moaning about Arsenal's loss to Fulham the other night, I thought I should say how brilliant I thought we did against Chelsea this afternoon. We had a defence that was barely out of nappies - with Djourou and Senderos in the middle - and I wasn't confident. But early on in the first half Ashley Cole got booked and it just got better from there. We rode our luck at times, but we also posed a good threat and showed that Chelsea are not invincible at home. Indeed at times the new system they have adopted this year looked distinctly dodgy. Ballack, Makalele, Lampard and Essien are great players but none of them are wingers. Chelsea had absolutely no width and that left huge gaps for our full backs to exploit, particularly Eboue who was outstanding.

It was all capped when Flamini scored a long-range piledriver with about 10 minutes to go - it was great to see him score as he hasn't had many games this season. Funnily enough I often see him in my local Sainsbury's, so next time I'll be sure to congratulate him for that goal and the earlier one against Liverpool.

We couldn't hold on, but then no goalkeeper or defence in the world could have done anything about Essien's strike. The satisfying thing was, determined as I am that Chelsea do not win the title this year, that we've dealt them a major blow, even if we have no chance ourselves! We'll see how they respond on Wendnesday, the cunts will probably win, but for now the slightly-less-cuntish Reds are well ahead.

After this performance I'm betting too that we'll be right up there next year after one more year of experience and a few buys in the summer. Roll on.

The Tories take 10 steps back

I've just heard about Iain Duncan-Smith's comments in the Sunday Telegraph tomorrow, and read Iain Dale's post on the subject. I've got to say that I agree with Iain Dale. It feels like the Tory party has taken one step forward over the past few months only to take 10 steps back. What is extraordinary is how this subject brings out the utter bigotry of some Tory members, while frightening off those who might in the past 12 months have considered joining the party. Two comments on Iain's post sum it up:

1.

cassilis said...

As a new(ish) party member who's only felt able to join since the party got it's act together over these sorts of issues I desperately hope he has been misquoted.

and 2:

Urbane said...

Well gay couples ARE irrelevant. They can't have children. Nature prevents that. Which should tell you something. If gay people can't breed, doesn't that mean that the evolutionary process has decided it is a good idea to prevent them? You can bridge the problem legally all you like, but simply biology states the fact that gays are not meant to be parents.

Various artificial means to approximate having children are used by a tiny minority of a tiny minority; they are anomalous - statistically and practically irrelevant in every way.

I know queers enjoy high horses, but this is one they should all clamber down from. I imagine Iain and thousands (hundreds, dozens, how many, who knows?) flapping his hands about, crying "Ooh no! Oh bless me!", suffering an attack of the vapours, as these sorts of people do. And it distresses me. I do hope they are all okay. Why not get half-undressed and hold a march about it in some city, eh? That seems to be the principal homosexual hobby.

I bet this won't get posted. No-one has a sense of humour any more, nor tolerance for anyone without one either.

Of course, Iain had the sense to post this comment, to show just how offensive it was. And then rightly told the guy to fuck off...

UPDATE: IDS is now trying to row back from his comments saying that they were taken out of context. Sadly, the context is clear from Iain Dale's lengthy extract on his post...

Diana bugged? Another conspiracy theory... or not?

I've absolutely no truck with the conspiracy theories over Diana's death, and laugh heartily everytime the Daily Express recycles last week's story about Mi5's laser beams or whatever else. Having said all that, the Drudge Report is reporting this evening that the U.S. bugged Diana's phone on the night she died. They seem to be indicating that this is a finding of the official investigation. Normally Drudge Report is really just a compendium of links from other news websites... but this time the link just takes you back to its homepage. It marks the story as 'developing'. It will indeed be very interesting to see how this one develops...

UPDATES: the story has now surfaced on CNN... it looks like it is an Observer scoop. Apparently Stevens' report also finds that Diana's driver, Henri Paul, was in the pay of the French intelligence services.

And now the story has come online on the Observer website - here and here.

Wilkes moves house

I've decided to get myself a real domain name for this blog... you can now find this page at www.johnwilkes.net. Sadly I couldn't get .com, but you can't always have icing on your cake.

With thanks to the controlling mind at the spine and to lizzie.

'When asked how long it took to make one of his paintings, he replied: "57 years."'



NNDB:

"NNDB is an intelligence aggregator that tracks the activities of people we have determined to be noteworthy, both living and dead.

Superficially, it seems much like a "Who's Who" where a noted person's curriculum vitae is available (the usual information such as date of birth, a biography, and other essential facts.)

But it mostly exists to document the connections between people, many of which are not always obvious. A person's otherwise inexplicable behavior is often understood by examining the crowd that person has been associating with.

Eventually, we will have synopses and analyses of creative works by the people in the database, including their books, films, and recordings."

Egotistic hacks

What is going on in TV journalism? I always thought, the whole idea of a news report was to inform the readers about the story, not about the reporter. I can see the case for "pieces to camera" - when done well, they allow better engagement with the viewer, who isn't just listening to some faceless voice. But even this can go too far, when you get John Simpson "liberating" Kabul.

Over the last year or so, the whole thing seems to have got worse. Pieces to camera seem to have gone out of fashion, but hacks are upping their personas in other ways. It seems that whenever there's a press conference, coverage of which used to be limited to a soundbite from the public figure in question, we are treated to extensive shots of the hack asking his question with a solemn, earnest expression. Channel 4 is especially bad at it, but I was shocked at Nick Robinson's effort today. As always, for Bush's and Blair's press conference, they hired a additional camera to focus on Robinson himself and his hardened features. We watch as more of the report seems to be taken up by shots of him asking questions than Bush's replies.

And then you go to his blog later as he brags about how Bush eyeballed him during the exchange. His readers fawn at his journalistic brilliance in the comments. He appears on This Week, talking about the press conference, and boasts about how "for me, it meant I got eyeballed by the president."

And this from the man who dismissed the cash for peerages inquiry as a token gesture by the police. Robinson should start asking some trenchant questions of our own government, and stop massaging his own ego.

My wife is committing adultery.

Well she's not. I don't even have a wife. But if I did have a wife and if she did run off with someone else (which would be fairly likely given that I regularly blog at one in the morning) then I might not be able to tell you on this site. That's because this week a judge ruled that a betrayed husband couldn't publish the name of the high profile profile sportsman who has been "romping" with his wife in recent months. Apparently, the sportsman had a right to privacy even in this situation, so the information couldn't be revealed. Hmm.

The ruling was only for an interlocutory injunction (designed to prevent news coming out whilst they wait for a full trial to be prepared), so we shouldn't take too much notice just yet. But the case represents an interesting trend in media law over the last few years. The courts have gradually extended the common law duty of confidence into a privacy law, aided by the European Convention on Human Rights, which lists as Article 8 the right to privacy. Some of the cases you think, fair enough. Like the Naomi Campbell case, where the model was snapped coming out a drug rehabilitation clinic by photographers. The court ruled that it was fine for the newsapapers to report that she did take drugs, as she had denied this in the past. But taking photos of her rehabilitation was a step too far. I agree.

Then you have another, more dubious case. Princess Caroline of Monaco won a case at the European Court of Human Rights after a load of photographers took photos of her for gossip magazines and the like in Paris. The Princess had set up base in France as the French have notoriously strict privacy laws (no wonder no stories about their corrupt political class come out). However, the photographers took the photos and drove across the border to Germany, where they sold them to publishers. Now you might think that it would be slightly draconian to ban newspapers from taking pictures of people in the street. But the Princess had been ruthlessly pursued by gossip columnists and the like over the years, and the treatment was close to what ordinary people would call harassment.

Then you get to a case that could fairly be described as ridiculous - Douglas v Hello!. You may remember that when Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones got married, they gave a nice exclusive to OK! magazine, granting them the pictoral rights for the wedding. Only a Hello reporter slipped in and took lots of pictures, giving Hello the chance to spoil OK's story. Well, the Douglases weren't happy, and nor were OK magazine. They took Hello to court and after a rambling litigious journey (which I won't bother to describe to you), the Court of Appeal ruled that Hello's actions were a breach of the Douglases' privacy. Partly, this was based on Catherine Zeta Jones' complaint in evidence that Hello had taken a picture of her eating wedding cake with her mouth open. They also gave OK £1m in damages. It's now rumbled on further to the House of Lords.

Of course, the framers of the European convention weren't stupid. They inserted a balancing article, article 10, providing for freedom of expression. It's down to the courts to decide where the balance between articles 8 and 10 lies. If the sportsman's injunction is held at trial, then I might start to wonder if the scales are even being used.

For more on all this, check out the times law section here.

Flatulence causes plane to land in the U.S.

No really it did, more here.

Perspectives on electricity...

...sounds like a pretty boring title for a film. But over at Alive in Baghdad, they've put together a very interesting film about the power problems the Iraqis are facing. The generators in each neighbourhood are being indiscriminately shot, and fuel for powering them is hard to come by (in one of the most oil-rich nations on the planet!). The interviewees relate how the Iraqi Minister for Electricity stood up recently and said that the situation will only improve in 2009/10. At the moment they only have power on and off for about 2 hours a day.

One of the interviewees tells how, after the electricity was completely destroyed in the Gulf War, Saddam had it up and running again in two months. This time, the Americans vowed not to destroy the electricity in the war, left it intact, but its still not working now. Can't we even get this right?!

You can see the video here - it's well worth a look.

Litvinenko: how the UK's lopsided extradition arrangements will prevent a trial

I find this story astonishing. Only a week or so ago I was posting on the lopsided US-UK extradition arrangements, and now it appears the government has done us a disservice with Russia too. S. 71 (4) of the Extradition Act 2003 sets out that, for certain designated countries, only "information" is required for a suspect to be extradited. This "information" is the formality of a charge sheet and some kind of affidavit from the prosecuting authorities that sets out what the suspect is supposed to have done. So... they could probably write any contrived nonsense on the sheet, and the person would still be extradited. That's right, the court has no right to look into the evidence or cross-examine witnesses.

I was surprised in doing research on the US-UK arrangements that one of the designated countries under the act is Russia. Given the record of the Putin regime on human rights, free speech and so on, I thought this was quite curious.

If the arrangements with Russia were reciprocal, that might mitigate the wrong somewhat. Yet today, with the possibility on the horizon of an attempt by UK authorities to extradite a someone in Russia suspected of poisoning Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian prosecutor general has refused point blank that any extradition should take place. He has said that any trial must take place in Russia. According to him, the Russian constitution prevents any Russian from being tried elsewhere. Now I am by no means an expert on the Russian constitution, but I could only find one article in it today that has any relevance to extradition:

Article 63 ... (2) In the Russian Federation it shall not be allowed to extradite to other States those people who are persecuted for political convictions, as well as for actions (or inaction) not recognized as a crime in the Russian Federation. The extradition of people accused of a crime, and also the handover of convicts for serving sentences in other States shall be carried out on the basis of the federal law or the international agreement of the Russian Federation.

Now, I imagine that even murder is a crime in Russia. That rules out the bar on extraditing citizens who are persecuted "for actions (or inaction) not recognized as a crime in the Russian Federation". Extradition would be carried out on the basis of international agreement too - we have a treaty with the Ruskies. So that leaves the accusation that any trial would be politically motivated. Rubbish - all we're trying to achieve is justice for a man who was murdered.

I do wonder what on earth the Foreign Office is thinking sometimes putting together our extradition arrangements. If ever there was a case for restriction of the royal prerogative, this is it. We can't have the flimsiest of requirements for a British man to be extradited over to Russia, only for Russia to then refuse any requests for potential murderers. Once again, its a case of a truly imbalanced treaty - negotiated that way because our government doesn't give a shit for the rights of people in this country.

UPDATE: there's an interesting discussion on some of the power politics involved in all this at The Baillieu Blog.

Whatever happened to the Tory mayoral race?

The race to become the Tory candidate for mayor was meant to be an all-singing, all-dancing X-factor style contest that drew in big hitters from the world of politics and the metropolitan elite. For a job that requires presence rather than political subtlety, celebrity rather than cerebral studiousness, CCHQ hoped to attract the likes of former Met Commissioner John Stevens and the radio DJ Nick Ferrari. Unfortunately the former is tied up in countering the Daily Express' weekly lunatic ravings about Diana's conspiracy theory death, whilst the latter has gone off in a huff complaining about the selection procedures. The result: the deadline for entering the race was extended in August to... an unspecified time in the future, thought to be around six months onwards.

Since then, what has happened? Very little. There seems to be an almost complete news blackout on what's going on and even Conservative Home's London Mayor mini-site can't seem to rustle up much content on the respective candidates. And as for those candidates, well its hard to say if they have any profile at all. We've got two Kensington and Chelsea councillors, one assembly member, and a guy who wants to... abolish the post of mayor. The only one who is relatively well-known (within the party at least) is Nick Boles, head of the very Cameroon think tank Policy Exchange.

Why are big time Tories so reluctant to run? Well, with Cameron's battleship likely to be rechristened the ship of state in 2009, why would you want to miss out on a chance of getting into Parliament/ becoming a minister? Sure, I'll give up my seat/ good chance of getting a winnable candidature to go and face Ken Livingstone. Indeed, James Cleverly, whose blog I first came across when I heard he was running for Mayor, simply used his entry into the race to raise his profile, subsequently making it onto the A-list. He withdrew when the deadline was extended.

There's another reason too. Even the Tory bloggers at Anyone but Ken don't seem to be able to raise much enthusiasm in opposing him - they only post every 20 days or so. The Tories simply haven't put up a credible platform in London and Ken has given himself some advantages. So, the Tube is an absolute disaster, but lo and behold, Ken opposed the PPP contract and can now spend his time lambasting Metronet with impunity. In reality, anyway, on this area of policy as with any other, the Mayor seems to have very little power - Livingstone at times seems like a rather amusing dummy who goes round playing a silly comic routine of deliberately provocative speeches and stunts.

His other strength is, without doubt, his independence from the Labour hierarchy. Indeed, many Labour people have a real antipathy for him. He's a rare example in modern politics of someone who took on the controlling minds of the party and won.

But these advantages don't mean that there's no possibility of Livingstone being beaten. When is Livingstone going to get his good mate Gordon to apply some pressure and get the Tube contract that he designed to work properly? Crime is (or should be) a real issue, and the extension of the congestion charge is sure to get those Chelsea tractor drivers to the polls.

The question then, is which Tory will their bullbars be backing? It looks like, in the absence of any other contenders coming in, it's going to be Nick Boles (pictured above). He's clearly got the frontbench team's backing - Letwin has said that it is "admirable" that he is the front runner (not sure if Boles will welcome that or not). Cameron is apparently also backing him with the tonic of a parachute ride into a seat after the next election. Boles, however, is not resigned to fighting a losing campaign; he will fight it to win.

He's certainly got some ideas behind him - Policy Exchange has spent the last few years talking up localism, the darling of all Tory creeds. It has rapidly become the most influential think-tank in the Cameroon era, drawing comparisons with the omnipotent IPPR. I went along to one of their events not long ago and listened entertained to Oliver Letwin bluster about he was Cameron's "back-room boy". I took a complete non-politicker along who enjoyed it immensely.

He's also good on the media and certainly has the run of the influential wing of the party - he used to share a flat with Michael Gove. He's openly gay, and has a benevolent demeanour, a real contrast to the bigoted and hardened Ken. His downsides - his lack of popular notoriety, and his failure to win Hove at the last election. Also, it seems strange that this is his only effort at putting together a website so far - no doubt he is waiting to launch his camapign proper in the near future, but you'd think the site would have more than one page and at least a photo of him!

I've got the feeling that, if Boles does win the text message vote next year, that this will be the next test for Cameron's modernising agenda. Clearly, if Boles got all the Conservative voters in London to turn out, then he'd win - turnout is normally only 30%. But equally, Norris lost last time because of a lack of second preference votes from the Lib Dems, which suggests that a slightly more centrist agenda will prevail. Boles would certainly be the man to deliver that - but would have have any chance of convincing the voters?

CORRECTION: I stated in this post that James Cleverly's entry into the mayoral race was motivated by a desire to raise his profile. I am happy to correct this and would direct you to his comment below where he sets out his reasons in full. James also sets out some interesting points in response to what some readers have been saying about the need for the winning Tory candidate to have the experience of running a major organisation.

UPDATE: Darren Caplan has written an admirable polemic on this subject on Conservative Home.