When Gordon, when?

The dilemma of when Gordon Brown should call an election dominated the Labour party conference this week. In hotel bars and function rooms debates raged on to the strengths of 8 November compared to May 2009.

The debate was no less informed and eloquent on the blogosphere, especially at Harry’s Place.

As news broke that Labour were recruiting election staff on full time contracts, speculation grew that Brown will announce the date of the election next Wednesday after he has seen Cameron in action in Blackpool.

The Norfolk Blogger assessed the timing of the announcement and its likely impact on all three main political parties. He concluded: “In my opinion the best time to call the election would be on Monday morning. Whilst thousands of Tories are in hotels that they will have to pay for, many will be hundreds of miles from their constituencies, and suddenly the Representation of the People's Act will cut in meaning that equal coverage will go to all the parties.”

Kerron Cross suggests one blogger who would presumably want a delay to the election. Tony Benn’s granddaughter, Emily, is to stand in the next election for Worthing East and Shoreham, where she must overturn a Tory majority of more than 8,000 in her bid to become the youngest ever MP and the fifth generation Benn. But there is one snag: “She is 17 - so if Gordon were to call the election this week then electoral law would prevent her from standing. She's not 18 for another two weeks, so I guess she must be counting down the days to her 18th birthday for several reasons!”

Concerned at the amount of corporate sponsorship at the conference – or trade fair as he describes it – John McDonnell MP paused to reflect on its relevance in the outside world: “The scenes of Buddhist monks in Burma losing their lives in a struggle for democracy are a stark reminder that democratic politics should be about more than developing subtler forms of spin and party game-playing.”

This also appears at www.newstatesman.com/blogs/best-of-the-politics-blogs.

The Lib Dem blogfest

With so much mainstream media attention at the Lib Dem conference focussed on Ming’s leadership, you would be forgiven for thinking there was not a word spoken on policy. This prompted Richard Huzzey to write: “It’s a sad indictment of the media that a week-long conference discussing the pressing issues of the day hinges on whether a man says ‘there’s no vacancy’ or ‘I probably would’.”

But a trawl through the blogosphere reveals a fascinating insight into the day-to-day activity of a party political conference.

If political commentators were seeking a barometer as to popularity of likely leadership candidates, Stephen Tall may have come up with an alternative to YouGov: “Mugs with Steve [Webb]’s face on them are the top sellers at this year’s conference.”

In a Q&A session between Ming and Sandi Toksvig, many wondered why the photos turned out so bad. Jonathon Calder has a suggestion: “The stools had been carefully adjusted and positioned to show Ming to best advantage. Unfortunately, though, when the two of them went out on to the stage they sat the wrong way round.”

The sole topic of conversation among attendees was not – as the mainstream media imparted – Ming’s future, as Alex Foster states: “Talk in the conference bar reveals that some delegates have been rather disappointed with the quality of their hotels.”

As a testament to how highly-regarded the blog has become to politics, the Lib Dems’ annual blog awards was a key event of the conference. James Graham’s Quaequam blog won the award for best blog and best blog post for his repost to Simon Jenkins’s question of what the Lib Dems were for.

Jonny Wright’s Hug a Hoodie won best new blog, Mary Reid scooped best blog by an elected representative and best designed blog, while Liberal Mafia won best humourous blog. As best blog for an elected representative nominee Peter Black tells in our conference blog section, Liberal Mafia was unable to attend, though he sent a horse head in his stead.

But not all Lib Dem bloggers are so enthusiastic about the benefits of blogging. While pontificating about how to solve the infighting the blogosphere creates in political parties, Paul Walter wrote: “A vast amount of keypad bashing in the world is completely pointless. If only some people would actually just talk to each other, then endless millions of words written wouldn’t be necessary.” So there.

This also appears at www.newstatesman.com/blogs/best-of-the-politics-blogs.

An unholy alliance?

As news broke this week that Margaret Thatcher was returning to Downing Street to take tea with the present incumbent, Benedict Brogan wondered – in the light of Gordon Brown’s recent appointments – whether there was an ulterior motive: “Mr Brown has already riled the Tories by claiming that he – and not David Cameron – is a conviction politician of the Iron Lady mold. Might he go one step further today and find a task force for her to chair?”

While, The Huntsman wondered if the meeting of minds was not for a simpler reason: “Perhaps he is asking what he should do with those pesky unions as he faces his very own ‘Winter of Discontent’.”

The cosying-up of Thatcher and Brown was variously seen by the Right as a rallying call to a damning indictment of Cameron. Many on the Left saw it as a betrayal of Old Labour by Brown, but Snowflake5 was more philosophical: “Some in Labour will raise eyebrows at this, given the hurt she inflicted on the country in the early 80s. But we’re comfortably in power now, and vengeance isn’t part of the Labour character. We can afford to be magnanimous and kind to a very old lady who is clearly still upset at events of the past.”

In an interesting analysis of the political tactics at the heart of the meeting between the two “conviction politicians”, Dizzy Thinks began: “The master strategist and tactician Brown does it again and has turned the lady who was not for turning they say. Brown has played Cameron for the pygmy chump that he is.”

But concluded: “Gordon Brown may very well be a master strategist and tactician, but yesterday his ego and overriding desire to destabilise Cameron exposed his flank, and a superior master of the game exploited it savagely.”

In a two-pronged attack on the Conservatives on the day they launched the Blueprint for a Green Economy, Labour announced they would be hiring Saatchi & Saatchi (of “Labour isn’t working” fame) for their election campaign.

Guido Fawkes saw the move as a cynical reaction to the perception of modern politics: “The Times reports Populus research which shows that Brown is perceived by voters to have moved to the right and Cameron’s Conservatives are perceived to have moved to the left. So with increasingly little difference between the brands, it may all come down to marketing.”

Meanwhile, Will Howells has suggested a couple of failed Saatchi & Saatchi campaigns which may have been taken to LDHQ (“Not merciless, just Ming”) and CCHQ (“Not anything really. Just Dave”).

This also appears at www.newstatesman.com/blogs/best-of-the-politics-blogs.

Galloway and the Tory accountants

In a week where Gordon Brown stood legs akimbo across the centre ground and declared his admiration for Margaret Thatcher, stalwarts from both sides of the political spectrum let off time bombs within their own ranks.

George Galloway began by sending out a document to Respect’s National Congress members which argued for “re-evaluating” the party’s relationship with the SWP. It can be read in full here.

This sparked a series of debates on the comments boards of various blogs. David Osler began one debate by asking: “Why has the SWP made all this public at such an early stage, instead of trying to keep word of the document under wraps? Does this indicate that this is more than a minor spat?”

In another, John Gray stated: “I reckon that Galloway is gambling that the SWP will back down and let him run the show. The present leadership of the SWP have invested heavily in Respect. Also, frankly there is nowhere else for them to go.”

On to the Right side. Following Patrick Mercer and John Bercow’s decision to accept advisory posts offered by Gordon Brown, former Tory deputy and chairman Michael Ancram launched an attack on the modern party which drew outrage from the Young Turks.

Anthony Little was livid with the trio (Mercer, Bercow and Ancram – which Mike Ion pointed out sounds like an accountancy firm): “Don't they see that they are been used as a stage-managed tool by the Brown government (in the case of Bercow and Mercer) or just giving ammunition to our opponents (Ancram ... who should know better). Activists up and down the country must have their heads in their hands.”

While, Caroline Hunt sees the problem as being endemic within Conservative ranks: “I have learnt in the last year that a vast number of Tory party members would rather live under a Labour government indefinitely and instead stick the knife into their own party rather than attack this woefully dishonest and inept government.”

Over at Our Kingdom, Anthony Barnett has written a neat piece about what he sees as a class war within the Tory party. This, he states, is the reason for much of the backlash against Ancram’s open letter.

This was partly based on criticism from Iain Dale, who asked for contributions for the top ten reasons why Michael Ancram should be taken outside and shot (which Dale was keen to stress – for those lacking a sense of humour – was “done in the style of David Letterman's Top Ten Lists, which are funny, sardonic and often ironic”). The pick of the bunch were: “Number 10: So he knows how the grouse feel; Number 9: Because we need to discourage the aristocracy from overbreeding; and Number 1: Because shooting him inside would mean that you'd have to repaint the walls.”

This also appears at www.newstatesman.com/blogs/best-of-the-politics-blogs.