It’s all over the news, yet almost everyone I talk to claims they have no idea what’s going on this week in the Middle East. Now, my personal knowledge of Middle Eastern politics is abominable, but I’ve made it my mission to explain the current problem in the simplest possible terms. Yes, I’ve ignored hundreds of years of history here, and probably insulted everyone involved in the conflict by doing so, but I’m presenting this at the simplest possible level, the very basics, the ‘dumbed down’ version – that is, the level I understand it. So here goes.

Hezbollah is a political and military group in Lebanon, which was formed in the 1980s to drive Israeli troops out of Lebanon. By 2000, they achieved this objective, and so won lots of support from the Lebanese people. So much support, in fact, that they won lots of votes in Lebanese elections, and now have a sizable presence in the Lebanese parliament, and even a representative in the cabinet. Now, crucially, whilst they have a big political influence in Lebanon, Hezbollah is not the Lebanese government. Hezbollah is a separate political and military organisation.

On Wednesday, Hezbollah – this military group – attacked an Israeli town, and in so-doing managed to kill several Israeli soldiers, and capture two. Why they did this isn’t clear, but it may have been an attempt to capture some soldiers with which to bribe Israel into releasing some prisoners which Hezbollah beleives are being wrongly held.

Obviously, Israel didn’t take to kindly to this, with the Prime Minister calling it an ‘act of war’. But, of course, the action wasn’t launched by the Lebanese government, but by Hezbollah – a group that just happens to be in Lebanon, and has a lot of popular support there. Despite this, Israeli troops responded by dropping bombs on Lebanon, and returning into Lebanon for the first time since they withdrew in 2000. That pissed off Hezbollah somewhat, this being the group which had forced the Israelis out of Lebanon in the first place.

On Thursday, Israel continued to pummel Lebanon with bombs, killing at least 35 Lebanese civilians, and essentially said that Lebanon and Hezbollah could forget the idea of keeping the border between the countries at the location they’d agreed when the troops withdrew. George Bush said that Israel was well within its right to beat the poop out of Lebanon given that they’d been suddenly attacked, but the EU were less happy, saying that Israel was being too harsh with their response, given the small scale of the first attack and its unofficial nature.

Also on Thursday, a big bomb was dropped on Israel’s third biggest city. Hezbollah said it wasn’t them, but (probably understandably) Israel didn’t believe them. So on Friday, Israel went and bombed the Hezbollah headquarters, which made the Hezbollah leader pledge ‘open war’ against Israel. By this time, the UN Security Council is starting to get a bit worried, and says that it’s unfair that Israel is killing a whole load of Lebanese civilians, and basically asked it to stop. They didn’t.

As Israel’s attacks on Lebanon grew, so Hezbollah’s responses grew. On Saturday, the Lebanese Prime Minister called for help, because his country was being turned into a ‘disaster zone’. Of course, the Lebanese Prime Minister has no control over Hezbollah, as they’re a separate group, so he can’t stop the attacks that Israel sees as Lebanon committing.

So now, the attacks are getting bigger and bigger. The worry now is that Israel might start being aggressive towards the countries that contribute funds to Hezbollah – namely Syria and Iran. Of course, if Israel attacks, they will be forced to respond, and then the whole region will be at war.

Obviously, war would be bad in and of itself, but it’s got the rest of the world worrying because much of the world’s oil comes from the Middle East, and getting that oil isn’t going to be too easy if there’s a war on. Which means oil prices will rocket, and that will destabilise all of our economies.

But how can we stop this? Hezbollah aren’t going to back down, even though their initial attack did appear to be somewhat provocative. But Israel’s at fault too, for a clearly disproportionate response. A very rough and ready analogy would be if the Lib Dems in the UK were to capture American soldiers to barter for the release of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, and America responded by bombing Leeds. There are no good guys in all of this – they’re all at fault.

Israel quite understandably won’t talk to Hezbollah, as it’s seen as a small radical group, and the Lebanese government who Israel will talk to have no control over Hezbollah. But it’s probably unreasonable to ask Israel not to respond to Hezbollah’s attacks, and Hezbollah will continue to respond to Israel’s attacks, tit-for-tat.

So how can it be stopped when the parties involved won’t even speak to each other? Beats me.

For more on the on-going crisis, see the BBC’s special site.

Walter Pincus, a veteran Washington Post reporter, argues that US networks should fight back against what he terms ‘the PR presidency’ by refusing to cover statements and events staged purely as PR boosters. I say: Please ignore him.

If we were to ignore every PR-motivated statement, we would miss real gems. We would’ve missed the sight this week of Blair desperately trying to convince us he’s a “green” PM by giving a statement whilst stood aboard a launch by a windfarm: Possibly the most ludicrous PR stunt this PM has undertaken in a few years, which served only to make him appear “green” in an unintended sense. Well, that’s not quite true. It also served to lift the spirits of a nation through a profound sense of schadenfreude.

It probably also served as a reasonable metaphor for the “rocky times” this government is currently undergoing, what with members of the governing party and close friends of the PM being arrested. Though that, too, is really quite fun to watch: After everything he’d done wrong, the net is finally closing in on him. It’s a little like the fifth season of 24, but without the cliffhangers every hour. Or, y’know, MacBeth if you go for the more traditional approach.

The tragedy for Blair is that he’s now lost control of the “stable and orderly transition” he always wanted. He’s stayed past his welcome, and there’s now no way to resign with dignity. He’s off, and not at a time of his own choosing. And power won’t be handed straight next door, there will be a challenge. Blair’s government can no longer end; it will be ended, leaving Blair humiliated, just as he’s being humiliated into playing Cameron catch-up now.

Blair’s started out as a PR government, and it’s ending as a PR government. Just different PR’s. Humiliating and undignified.

Just a few minutes ago, a story I’ve been working with Guido Fawkes on was published on his site – using, perhaps, stronger terms than I would dare.

The story was first posted here as a foot note to another post, here. For those who can’t remember, here’s a quick reminder.

Back in 2004, I sent an email to my MP, David Borrow, asking him to sign an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons, stating “That this House deplores recent announcements by leading universities that they are to close, or freeze recruitment to, some departments because of funding problems”. I have long since lost the text of my original email, but happened to come across the originial reply just recently. In it, Mr Borrow said:

I am currently the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Higher Education Minister, Kim Howells MP. When I was appointed I took the decision that as I was a member of the government, albeit at a very junior level, I would not sign EDM’s.

I’m not sure that that’s the best response to the request at the best of times, but – apparently at odds to this statement – he went on to sign hundreds of EDMs whilst PPS to Kim Howells, on subjects as diverse as the televising of cricket, National Tree Week, and Sales of Bananas in the Palace of Westminster. That is to say that he would not sign an EDM which aimed to halt the decline of technological and scientific advancement in the United Kingdom, yet would sign an EDM about bananas in Parliament.

You can see Guido’s comments on the story, and comments left on his website, here.

On a personal note, working with a blogging giant like Guy (featured in today’s MediaGuardian, as it happens) on this has been quite an exciting experience, and a fantastic way to celebrate the growth of my own blog to over 900 posts and 200,000 words. Thanks to your continued visiting, and thanks to new visitors too, the site is going from strength-to-strength, with hits for the first half of 2006 up 105% over those for the same period last year. There have already been over 1,000,000 hits this year, a point only surpassed in November last year. As a blog that does not try to make a profit, hits mean very little – but having so many of them is certainly a personal boost. So thank you to all my readers for your continuing support.

Tomorrow, David Cameron is to make a speech defending the hoodie (hoody? What is the singular?) wearing ‘yoofs’ of today. I guess I’m probably one of them, given that I own two hoodies, though with both of mine being emblazed with university insignias, I’m not sure they’re quite the ones Mr Cameron is complaining about.

But really, this post is an appeal. Please can Mr Cameron follow the lead of Archbishop John Sentamu, and give the speech whilst wearing a hoodie? Tomorrow’s my first weekday off in some considerable time, I have exams coming up, and I need a good laugh. Please, Dave, just for me?

I know I’ve asked this of other people before, but just how is John Prescott still in office? He’s lost his job yet kept his salary and perks, slept with his secretary, puched a voter, done allegedly dodgy political deals without declaring an interest, been photographed playing croquet when he should have been working, been roundly mocked for having two jags, and yet still appears to be quite happy in office. People said Tony was made of Teflon because nothing every stuck: Well this is one Slippery Johnny, with no-one ever quite able to pin him down long enough for him to lost his job.

Even if, as it is rumoured, he has some good dirt on Tony Blair and so can’t be fired, he must be able to see the damage he’s doing the government and the Labour party, and want to resign in the best interests of a turbulent, troubled party which needs less scandal not more. Surely he can’t be seriously thinking about disrupting the smooth and orderly transition by running for PM himself, because there’s far too much dirt on him already.

He can’t keep on going like this forever: Johnny must split from the government soon, if only so the party gives an appearance that it’s doing something. Or is this the greater problem with New Labourites, as we saw with Charles Clarke? They’re so obsessed with themselves that they won’t resign for the greater good, they have to be pulled off the government scene in a most undignified way?

FactCheck, Channel 4’s despinning, debunking, delightful website crafted to help with coverage of the General Election and inspited by the US’s factcheck.org, is back after a 14 month hiatus. Here’s what I said when it launched first time around:

This is an excellent idea – an independent website which will check the facts spouted by the politicians between now and the general election. Perhaps it will encourage our party leaders to be more honest in their speeches, instead of making false claims in order to scare voters into voting for them above the opposition parties. Perhaps it will mean that the leaders can no longer hide from the truth about their past performance behind some dodgily compiled selective statistics. Perhaps it will even stop the politicians from telling outright lies.

Of course, it never actually did any of those things, but it was still fun to read, and hence got a reasonable amount of coverage on this blog. My only complaint thus far is that the logo’s been replaced with an uninspiring red box with the Channel 4 font surrounded by compression artefacts (see picture), and each article is split over several pages. A disappointment. But the actual content still seems to be up-to-scratch.

I, for one, am glad to see it back.

The NHS is now in £521,000,000 debt. That’s quite a lot. More than twice as much as this time last year, in fact.

When responding to the last set of figures last December, Patricia Hewitt, our esteemed Health Secretary, announced that she would have the debt down to £250,000,000 by April. It’s now June, and she’s nowhere near – in fact, she’s heading in the wrong direction altogether, despite firing 12,000 people, cancelling countless operations, and reducing the quality of patient care. Yet today in Mad Pat world…

The NHS is now stabilising this financial problem while counting to improve services for patients.

Doubling of debt equals ‘stabilising this financial problem’. This new definition is very handy. Blood pressure doubled in 12 months? Don’t bother treating it, it’s stable! Tumour size doubled? Don’t worry about that cancelled op, your tumour’s stable! Think of the savings that can be made!

Doctors can see what’s wrong here. The BMA Consultants Committee said

Yes, bad management is a problem in some places, but the biggest cause is the interference from government. Something is going badly wrong and it is demoralising for staff.

We know the nurses are against her following the extraordinary action at their conference.

This demonstrates that even medical students, not yet employed by the NHS, aren’t fans:

And, hey-ho, the Confederation of the managers Mad Pat was so criticised for introducing in the first place is even against her:

It is all too easy to blame individual managers, but the financial problems often relate to systemic issues.

And, surprise surprise, the Opposition knows what’s wrong:

Policy is failing.

So who’s backing Mad Pat? Well, apparently, Mr Blair. Despite her coming out with meaningless misjudged announcement after meaningless misjudged announcement, even after missing her own targets by miles, there’s still no suggestion that she might be unfit for the position.

Nobody in the NHS likes her, she polls badly, and she doesn’t meet targets. Why on Earth is she still in office?

On the Today programme this morning, some Labour official or other insisted that the pension reforms they’d come up with were designed to be ‘non-partisan’ and they hoped to reach a ‘cross-party consensus’, not play party-political games. The claim was repeated on The World at One, and quite possibly on many other news broadcasts throughout the course of the day. Of course, making such claims simply sets up clear criticism of any party who dares to point out flaws in the White Paper, so really it’s a good strategy. If only they stuck to it.

Unforunately, they didn’t. Tonight, I received an email from the Labour Party (much like those I’ve received in the past):

The proposals we are publishing today represent the greatest renewal of our pensions system since the post-war reforms implemented by Clement Attlee’s government… Since 1997, we have made real progress in tackling the appalling legacy of pensioner poverty we inherited from the Tories, so far helping a million pensioners out of poverty.

Non-partisan? I think not. Why is it that even when they think they’re doing the right thing, the Labour spin machine just can’t help pumping out lies? And how can they say they’ve had ‘real progress on pensioner poverty’ when Council Tax has soared, and OAPs imprisoned for failing to pay? I just don’t get it.

Mr Hutton’s changes mean that I will be working until I’m 68. That’s fine, I have nothing against working into old age. I mean, most 68-year-olds can’t set a video recorder, and I’ll no doubt have a similar incompetence when it comes to the medical breakthroughs and technologies of the 2050s, but I’m sure that won’t be a problem. And when I’m taking your blood or excising some growth, I’m sure you won’t be too worried about my small tremour. And at the end of a twelve-hour shift, I’m sure you’ll forgive my aging brain for prescribing a drug that just happens to react with something else someone else gave you.

Of course, working to 68 will allow me to earn the money to cover the student debts that Labour have given me – otherwise my net income over my working career would be reduced.

Not that much of it matters anyway: Predictions are that there will be 3,000 junior doctors unable to find suitable training posts by the time I qualify. If I never get a job, I’ll never have to retire. Now there’s a cheery thought 😉

So Blair has come third in the local elections. That’s not good for him. In response to this, and the scandals surround the Labour party for last fortnight, he’s performed a reshuffle so huge that it begins to feel like he’s got a whole new deck. Charles Clarke has been unceremoniously sacked, saying that he disagrees with Blair, and Prescott is angry too at the prospect of losing the bigger part of his responsibility whilst retaining his title and his salary. If that happened to me, I certainly wouldn’t be angry, I’d probably be cheering, but that’s Prescott for you.

Patricia Hewitt has retained her post, despite the service that she is trying to reform revolting against her, and losing all faith in her abilities. And Jack Straw, who’s seemingly done nothing wrong, gets demoted. Sensible.

Earlier in the week, I couldn’t understand why Clarke hadn’t resigned. It would now appear that he genuinely beleived he could carry on. This was actually good news for Mr Blair, because it meant he had a big headline-grabber for election results day, so the fact that Labour have performed appallingly could be buried.

Yesterday, I was unsure whether he’d pulled off something incredible, and made a fantastic political play, or whether this really would be the beginning of the end. But the news today that in a week’s time, seventy-five backbench MPs are to deliver a letter telling him to resgin or he will be challenged changes everything. This simply isn’t how Blair wanted to go.

Blair and Brown are holding talks this weekend about the future of the party. Basically, it’s pretty clear that they’re talking about when Blair should go. On Monday, Blair has a press conference at which this topic surely can’t be ignored. But what can Blair do now? If he resigned next week, he’d look pressured into it, which isn’t what he wants to do – he wants to go according to his own timetable. If he leaves it much longer, he will be forced out by his own party. If he announces a future resignation date, perhaps there’s scope for a few headlines now about him being forced out, but at the time of the transition of power, perhaps that will be more forgotten.

Could he announce that he’ll stand down on his tenth anniversary as Prime Minister? That would give about a year for the transition to take place, satisfy most of the party, and make it look like he was going according to his own timetable. It would also allow him the honour of making an official ‘final’ conference speech without plotters murmuring in the background. If backbenchers are more insistent, he could always announce that he’ll leave at the end of the year, which would have similar advantages.

But, of course, announcing in advance makes him a true lame duck, something that he and the party would probably object to over such a long period. So what can he do? Probably very little. He’s been greedy, and left the transition too long for it to happen in any symbolic, pretty way.

The idea that he won’t get his last wish after nearly a decade of leadership almost makes me feel sorry for him. Almost.

Charles Clarke’s department allowed 1,023 criminals who should have been considered for deportation to roam free around the country, with some of them committing further offences.

He knew about this for three weeks before he bothered to let the Prime Minister know about it, let alone the Police who need to track these people down.

Even after three weeks, he still didn’t even know the scale of the problem, or whether any of the prisoners had reconvicted.

And yet, he’s stayed in office thus far on the basis that he’s the best person to fix a problem he created. And the longer he stays, the more reports continue to trickle out, and the more damage it does to a Labour government already facing a grim local elections result.

What is he doing? And why hasn’t he been unceremoniously sacrificed?

He clearly can’t stay as Home Secretary. That’s now absolutely obvious, and as clear as clear can be. But in any reshuffle, there’s really no cabinet position of equal power to that of Home Secretary. Foreign Secretary or Chancellor would be a promotion, which would make Mr Blair look arrogant beyond belief. Anything less than those two positions would be a demotion, which Clarke would never agree to. So what’s going on?

If Clarke resigns tomorrow, it’ll hit the papers on Wednesday, the day before the local elections. That’s not satisfactory. He could resign at the point of a reshuffle, but he’s a clever guy – why hang on that long and keep the bad press coming? If he was going to go, from a political point of view he should have done it by now.

So what’s missing? There’s an outside chance that Tony Blair could use the local election result to announce a date for his departure, and relieve Gordon Brown of his Chancellorship to concentrate on the handover of power. Charles Clarke could sneak in and be caretaker Chancellor, which would techincally be a promotion, but no-one would care because the story would be eclipsed. Patricia Hewitt could be shuffled out of Health at the same time.

Prescott’s a stickier problem, because Deputy Leader isn’t a job Mr Blair gets to play with – it’s elected by the Labour Party at large, but again the announcement of Blair’s departure would overshadow any news about Prescott’s pants anyway.

It all seems a bit unlikely, but there’s something that doesn’t add up here.