Twelve hours since my last post, and it’s still going on. Let’s hope they sort themselves out soon enough to donate lots of money this Red Nose Day!

I’m hooked on BBC Parliament at the moment, watching this bill ping pong like some crazy game involving wooden bats and small plastic balls. I have no inkling as to which way this one will go, but I can’t see it being good for Mr Blair either way – if he’s defeated he’ll look weak, if he’s not then he will be portrayed by Mr Howard as overreacting and irrational. Either way, he’ll appear to be playing politics with terror.

Clearly, though, the best thing for the country would be for this bill to fail miserably. And by the way, I wouldn’t bother tuning in right at this very second because both houses have been suspended, and it looks like they might stay that way for some time yet. Somebody poke the MPs with a big stick and get them working again, please!

I have said to you before that if you have a Phd and a posh accent from a school like yours, you are regarded as a sophisticate

The interesting words of John Reid on last night’s Newsnight, as he attacked Jeremy Paxman for some very unclear reason, before waving about a policy document, telling us eight pages of it were new material, and then attacking the Conservatives… without, once again, telling us what this new material is all about. I, with an above average interest in politics, still don’t know what Labour’s health plans are – all I know is that they don’t like the Tory plans. I have a much better grasp of Conservative plans, which seem sensible enough to me. So if I was choosing between Labour and the Conservatives purely on health issues I’d vote Conservative. But I’m not and I won’t. This does all begin to look like a pretty unsuccessful, excessively negative campaign by Labour, though, and is certainly giving the Conservative party the moral high ground just when Labour need it, after appearing so decietful and dishonest during their government. So, again, not good for Labour. In fact, I don’t think I’ve been able to write a post yet that been positive about the Labour campaign. Which can’t be a good sign for them, I wouldn’t have thought.

I am afraid that it is now clear to me that by failing to reveal your full legal advice and the considerations that underpinned your final advice, you misled the Cabinet and therefore helped obtain support for military action improperly. This is a very serious matter in relation to the war in Iraq, the integrity of your office, your own integrity and the proper working of UK constitutional arrangements.

So says Claire Short, which is good for her, I guess. Though not so good for Mr Blair, who just looks worse and worse as this story progresses. This means, of course, that the legal advice is very damaging, because otherwise he’d have released it and defended it under his masochism strategy. So he’s holding out until he’s out of office, and they can’t touch him. The problem with this stategy is if it somehow gets out before then, which these kinds of documents have a habit of doing, particularly when many in your own party are against you. This could be Mr Howard’s magic weapon to beat Mr Blair with – if he produces this just before the election, it wouldn’t take much for Labour to lose this election. But Mr Howard has a habit of playing these big things all wrong, and would probably end up looking bad himself somehow or other. But this could be political dynamite.

The most ridiculous thing about this news conference was the way in which Mr Blair introduced Mr Reid by saying how the Conservatives wouldn’t reveal their health policy because they were embarrassed about it, and then Mr Reid used almost his entire speech to criticise Conservative policy whilst telling us nothing about Labour policy.

And why is it that Labour completely fail to concede that there are various ways of approaching health issues? They just arrogantly state that their method is right, and everbody else is necessarily wrong. It makes them look silly and puerile, and certainly doesn’t encourage sensible, adult discussion and debate.

For a party that’s supposedly lost its arrogance in it’s Conference Epiphany, it’s doing a very good job of, erm, being arrogant.

The former Metropolitan Police Commissioner also said many critics of the Prevention of Terrorism Bill were “naive” about the threat faced.

The opposition have wanted to tell the Government what they would do for some time, in the appropriate place and in the appropriate manner – that is, in a House of Commons debate. The Government have consistently denied them this opportunity by ramming this legislation through like there’s no tomorrow. So for the Government to come out and make demands and accusations like these is misleading and dishonest. And it also lets us see who’s really playing politics with terror.

Tony Blair admits today his personal standing has become ‘an issue’ in Labour’s election campaign, but warns his party no other leader would fare better.

So says The Grauniad, who had forty-eight hours with the PM. But why is Mr Blair, king of polling data, refusing to accept what the polls are telling Labour – they’d fair much better under Gordon Brown? I suspect it’s because Mr Blair only hears what he wants to hear, and the last thing he wants to hear right now is that his major political rival is more popular than him. Some would call that arrogance, but they must be wrong, because we all know that Mr Blair had a Spring Conference epiphany, and is now a marvellous person.

This is Downing Street’s vaunted ‘masochism strategy’ in action: tackling political apathy by pitching Blair into direct combat with grumpy voters. It has, he says, given him a new perspective on Westminster.

‘What it has done is reinforce how much there are just two different worlds going on.

‘One is very basic things that people want help with in pressured and difficult lives, and that’s their concern – and they really don’t have a lot of interest in things about which I am continually forced to answer questions.’

In other words, ‘Please tell those mean newspaper boys to stop asking me nasty questions’. Of course, this is the first election Blair’s had to fight with the popular media against him, and I don’t think he’s enjoying it. I think that he thought he’d walk this election, just like the last two, and now the pressure’s on and he’s not prepared for it. He looks like he’s floundering, every time he tries his old techniques of fake emotion, people know he’s faking. He desperate, and needing a lot of help right now. He sounds weak. And it’s not making him look good.

And lo, the battle was joined. Well, not quite – the election date still hasn’t been announced, but the Lib Dems have entered the election fray and joined the party, bringing their own slogan along for laughs:

The Real Opposition

Not the best slogan, I suggest, for a party who claim to have their sights set on Number Ten, but a decent one for a party who think they have a chance of becoming the official opposition. Or, at least, holding the balance of power. But heck, it’s an awful lot better “Britain forward not back” (I still don’t know what that means), and “Less talk, more action” (our problem is that Tony Blair’s gone too far and taken too much action, like invading Iraq).

But there’s nothing in his speech that I can disagree with. I’m not a massive fan of his tax policies, but at least he’s honest about raising the top rate, and at least he has rational, good reasons for doing so.

The problem with the Liberal Democrats is that their greatest strength is also their greatest weakness:

For us politics isn’t about gimmicky pledge cards with vacuous statements. It’s about real solutions to real problems. It’s about being straightforward about how you will deliver. And it’s about being straightforward also about how much it will all cost.

In this world of instant news, people need hooks and quick, meaningless soundbites, slogans, and pledges. That’s the nature of the country we live in. Politics should be about much more, but people aren’t interested enough to sit and listen to a reasoned argument – they want to be drip-fed what they want to hear. But once a party starts to subscribe to this form of argument, they lose all credibility.

The Lib Dems are still looking like the party I’m most likely to vote for, not least because we have similar opinions, but also because the other two main parties are just unsupportable in my view: Labour, because they are dishonest and spin to the point of lying in order to massage their egos, and The Conservatives because I can’t support their dispicable asylum policies, which border on racist.

I don’t think the Lib Dems have a hope of winning the next election, but that shouldn’t stop anybody voting for them. The bigger their majority, the louder their voice of reason. And if there’s one thing we need in the House of Commons, its more reasonable, moral people.

I’ve received an email this afternoon from Mr Tony Blair’s Labour party – a mass mail jobby, as you’d expect. And I permitted myself a small smile…

Dear Labour supporter

Not off to a great start on the accuracy front, then, but never mind.

The Tories opposed the setting up of the NHS. They have opposed the investment and reforms of this Labour Government.

Unfortunately, he has failed to tell me exactly what Labour are going to do. The Tories might be terrible, but nothing here says Labour’s better.

Yesterday Michael Howard highlighted one case, that of a patient who had her operation cancelled several times… for Mr Howard to take one case and use it to undermine the whole of the NHS is typical and wrong.

Agreed. It does seem absurd to extrapolate individual cases to comment on the health service as a whole. It’s not logically sound.

When we launched our Proud of Britain campaign, and asked people what made them proud of Britain, the NHS came up again and again. Today we are putting just a sample of these “Proud of the NHS” testimonies on our website and we’re asking for new comments too.

But, erm, it’s absurd to extrapolate individual cases to comment on the health service as a whole. It’s not logically sound. Remember? You’ve just been telling me that… so why are you trying to pull that one on me?

The coming election will be a fight for the future of the NHS.

Obviously, much better for Labour to fight on the future than the eight years of government they’ve just had. Surely they should be proudly trumpeting their acheivements, not shying away saying ‘we’ll do better next time’.

Yours sincerely

The day Tony Blair says anything truly sincere in the run up to an election, I’ll dance a merry jig in Stockton town centre.

So, in summary, this hastily put together rebuttal of Michael Howard’s stinging attacks just makes Labour look more than a little bit silly.

The Tories are, of course, using the case of Margaret Dixon as something of a stunt. But it is cynical and silly of Labour to say that this is just a stunt: Michael Howard is making a serious point, just from a human interest angle. Mr Blair should address the real problem, not just the way in which Mr Howard presents it. And, just for the record, I thought Mr Blair seemed arrogant and incredibly insincere at PMQs yesterday. Definitely a good week for Mr Howard.