It’s actually worrying how true this is. And it made me smile.

All we need now is to elect me as leader of the Conservative party. I’m not a Conservative, but Blair’s not a Labourite and that didn’t make much difference. I’d soon beat some sense into Mr Blair. Mr Howard does a reasonable job, until he decides to go into self-destruct mode, annoucing silly populist policies. I’d be much better. And my surname fits.

I don’t agree with most things on the Backing Blair website, but this made me smile.

For balance’s sake, this didn’t:

Why don’t you f*ck off and apologise for Iraq you tw*t?

Well, maybe just a little.

Why is it that mud thrown at Labour rarely sticks (at least according to the polls), whereas the distinctly lower-quality mud thrown at the Conservatives seems to have super-glue-like properties?

If someone said that the Conservatives wanted to raise countil tax by 4.4%, their poll ratings would drop in an instant. Even more than they already have. But the government have been raising Council Tax for years, it’s clear it’ll happen again, and yet their ratings are on the up-and-up. The Lib Dems want to change the system altogether, and yet nobody seems to hear their shouts.

My media sources tell me that an Independent/NOP poll published tomorrow will show the Conservatives slipping to down to just 30% – and Labour up to 42%. Which is, frankly, scary. Even the Lib Dems are down three points on this one.

The only questionably good news is that only 55% said they were certain to vote, and a low turnout would almost certainly be bad for Labour. But, frankly, when they’re twelve points ahead it’s not likely to make anywhere near enough of a difference. It could make some impact though, particularly if all the other polling data is correct in saying that the Conservatives are ten points ahead of Labour in turnout – that’s a long way in front.

I just can’t see what the Labour party have done to court voters even further since the last poll I looked at. But they must have done something, and it’s looking increasingly certain that Labour are going to win the General Election by a fair margin. So please try to stop them.

This Muslim Weekly piece by Mike O’Brien is absolutely dispicable. Can you imagine the furore if this kind of thing had been published in the mainstream press:

Can anyone seriously imagine that Michael Howard or Charles Kennedy would be able to significantly influence George W. Bush? If they do, then they need to join the real world.

Worse is to come:

let‚s [sic] compare Tony Blair with previous Prime Ministers. He is the first Prime Minister to have ever read the Qur‚an [sic], to quote from it and to talk about it. Can anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher or John Major doing the same?

How can a Government minister possibly get away with this sort of thing?

The public is to challenge Tony Blair on the country’s key political issues during a gloves-off televised debate.

This is what my long conversation last week alluded to: I was asked to take part in this programme. Unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately for the PM), things didn’t work out, and so I don’t feature. But it should be worth watching nonetheless – you never know, it might include Mr Blair’s Iraq homologue of Mrs Thatcher’s “Nationwide” moment about the sinking of the Belgrano. Five, 7pm.

But does Tony Blair want Ken Livingstone to say sorry for what he said, or just for the offence that might have been caused by it? 😉

I am, somewhat unfortunately for them, against Tory plans to test the health of migrants.

On the one hand, it would clearly reduce the burden on the NHS, which is largely a good thing. But at what cost?

Combined with the other proposals put forward by the Conservatives, it risks creating an immigrant under-class. If we are only to take a given quota of the best skilled and most healthy specimens, it begins to sound like these people are being treated as nothing more than commodities. This can’t really do much to help social integration.

A later story on the Labour response to the proposal claims:

Labour rubbished Michael Howard’s plans for HIV checks on immigrants this morning, calling them “untested, uncosted and chaotic”.

This just makes the government look silly. Clearly, any proposal when it is first put forward is untested. So that’s an unfair allegation. It’s only uncosted because the government have failed to keep an accurate check on the health of immigrants to this point in time. And how can anybody claim that the system, which has yet to be implemented, will be ‘chaotic’? I think Des Browne must just have been a bit desperate for a word to finish his pattern of three, there.

The Lib Dems, in the form of Mark Oaten, have come flying to the rescue with some sensible and wise words:

Their shadow home secretary, Mark Oaten, said: “This is another worrying step in the war of words over asylum and immigration between Labour and the Conservatives.

“They are in danger of pandering to prejudice rather than challenging it.”

It’s beginning to become a consistent pattern here that I’m favouring Lib Dem policies. But I don’t particuarly want to be taxed to death once I’m earning, and I should (hopefully) qualify under the next government.

It’s an interesting puzzle, but if I were judging purely on today’s annoucements, I’d have to vote Lib Dem, as they are the only party who have spoken with any degree of common sense.

From today’s Society Guardian:

The publication of the mortality rates of individual surgeons could have a “devastating effect” on the quality of care, leading some to refuse to perform risky operations, senior doctors warned today.

Is this not obvious? The surgeons who want the best figures will choose the patients least likely to die. Those that take on the difficult cases will be demonised by the media.

Common sense can see that – unfortunately, the Labour government can’t. Which is yet another reason why they have to go.

This piece by David Aaronovitch in today’s Grauniad is (as usual for him) fantastic, comparing the relationship between the Great British Public and Tony Blair to a marriage. Just as Mr Blair himself almost suggested:

And it’s not a bad idea to think of it in terms of it being like any relationship: you, the British people, and me, the person you chose as your Prime Minister

Though it does conjure up some thoroughly disturbing images of our PM:

When I first became leader of the Labour party, everywhere I went, I could feel the warmth growing, the expectations rising.
At first the sex was great, wasn’t it? Remember that night in 1997? You always moist, me always (let’s be blunt) totally rampant.

Oh, and I also wanted an excuse to post that brilliant picture of Mr Blair.