Well, really!

Kitchen Sink Drama

Cool or toecurling? Webcameron has launched, in an attempt to grab the young vote. I did actually watch Episode One right through, albeit with my eyes and ears half covered, but nearly didn't make it. The kids' noises off seemed contrived, but then I'm a long way from being a young voter so maybe all that stuff is cool.

Had to update the Flash player for my browser, which is no big deal but might confuse some (but not, I suppose, young voters).

Anyway, nice to see Dave uses Ecover for his washing up...

ID Cards Might Show Profit

ID Cards Might Show a Profit... for Liam Byrne, the Minister for Immigration at the Home Office. Not just a "former IT consultant", as I suggested earlier, but a major shareholder in E-Government Solutions Ltd, which provides IT solutions to the public sector and has contracts with eight police forces, according to the Mail.

"Mr Byrne founded E-Government Solutions in 2000, four years after working as a senior adviser to Mr Blair in Downing Street."

Naturally it would make sense (for him) to promote the use of smaller IT firms for the ID Card project rather than placing all the work with a mega corporation.

Hat tip: Blairwatch

Cherie Not Ejected...

A year ago 82-year-old Mr. Walter Wolfgang was very publicly manhandled from the Labour Party Conference for shouting "rubbish" during Jack Straw's speech. The lifelong peace campaigner was then detained by the police under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

According to Bloomberg, Cherie Blair this morning said "well that's a lie" – as Gordon Brown claimed in his speech it had been "a privilege for me to work with and for" her husband – before walking out of the Conference unaided. Presumably she wanted to avoid any embarrassing incidents. There are no reports of her being detained under terrorism laws.

A New Spin for ID Cards

As the Labour Party Conference gets under way in Manchester, a Government minister attempts to spin its unpopular and intrusive ID Card proposals in a better light. They won't be any less intrusive, but they might be cheaper.

How much cheaper? The Home Office won't say. After all, this is surely just an attempt to make the scheme sound less unacceptable, in case there are any critical debates during Conference.

According to the Beeb, Home Office Minister and former IT consultant Liam Byrne told a fringe meeting that he has undertaken a full-scale review of the controversial scheme in recent months. He said he was wary of taking a "big bang" approach. Which is what everyone else in the industry has been saying for ages.

"There are opportunities which give me optimism to think that actually there is a way of exploiting systems already in place in a way which brings down the costs quite substantially," Byrne said. He was speaking after Roger Smith, director of human rights group Justice, urged the government to use the current "lull" in the project to scale down the plans.

Was Liam Byrne speaking for himself or for the Home Office when he added:

"Ultimately, in today's world, unless we can prove to a sceptical public informed by a 24 hour news cycle that we have got those checks [on the security of the system] in place then people won't use it and its purpose will be undermined."

Anti-Establishment 'Blog TV'

Tuesday 10 October will be a big day for political reporting, traditional TV and the blog world as 18DoughtyStreet Talk TV – Britain’s first political Internet TV channel – is launched. Fronted by two of Britain’s most successful bloggers, Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome.com and the omnipresent Iain Dale, it will (as I see it) be to mainstream TV what blogs are to the print media. 18DoughtyStreet will broadcast four hours a night, Monday to Thursday.

"From our little house in London's Doughty Street we want to challenge the biases of big media, the tendency of some big businesses to act against the public interest, the consensual nature of too much contemporary politics and the unaccountability of institutions like the EU and UN," writes Tim Montgomerie.

Stuff will go wrong, and the mainstream media will make the best of it, but 18DoughtyStreet will rattle cages and I believe will change the face of political reporting and debate just as blogs have shifted the emphasis of printed comment. We wish them well.

There are two party conferences between now and the launch, which will give the guys a chance of promotion to an audience who ought to be paying a lot of attention, and will give them plenty to chew on in the early days (especially if my prediction comes true!).

Will Blair Resign Next Week?

Well, really! I go on holiday for a couple of weeks* and come back to find the ceasefire in the Downing Street civil war has failed and everyone is briefing against everyone else again. As the NuLab Conference approaches the insults have become muffled, but there's plenty of jostling for position and some dodgy-sounding briefing.

No 10 has announced a series of 'policy reviews' to try to ensure Blairism lasts for ever, just when everyone thought he was on the way out. The announcement came after the 'failed coup' which Gordon claims he knew nothing about. Gordon says – perhaps though gritted teeth – that Blair is his friend. Hoon says Blair must go sooner rather than later: "Labour could be in a very bad place at the next general election if Tony Blair does not quit as leader by May". Milburn (who left in 2003 to spend more time with his family) has given a wide ranging PM-candidate type speech containing all sorts of off message proposals including local income tax and proportional representation for Westminster elections. Hewitt says the public should be able to vote for the next Labour leader, with contenders taking part in a series of debates; presumably we would vote in the manner of Strictly Come Dancing, with a jolly chap like Graham Norton announcing the phone numbers and the eliminated contenders.

But what of the man himself? One thing is certain: he'll jump, he won't be pushed. So he has to make an announcement. If he names the day, countdown clocks will be set up everywhere, and any public appearance, especially in the Commons, would be laughable. If he doesn't name the day, the jostling and briefing and back-stabbing will continue, and even he ought to be able to see that that's no good for his party and his all-important legacy. Everyone knows he'll go before the local and other elections next May.

Blair loves the big surprise announcement, the gasp from the crowd, the adulation. The cameras will be there next Tuesday, the commentators ready to pick at every word of his speech. It could be the perfect moment to say "I resign". Wrapped up in a lot of mumbo jumbo, of course.

[* Yes, I know it's been a lot longer than a couple of weeks since I blogged, but the trouble with going away is the heap of work and email that builds up for when you come back.]