Labour party

The Henley by-election result is striking: John Howell (Cons) 19,796Stephen Kearney's (Lib Dem) 9,680Mark Stevenson (Green) 1,321Timothy Rait (BNP) 1,243Richard McKenzie (Lab) 1,066Chris Adams (UKIP) 843 Admittedly, Labour didn't run much of a campaign (and would like to have avoided even contesting the seat if they'd been able to) while the Lib Dems pressed them hard. But still... 3% of the vote? If John Major's Tories had endured such a result, even in a Labour stronghold, you can imagine that the BBC would be full of chatter about how much longer Major could last and whether, in fact, the game wasn't already up. Today? not so much... And of course, it is for Brown. As the Telegraph reports, Brown has become an out of control sea anchor that risks sinking the entire government.

Danny Finklestein reports: Politely talking to one Labour member,  while in the presence of a member of the Shadow Cabinet, I asked him gently to what he thought we owed Labour's decline in the polls. Instead of giving an involved explanation he replied: "Oh that's easy to explain. Our Leader is utterly useless. If you asked him which of the two doors from this room he was going to exit from he would be incapable of choosing. And if someone else chose the door for him he wouldn't be able to make his way there" Well, yes. Once a party starts to unravel, there ain't anything anyone can do to stop it. Certainly, there's not much Gordon can do to rally the troops, calm nerves, plot a new course etc etc.

How can you tell if David Davis is right? Easy! As Mr Eugenides says, just look at these reactions:: JACQUI SMITH, HOME SECRETARY Faced with a crucial decision on the safety and protection of the British public, the Conservatives have collapsed into total disarray on what is their first big policy test since they have come under greater scrutiny. David Cameron must come clean on what has really happened and why David Davis has really resigned. DAVID BLUNKETT, FORMER HOME SECRETARY David Davis's behaviour is a pure piece of political theatre, even more bizarre than John Major resigning as leader of the Tory Party in order to stand again against his own colleagues. This is childish and immature and it is not worthy of a major political party to engage in such theatre.

The government's proposals for incarcerating suspects for up to 42 days before being required, however inconveniently, to produce a charge are, naturally, appalling. How can you be so sure? Well, they must be: 65% of the public supports them. In other poll news, ICM puts the Tories on 42%, Labour 26% and the Liberal Democrats on 21%. This is extraordinary: how can one in five Britons be prepared to vote for the Lib Dems?

I suspect that MPs are sufficiently craven - and willing to put the government's political prospects ahead of any petty concerns about principle or, god help us, justice - that they will endorse the government's appalling proposal that terrorist suspects can be held for up to 42 days before the state need produce a charge. In a better, more sensible world, all MPs would read John Major's article in The Times yesterday. For good measure Major, who of course survived an IRA assassination attempt himself (a mortar attack on Downing Street that blew in the windows during a cabinet meeting), decries the illiberality of the government's ID card proposals and (in England) its determination to have everyone's DNA held on a government database.

Even the Cabinet is demob happy... Adam Bouton reports: I was taken aback this week to hear that one senior member of the Cabinet is cheerfully telling colleagues that he has been over-promoted but intends "to enjoy it while it lasts".James Forsyth asks whom could it be? Is Des Browne sufficiently self-aware (and cheerful) to be the one?Of course, the country rather takes the view that the Prime Minister himself has been over-promoted...

I waited until to check that it wasn't actually April 2nd today, before posting this. It's no great surprise to see a piece in the Telegraph begin:Politics is about both measures and men. Labour is over-obsessing about one man instead of asking whether our measures make sense. Any prime minister in office today would feel the voters' anger as they see their cherished plans to spend their own money as they see fit destroyed by rising prices combined with the insatiable greed of the state in all its manifestations to take the people's money for its own, often incompetent and counter-productive ends.But it's rather more surprising to see that the author is Denis MacShane, Labour MP for Rotherham. Now, it only the Tories could learn from the pugnacious Mr MacShane...

Via Samizdata, this seems to be a quite appalling story. The Guardian reports that:A masters student researching terrorist tactics who was arrested and detained for six days after his university informed police about al-Qaida-related material he downloaded has spoken of the "psychological torture" he endured in custody.Despite his Nottingham University supervisors insisting the materials were directly relevant to his research, Rizwaan Sabir, 22, was held for nearly a week under the Terrorism Act, accused of downloading the materials for illegal use. The student had obtained a copy of the al-Qaida training manual from a US government website for his research into terrorist tactics.

I wasn't quite sure what to say about this. This being the Scottish Labour party's latest attempt to finesse their position on the matter of an independence referendum.

A reader has chided me for failing to publish more political comment lately. But what more - despite the acres of newsprint devoted to the matter - has there been to say about the Obama-Clinton match-up that was not said six weeks ago? Precious little. She still can't win; her continuing campaign makes Obama's job in November more difficult. Meanwhile, in Scotland Wendy Alexander, the pocket-sized Scottish Labour leader, announces that she's fed-up with Alex Salmond winning all the headlines month after month and, consequently, says she's quite happy to have a referendum on independence after all. This, despite constant assertions that it was the last thing the country wanted or needed. In London, this has been interpreted as a humiliating blow to Gordon Brown.

A delicious column by Rachel Sylvester in today's Telegraph. Some choice highlights: There is a "sulphurous mood" on the Labour benches. Disillusioned Left-wingers, who campaigned for Mr Brown to become leader, are joining forces with triumphant Blairites who say: "I told you so." Even Tony Lloyd, the chairman of the PLP, warned yesterday that the Government needed to "clarify what it's there for". Ministers are losing the habit of discipline too. Last week, Ivan Lewis, a health minister, warned that Labour was "losing touch" with hard-working families, then Gerry Sutcliffe, the licensing minister, attacked the tax rises on booze. Behind the scenes, things are even worse. With no clear direction from above, Cabinet ministers are at each other's throats.

If you doubted that Gordon Brown's government is already exhausted, consider the nonsense being peddled by Stephen Carter, the former PR supremo brought in to salvage something - anything! - for Gordon. From Iain Martin's column today: A couple of takes on Carter's actions are being briefed: either a justified clear-out of the team that brought you the election-that-never-was, or another example of outside experts misunderstanding tribal Labour. Probably, it is a bit both. What is clear is that on Tuesday, in scenes redolent of The Office and David Brent, Carter divided up the Cabinet into "break-away" groups of six or seven, where they were given problems to solve - such as how the next election might be won. They then had to report back to Brown and Carter.

This could be the most risible thing one's seen yet from this risible government: The Labour Party has accused the BBC of bias towards the Tories. An official complaint has been lodged, claiming Radio 4's Today programme has given David Cameron an easy ride in recent interviews. A senior party official accused the broadcaster of coming to a "special arrangement" with the Conservatives to avoid any "difficult questioning" of the Tory leader. But it's also further evidence of something else: Brown's goose is cooked. This is the sort of desperate floundering you associate with governments in their final, failing days. It's not the action of a ministry bursting with important new ideas. This sort of thing has a very 1996 sort of flavour doesn't it?

Further to this and this, I see, thanks to Mr Worstall, that no fewer than 72 Members of Parliament have put their name to this Early Day Motion: EDM 982 FIDEL CASTRO 20.02.