Uk politics

On 27 March 1963, ‘The Reshaping of British Railways’ was published. Better known as the Beeching Report, the paper was a seminal moment for Britain in the twentieth century. Dr Beeching’s report (and subsequent axe) recommended the closure of 5,000 miles of tracks and 2,363 stations, with 67,000 jobs lost. Most of Beeching’s initial suggestions were eventually implemented and our railways were changed forever. Beeching is still a controversial figure. The trade unions, then and now, paint him as a mad axeman who destroyed a noble institution and the livelihoods of thousands of railway men. No wonder one ‘Dr B. Ching’ is still lampooned in Private Eye every week. But serious reforms were needed.

David Miliband is quitting the House of Commons to go and work for the International Rescue Committee in the United States, the Daily Mirror has revealed this evening. Friends of both Miliband brothers have long thought that David, who expected to win the Labour leadership contest in 2010, was not really prepared to serve under Ed. David’s departure confirms that. I also suspect, as John Rentoul points out, that David had realised that he was never going to be Labour leader. Ed Miliband’s position is so secure that it is pretty much a certainty that he’ll lead Labour into the election. It was also always highly unlikely that Labour would replace one Miliband with another.

David Cameron has just delivered his end of term address to the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers. The Prime Minister made little news apart from going out of his way to praise Maria Hutchings, making clear he had no truck with efforts to blame her for the party’s poor performance in the Eastleigh by-election. He stuck to the same messages that he had when addressing the parliamentary party the other week, one backbencher left complaining ‘we’ve heard it all before.’ But what should cause some concern Number 10 is how few MPs turned up to hear the Prime Minister. The audience was estimated at between 80 and 100, less than a third of the parliamentary party.

I’ve just watched the Boris interview with Eddie Mair and I have to say, these dogs won’t hunt. Mair threw three accusations at Johnson and I think all three of them are dealable with. The first was an allegation that Boris had made up a quote, something that he lost his job at The Times for. Now, I suspect that anything in which Boris can claim the defence that he had only moved something from ‘before Piers Gaveston’s death’ to after it isn’t going to end a political career. Also considering that Boris rose to journalistic prominence after this incident, it is hard to claim that it is disqualifying. The second was about his affair with Petronella Wyatt. Again, I don’t think this is career ending stuff.

Ed Miliband’s interview with The Times today is striking for the language he uses about the Liberal Democrats. There’s no attempt to follow up last week’s Clegg, Miliband outflanking of Cameron with a love bombing of the deputy Prime Minister. Instead, there’s an emphasis that it would be ‘very difficult to work in a future Labour government with somebody who has taken the opposite position in a Tory government’. There are no warm words for Vince Cable either: “He flirts with the right position but doesn’t consummate it." I think this reveals two things. First, Miliband knows that the coalition is surprisingly solid; it is not going to collapse anytime soon whatever the differences over press regulation.

On Monday, Parliament will decide the future of blogging in this country. As the government's press regulation proposals stand, blogs big and small would come under the new press regulator. This would make bloggers liable for significant compensation sums (aka exemplary damages), fees for joining the regulator as an ‘associated member’ (newspapers join as full members) as well as for increased legal costs. While the proposals could send bloggers rogue, to host their sites abroad and out of Parliament's jurisdiction, others who can’t face the hassle may decide to close down. The problem stems from Leveson’s lack of concern for (or understanding of) the Internet. His report devoted just one page to the Internet.