Uk politics

Today's Mac cartoon in the Daily Mail is, for me, a cut out and keep. It epitomises everything that has gone wrong with policing in Britain - a copper running past thieves to nick an old lady who has wrongly parked. And it touches on a wider theme: this is why regard for the police has fallen in the last dozen years. Their priorities seem to have switched from those of the public to those of the bureaucratic elite. This impression is, of course, deeply damaging and will be tough for the Tories to reverse. The plan for directly elected police chiefs, and Nick Herbert's seminal work on the subject, did seem to make sense to me. But not much has been said about it since. The Tories are, of course, in two minds about it.

John Rentoul rightly flags up the story in this morning’s FT that about 100,000 NHS patients have gone private and had the state pick up the tab, the private hospitals have had to agree to do the work at the NHS price. For those of us who would like to see the NHS move towards a model where the state pays for healthcare but it is provided by a whole panoply of providers, this is an encouraging step. This kind of consumer-focused reform is hard to reverse. The story, as John notes, hasn’t got as much coverage as it should. John blames this on the press’s lack of interest in policy stories. But it is also the case that the Brown government, which is currently slowing down if not reversing Blair’s NHS reforms, hasn’t chosen to trumpet this story.

The wheels seem to have come off Tony Blair’s EU presidency campaign and no doubt there is much genuflection and soul-searching in Connaught Square. The Director of the Centre for European Reform, Charles Grant, gives an intriguing explanation at Comment is Free: ‘Yet it may be the Conservatives who spike Blair's chances of getting the job. William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, has told the other EU governments that the Conservatives would see support for a Blair presidency as a "hostile act". A week ago, Blair was the clear favourite, with the likely support of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, plus several of the smaller countries. But on my travels around Europe last week, I have found that Hague's comments have made a huge impact.

A Channel Four News You Gov poll suggests that an overwhelming 84 percent of the public think that the war in Afghanistan is being lost and that British troops specifically are not winning in Helmand. Just because a large majority think that British troops are losing the fight does not mean that the public are not behind the forces’ efforts, but it is hardly a ringing endorsement and British servicemen deserve support. But, this poll should send a clear message to the cross-party consensus in this country and Nato leadership that the current ill-defined strategy is failing.