James Forsyth

Today’s papers contain two stories that will make you laugh. First, there’s the news that Damain McBride is on a shortlist of three for the job of "Business and Community Manager" at his old school, Finchley Catholic High School. The Sunday Telegraph reports that the salary for the post is £22,000 a year. The fact that this news is coming out now suggests that McBride and Downing Street are rattled by all the Westminster chatter that McBride is still offering advice to Brown and his allies. As soon as McBride has a new job, it will be much easier to deny that charge. Then, there is the Sunday Telegraph’s story that the Prime Minister is going to appear on Songs of Praise to talk about, yes you guessed it, courage.

The Gordon Brown interview in The Guardian is revealing about the man. As Fraser noted earlier, Brown takes the opportunity of the interview to lie again about his spending plans. He also does the classic Brown trick of saying he won’t use his children for political gain even as he has them come in and play as he is interviewed. He seems oblivious to this clear double-talk. Brown’s response to the question of whether he knew about Damian McBride’s habit of sending journalists abusive texts is comic: "I didn't know that. I didn't know that. It's not what I do. Anyway, I don't text. But when that behaviour was discovered: out! Gone! Away! No longer working for me. And I think if you look at the people who work in our office ...

The BBC is reporting that Scotland Yard will investigate some MPs and Peers over their abuses of the expenses system. The Met is refusing to say who is under investigation but the BBC says that it “understands Labour MPs David Chaytor and Elliot Morley are among those under scrutiny” and “that Parliamentary standards inquiries into Mr Chaytor and Mr Morley are on hold while the police continue to consider their cases.” The BBC also thinks that Baroness Uddin may face questions. It appears that the investigation will be narrowly focused, concentrating on the most egregious cases: any MP who is seriously investigated will already have had their political career effectively ended by the revelations entering the public domain.

One of the few arguments Peter Mandelson is reported to have lost since returning to British politics, is how to present the argument about cuts. Mandelson was, apparently, in favour of making cuts and then claiming that any further cuts would endanger front-line services. This would have gone some way to acknowledging the fiscal reality but still enabled Labour to claim that public services are only safe in its hands.  According to Politics Home’s Insiders survey—a politically balanced panel split between MPs, journalists and wonks—nearly everyone in Westminster seems to agree with Mandelson’s analysis not Balls and Brown’s. Now of course, the Westminster Village can often get it very wrong.

When Michael Martin announced that he was stepping down as Speaker, there was a general feeling that the House needed a substantial figure to step into the job, someone who could command the respect of the House and—just as importantly—the country. Well, it looks increasingly like we are going to get Margaret Beckett. Beckett is not the worst outcome of Monday’s Speakership election though. That would be John Bercow. Bercow has virtually no support on the Tory side and is being pushed forward by Labour MPs who rather like the idea of having a Tory Speaker who is disliked intensely by the Tories. But as Gary Gibbon reports, wiser heads are seeing the problem with this and an anti-Bercow bandwagon is beginning to roll of which Beckett is the most likely beneficiary.

The New York Times’ excellent Iran blog flags up the fact that the Iranian government are now clamping down on reporters: “Iranian authorities are restricting all journalists working for foreign media from firsthand reporting on the streets. The rules cover all journalists, including Iranians working for foreign media. It blocks images and eyewitness descriptions of the protests and violence that has followed last week’s disputed elections. The order issued Tuesday limits journalists for foreign media to work only from their offices, conducting telephone interviews and monitoring official sources such as state television.” This is, obviously, not a surprising move.

The New York Times is running an excellent rolling news blog on the situation in Iran; I’d recommend it to everyone. Interestingly, Moussavi—the defeated candidate—is saying he would accept a re-vote: ‘In his first public appearance since the elections three days ago, Mir Hussein Moussavi, the defeated presidential candidate, told supporters at the rally in Tehran on Monday that he would take part if new elections were called. “The vote of the people is more important than Moussavi or any other person,” he said' The blog also reports that Press TV, the state-backed news channel, is saying that Moussavi’s rally against the announced results drew “hundreds of thousands of people”.

Peter Mandelson dominates the Sunday newspaper; it seems that everyone has a long profile of him. But the best anecdote is in Jonathan Oliver’s Sunday Times piece:  One aide recalls the recent humiliation of a junior member of the cabinet: “We were called into Mandelson’s huge office. Peter said to my minister, ‘You look dreadful, poppet, take one of these’. Peter produced a bottle of painkillers and gave [the minister] two pills. He meekly swallowed them with a glass of water provided by Peter. It was all about asserting psychological control.

Frank Field is right that the new Speaker must be able to “command support amongst all the parties here at Westminster, including their own.” Field, who would make a fine Speaker, is right that it would be inappropriate for him to run unless he can gain considerable Labour support over the next couple of days. One hopes that John Bercow, whose Tory support is minimal, comes to the same, statesman-like conclusion.  If he gets the job thanks almost entirely to Labour voters he will be ineffective. As Field says: “It is important that our election of Speaker is seen to be one that is not driven by party advantage.