James Forsyth

Fraser and I were having supper with some political folk last night when the expenses story broke. After everyone had digested the Telegraph’s write-up, conversation turned to the Tories: were their claims to be going to worse or not? In truth, I don’t think that matters. There are only three members of the shadow Cabinet who have anything approaching national name recognition: Cameron, Hague and Osborne. Labour, by virtue of being in government for more than a decade, has far more politicians who the country os aware of.  As long as the Tories the country knows haven’t made any outrageous claims then this story will hurt Labour more than it does the Tories.

I suspect that the story about Brown paying his brother £6,000 for cleaning services could be as damaging to the Prime Minister outside the Westminster Village as the McBride story was to him inside. One of the few remaining things Brown had going for him was the idea that whatever you thought of him he didn’t appear to be a politician on the make and on the take. Headlines about paying his brother £6,000 for cleaning blow away the image of him as a frugal Son of the Manse. It makes him appear just as bad as the rest of them. To be fair, the detail of the story is less bad than the headline. But it is the headline that will stick in folks’ minds.

As Pete said earlier, the question of how Brown gets out of this Post Office mess is fascinating. On the one hand he has the 150 plus Labour MPs who have signed an early day motion against the plan—and you can add to that number a fair few MPs who are trying to fly below the whips’ radar—and the unions, on the other he has Peter Mandelson who has turned this into a test of his and the government’s authority. There is, though, one obvious way out for Brown. There’s no date yet for the legislation to come before the House but most observers expect it to do so after June 4th. In other words, after the European and local elections and the expected reshuffle.

Pete has already flagged up Rachel Sylvester’s column, but there’s one line in it about the Gurkhas that particularly caught my attention: “I am told that ministers agreed in a Cabinet sub-committee that the issue should be resolved, but they were overruled by No10.” On Friday, there was a huge blame game going on about who was responsible for the Government getting itself into such a predictable political and presentational mess. Some briefed that it was Jacqui Smith’s fault because her department was in charge of the legislation, others said Darling and the Treasury were to blame because they had said it was too expensive, and there was whispering that John Hutton should, as Defence Secretary, have pushed far harder.

Today’s Times reports that Peter Mandelson and Ed Balls will head up a weekly strategy meeting in Downing Street. This along with the fall of McBride presumably means the end of the infamous Wednesday meetings. These Wednesday meetings summed up what so many people inside the Labour party disliked about Brown and his way of doing politics. Jackie Ashley has a telling anecdote in her column today about how strongly those who had advised Blair disliked the Wednesday meetings and all that they represented: “A few weeks ago, I'm told, he called in Alastair Campbell, Philip Gould and Peter Mandelson for a Tuesday strategy summit. But they found out about another summit, the following day, with Damian McBride, Charlie Whelan and co.

The Telegraph has a front page story which guarantees that the Labour leadership speculation will continue for a while yet. It reports that Harriet Harman’s “friends have told The Daily Telegraph that Miss Harman will not stand aside in favour of a rival considered more appealing to voters” if there is a contest. In anything but the shortest of terms this is good news for Gordon Brown. What would serve Labour best is to do what the Tories did with Michael Howard: bring in an experienced pro as leader following a resignation and without contest on the understanding that they will only stay through the election and the leadership contest that follows. It remains highly unlikely that Brown will resign. The Cabinet could, though, try and force him out.

Ed Balls faces his own trio of troubles this Sunday. First, there’s Charles Clarke’s not so coded call for him to resign. Then, there is the overwhelming decision by the National Association of Head Teachers to boycott Sats for 11 year-olds despite a personal appeal from Balls not to just before the vote at their conference. Finally, and most worryingly for him, there’s the ongoing row about whether he and his junior minister Jim Knight have been straight with the Commons about last summer’s Sats disaster.

Three themes dominate the political coverage in The Sunday papers and demonstrate just how big a hole Brown is in. There are another slew of expenses stories, according to Labour’s internal polling this is the most important issue in driving its former supporters away. To go with the expenses stories, there is an excess story: the News of the World reports that David Miliband wants a private jet permanently on call to take him round the world on official business, not very age of austerity. Then, there are tales of Brown’s temper. The Mail on Sunday claims that Peter Mandelson had to calm Brown down in between TV interviews on Thursday after the expenses votes. Finally, there is speculation about a leadership challenge to Brown.