James Forsyth

There is a fascinating little dance going on between Peter Hain and Brown Central. As soon as the CPS decided they weren’t going to charge him, Hain was telling Sky News that "I only left government to clear this up, and would like to return, but that is a matter for the Prime Minister." Brown repaid the compliment with his political spokesman saying, “We obviously welcome the fact that Peter Hain has been cleared in this matter. Peter has been a great servant of the Labour party and has much to offer in the future.” Now, you could see this as merely an exchange of pleasantries. But as Andrew Sparrow notes Brown’s comments are sufficiently warm to imply that he will bring Hain back in some capacity or other.

At the moment, David Davis would probably rather be arrested than return to the shadow cabinet. But the prospect of Davis being asked to come back to the top table looks more likely now than at any point since his spectacular resignation in June. Davis could well be back in his old job after a reshuffle in the New Year. The Damian Green affair has reminded the Tory leadership how much they miss someone with Davis’ hunting skills. Dominic Grieve was impressive in the Commons yesterday but he has failed to cut through in the media. He was outperformed on Newsnight the other night by Chris Huhne which is rather like being the second tallest mountain in Holland. He also seems to lack Davis’ instinct for where the government might be most vulnerable.

It is hard to disagree with Martin Kettle’s assertion that Peter Mandelson is the “most interesting” figure in British politics right now. Since his return from Brussels, Mandelson has had a key role to play in every major political story and has revelled in the quite extraordinary amount of coverage he has received. As Kettle—who interviewed Mandelson for an hour or so at Saturday’s Progress conference—notes, Mandelson is now a far more intellectually confident figure than he was in 1997. Much of Mandelson’s success has stemmed from the fact that the Tories are so intimidated by him; they talk about him in hushed tones. They are convinced that everything Mandelson does must have some hidden genius to it.

Michael Martin came close to apologising to the House when he said that he “regrets” that police entered Parliament and searched Damian Green’s office without a warrant. Tory grandees including Michael Howard and Iain Duncan Smith pressed the Prime Minister on whether he too regretted that all this had happened without a warrant. Brown was left looking rather lonely as he repeated his pre-packaged line that he respects the police’s operational independence. It’ll be interesting to see if Jacqui Smith will go further than this when she addresses the Commons tomorrow.

Over at Three Line Whip, Jame Kirkup muses whether Peter Mandelson has taken a vow never to give a dull interview. Certainly, from a hack’s point of view, Mandelson makes for great copy. But it is Mandelson who is getting the most out of this relationship at the moment. I suspect that Mandelson realised he was going to be covered in exhaustive detail on his return whether he liked it or not. His skill has been to turn this coverage to his advantage by using the press’s fascination with him to get his message across.

For any CoffeeHouser trying to understand the relationship between Lashkar-e-Taiba—the group that are believed to have been responsible for the Mumbia atrocities—and the Pakistani government, I’d thoroughly recommend Steve Coll’s post over at The New Yorker. This section seems to sum it up: “On the one hand, the group’s bank accounts remain unmolested by the Pakistani government, which gives Lashkar quite a lot of running room; on the other, the group resents the accommodations reached between Pakistan’s government and the United States. Clearly, Lashkar knows what it must do to protect the Pakistan government from being exposed in the violent operations that Lashkar runs in Kashmir and elsewhere.