Congratulations to Nick Clegg

My position in the party kept me from expressing a leadership preference, but as we're now past it I can say I'm delighted Nick won. He's a brilliant communicator, and a guy who really cares about people. Congrats also to Chris Huhne, he impressed me immensely, and Nick should learn from the boldness he showed during the contest, reporting the Labour Party to the police was a particular highlight.

We simply have to move forward now, and we will only do so by locating what my mate Tony calls testicular fortitude. Its also worth knowing that Nick is the one guy the Tories didn't want to lead us, which must count in his favour!

So, congratulations to Nick, we all look forward to working with you.

Oh, and here is a message from the man himself.

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PC Madness

Radio 1's  decision to edit "Fairytale of New York" to remove the word 'faggot' is amazingly stupid twice over.

Firstly, its absurd that a song that has been enjoyed by us all for 15 years could suddenly start offending people, and secondly it gives the Daily Mail another reason to rant at the "PC Brigade", who really don't care about this at all. The Gay Rights lobby, as far as I can tell, have never objected to the song, and are not doing so now.

So the BBC have just given the Mail another reason to rant about the world, and this just makes it more difficult for us to have a reasonable debate when things pop up that potentially are offensive and need to be dealt with.

Or it could be a PR stunt, and here I am helping it. Figures.

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Does Northern Rock now have an illegal advantage?

The Bank of England today extended their support of Northern Rock to guarantee money lent to them by other banks. This follows an initial liquidly loan, which started the saga, and the decision to guarantee the money held by savers.

The first two actions are understandable, but the latest move raises serious questions. Banks lend money to other banks every day, but the crunch in the US market has made them reluctant to do this, as the risk is higher than it was in the past.

However, we now have one UK bank (Northern Rock) who other banks can lend to with absolutly zero risk. Does this not give Northern Rock an unfair competitive advantage. If I were a CEO of any other bank struggling to borrow money at the moment, or paying above-average rates, I'd want the BOE to be guaranteeing my loans as well.

This comes on top of the news that the Government's support for The Rock cannot extend beyond six months, which means this has to be sorted one way or another very soon. A decade of economic competence?

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Your Northern Rock Liability today

Following the latest moves by the bank of England, every taxpayer in the country now has an estimated personal exposure of £2500. 

They're just nationalising it using the most expensive method possible, typical Labour, spin more important that substance. 

Is sleaze in the eye of the beholder?

I see John Major was on Andrew Marr this morning with perhaps the most delayed repost in history. His point, that Labour are now mired in sleaze in the same way the Tories used to be, is open for debate. It does raise the question however of whether "sleaze" exists in any institutional sense, or if it only emerges when the public's tolerance for a particular party is running low.

If the Bernie Ecclestone scandal happened now, would it be a bigger deal than in 1997? I suspect so. This doesn't bode well for Brown, who will probably now think he's in a pretty unfair position. He didn't lose the child benefit data, and there probably isn't anything he could have done to stop it. Things go wrong and the problem with being a politician in charge is that you're responsible for things you never had any control over. Combine that with the public's lack of patience with the Labour party, and it all starts to build rather ominously.

If only the Tories had a proper leader, they'd be off and away.