Politics

If I were Barroso, I would pick a huge, fake fight with Gordon Brown before the EU constitution, sorry, treaty is signed. His plea today that Britain should not be “closed to Europe” is what the PM needs. The two have to pretend to be at loggerheads, let the press write up a split, then a “bulldog Brown triumphant” headline at the end. Brown’s problem is that he’s already claimed his so-called “red lines” have been met. So how can he claim they are suddenly under threat again? We’ll see.

When it looked like there was going to be an autumn election, Ming Campbell’s position was safe for the simple reason that there wasn’t time to replace him. But now with no election likely until 2009, the Lib Dems have time to pick a new leadership team and bed them in before the next election. The Lib Dem’s poll ratings are barely in double figures and it is hard to imagine that they would do any worse with a new leader and the murmurings against Ming are starting to become more public. But this quote that a senior Lib Dem frontbencher gave to Andrew Pierce is particularly brutal:  “Time is up.

Do read Mark Mardell’s piece on Gordon Brown’s meeting with Jose Manuel Barroso. Particularly interesting, is his account of Brown’s European vision. “I’m told he argues that there are three phases in the European Union project to create stability on the continent. The first was establishing democracy and prosperity after the war. The second was reuniting Europe after the iron curtain came down. But the third phase has only just started. That is to engage Muslims within Europe, both within existing borders, but also by making welcoming noises to Turkey, Albania and depending what happens there, Kosovo.” As Mardell points out, this means that Brown is on a collision course

One of the many things that undermined John Major’s authority was the idea, first put about by Alastair Campbell, that the PM tucked his shirt into his underpants. Now, it looks like the same is being done to Ming Campbell. Here’s Kevin Maguire in this week’s New Statesman:  “Does Ming the Merciless wear sock garters? I ask only because a colleague swears he saw a clip hanging out of the bottom of the Edwardian gentleman’s trouser leg.” Let’s see if this story has legs, so to speak.

Has David Cameron rope-a-doped Gordon Brown? “Rope-a-dope” was the phrase coined by Muhammad Ali to describe the strategy he used to achieve his famous victory over George Foreman in the 1974 World Heavyweight Boxing Championship. In essence, it involved lying back against the ropes during the first six rounds of the fight and allowing Foreman to punch himself out before launching a ruthless counter-attack in the eighth round that culminated in a knock-out punch. There’s certainly a striking similarity between the Rumble in the Jungle and the battle between Brown and Cameron. Foreman was an old-fashioned heavyweight, relying on his punching power and methodical cunning to win his fights, while

By Fraser Nelson Pennies are dropping in the city about the inheritance tax con. Here is Nigel May at MacIntyre Hudson:  “The Chancellor has done some wonderful arithmetic here by adding together two allowances that already exist, and passing it off as doubling the allowance.  Any married couple receiving advice about reducing their inheritance tax bill would have been able to use both allowances by either passing on assets or using a nil-rate discretionary trust on the death of the first spouse.” Does the Treasury really believe it’s worth this, just to fool the TV news for a few hours? Truly pathetic.