Respect where it is due

This is Janet Anderson. She's an MP for an area in Lancashire called Rossendale and Darwen, or Darwen and Rossendale if you come from the town which is just one letter - but a whole world - away from anything to do with Darwin.

Anyway, asides about small Lancashire mill towns put to the edge, Mrs Anderson is arguably the best lesson any former minister, or indeed current minister, could seek to learn.

Up until 2001, she held reasonably senior posts in Government. She was a senior whip and then a tourism and film minister. Then, in 2001, she was dropped to the backbenches.

Had she done anything wrong? Not that anyone could see and, this week, Tony Blair confirmed that.

His speech has been scruntinised across the world but it fell to the pages of the Lancashire (once Evening) Telegraph for me to pick up on the bit where he paid tribute to former ministers:

"People like Janet Anderson, George Howarth, Mike Hall.
"Good Ministers, but I asked them to make way.
"They did.
"Without a word of bitterness.
"They never forgot their principles when in office; and they never discovered them when they left office."

And it's true. Janet did just that. She never stopped being a good constituency MP but she continued being a good constituency MP and certainly didn't suddenly become a darling of the media, the ones we in newsrooms call the rent-a-gobs.

Claire Short, David Blunkett, and now Charles Clarke. The ones who seem to believe that revenge is a dish best served cold. Ironically, Blunkett was the one wheeled out by Sky News to tell Clarke that former prime minister should keep their mouths shut.

And more recently, people like Geoff Hoon, demoted from MoD to Europe minister, suggested Blair should leave sooner.

And then there is Chris Bryant, the MP who never made it to a minister, possibly because he was seen as a wild card after appearing on a gay website in his undercrackers. He pretty much started the 'time to go Blair' thing the other week - and he's not actually been removed from any post!

So perhaps, as the euphoria of Blair's speech dies down, people will remember this part of the one-hour script, the bit which sung the praises of those who have just got on with the job. No plotting, no ranting, just doing the job within the party - just like they were voted to do.

With a bit of luck, such a namecheck, while leaving the likes of Mrs Anderson 'chuffed' will also serve to show others there are rewards for playing things by the book. Like public respect.

What's the opposite of a footnote? Footnotes normally go at the bottom of a page, or after the thing it's a footnote about. Obviously I can't do that on this blog, but here's a footnote to Monday's piece about news people REALLY want to read.

Here are the top five stories people are emailing on to friends from the BBC website:

Beijing's penis emporium
Mona Lisa pregnancy theory mooted
Dog starts car after eating chip
Thai generals ban go-go dancers
South Africa's deepening malaise

I'm sure Bob Geldof is delighted the problems of Africa fall behind strippers, a potato-loving dog, a bit of luvvie tittle tattle and, oh yes, the good old Beijing penises!

Conference crackers

THERE'S something rather odd about the Labour Party conference these days, and it's not just because this year it has strayed away from the seaside.

Where are the politicians? Other than the Labour Party's frontbench of course, marshaled as they are into position to give glowing applause to whoever is on the stage regardless of whether or not they'd urinate on them if they combusted in a House of Commons corridor.

I know at least half a dozen MPs who really can't be arsed going to Labour's Party Conference anymore. And before you ask, they all are in the Labour Party. I know of several constituency Labour groups which can't find delegates to go along. Not because they don't have any active members, but because none of them think it's worth the time.

I covered the 2003 Labour Party conference in Bournemouth. Lovely hotel (it had four windows overlooking the sea, three of which were in my 'family suite'/loft). Nice restaurants. Interesting group of people in the 'lobby' who I got to know. But what about the politics? Well, I seem to remember Alistair Campbell was in the headlines and under pressure for his role in the David Kelly affair, and a row broke out about pensions. But apart from that, well, nothing.

There were lots of 'fringe meetings' with organisations who were keen to be seen and heard at Labour Party conferences in the hope ministers would remember names in the future (which is why The Times's story last week about people paying to dine with ministers at fringe meetings is hardly a surprise, the metaphorical bungs had just gone corporate).

But to rank and file party members, they mean little. They know that they can attend all the meetings they want, but they won't really make a difference. There was a demand today for more to be spent building council homes - a solution to the 21st century first-time buyers crisis. The delegates voted 2 to 1 for action. Will it happen? No. The leadership opposed it and don't have to do anything if they don't want to. The leadership have stifled 40 attempts at a discussion on Trident.

So the conference has gone from being about 'conferring' with members, to simply being a showcase. How successful a showcase it is depends on how well the spin works. Tony Blair may well now get his legacy after what was a barmstormer masterclass of a speech. But what do members get out it? What do those rank and file members get out it, other than a temporary euphoria which disappears as soon as they're back in the real world. Or outside the security cordon.

It's also a showcase for the unions, charities, organisations and companies who want to get on the Government's good side. Take Ken Livingstone's fringe meeting about local government on Monday. First question, who did it come from? An MP? A councillor? A hardworking door knocker activist? No. It came from a suit representing the 'Institute of Town Planners.' Followed by a question from the Royal National Institute for the Blind. Honestly.

In Manchester last night, the suits were there in their hundreds. Buzzing off being at a conference. Pressing the flesh to get their quango/charity/organisation/company's view across. Loving the fact they're part of it.

Meanwhile, the ordinary member is left feeling disengaged from what is going on in their party. If they want a show, they go to the Palace Theatre and watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It's cheaper, more entertaining, and probably a lot less predictable than the three weeks of farce the political parties call 'conference season.'

And they wonder why many of us no longer think they're in the real world.

Mourning glory

Princess Diana must have done wonders for Interflora - and Britain hasn't looked back since.

Ever since that carpet of flowers engulfed much of central London almost nine years ago in a show of public grief for the 'people's princess' (one part of the legacy Tony Blair probably wants to forget now), bouquets have appeared at the scene of virtually every crime or tragic occurrence.

What ever happened to the British stiff upper lip? Are we now a nation which simply mourns on queue?

I lost count last season the number of times I spent the first minute of a football match standing for a minute's silence, more often that not for a player not even remotley connected to the two clubs involved. I'm sure at some clubs, bookings for a minute's silence now outstrip requests for children to be mascots.

Once upon a time, a death for a journalist meant going out and doing the so-called 'death knock.' That's where you have to try and pursuade the relatives of dead person/people to have a chat with you. Some journalists say they 'want to write a tribute' to get a foot in the door, others just mumble and look pathetic in the hope those in mourning will feel sympathy for them. Even better if it's raining on the doorstep.

You'd go back to the office, write it up, preferably with a picture from the family, and that was that. But it now seems to be common place to follow it up with a news story talking about how many flowers have been left at the scene of the death. Forget lawyers being ambulance chasers, why not have florists advertising on the back of 999 vehicles?

How exactly does the flower thing work? Do you see something on the TV news which upsets you and ring interflora and ask for the nearest florist to drop off a bouquet of flowers? What exactly does that achieve, other than creating a distraction for drivers, thus increasing the risk of further tragedy on the road.

And it's not true that flowers are only left by people who knew the deceased. In Liverpool, rumours started spreading that a body had been found in a park. It was a baby, the local gossip said. Flowers began piling up at the scene, all with cards expressing sympathy and grief at the tragedy. The Liverpool Echo the next day had got to the bottom of the story: it was a chicken carcus.

Take this tragic five-month-old who died after being savaged by dogs at the weekend. Outside the pub where she died is a three-foot teddy bear. Why? What purpose will that serve? To remind her parents of what they've lost? It seems to me like one-upmanship. S/he who leaves the most at the scene, cares the most.

Grief on cue. Then there was old Richard Hammond last week. Within hours of it breaking on the news, people were gathering outside his hospital in Leeds, waiting for news. Surely you only go to hospital to check up on someone if you actually know them, as opposed to recognising their face off the TV. Flowers soon were piling up outside the hospital. At one point, it felt as if people were going through the motions of mourning his death even though he hadn't actually died.

But thank God common sense prevailed. It had to, really, because of Jeremy Clarkson's involvement in this. People who like him don't suffer silly gestures for the sake of it.

Instead of token gestures, people rallied round and used their concern to good effect: raising money for the Yorkshire air ambulance. £150k in two days to pay for a new chopper. And what's more, it looks like 'Hamster' is going to be ok. Whether he'll get back into a 300mph car again is another matter (indeed, see tomorrow for more on this).

Perhaps after the Diana effect, we'll now get the Hammond effect - where some good acutally comes from concern instead of pointless bundles of bouquets, which are left to droop and rot.

And I'm pretty certain no-one deserves to have their last place on earth marked by few brown stems.

EVERY now and again, journalists get a wake-up call about what the game is all about.

Sometimes, it can make you rethink what you do for a living. Other times, it makes you want to cry and THEN rethink what you want to do with your life.

Two years ago, having worked really hard to get 'in' with a family who hadlost their 2-year-old in tragic, and as it turned out criminal, circumstances, I got a call from the newsdesk. "We need another story about the baby" I was told. I asked why the reply was: "Cos whenever his face is on the front page, it adds 2,000 to sales."

And there was me thinking that it was about exposing injustice and criminalnegligence! But now, thanks to the BBC (and the unique way it is funded) we can getthese lightning bolts every day. Just log on its news website and look at the 'most popular stories now'section, then click on the 'most emailed' bit.

It should be a good guide tothe stories which interest people, because you aren't going to email a boring one to a mate are you? So what do you reckon topped the most emailed list on Sunday - the day when Blair was refusing to back Brown, Richard Hammond's fans were raising £150k in his honour (more on that tomorrow), and a baby had been mauled to death in Leicester by a dog?

Well, it was none of those to start. It was: Beijing's penis emporium, followed by US Hypoallergenic cat goes on sale. Anyone know the way to the job centre?

Anyone feeling spooked?

AS a water-cooler talker goes, the return of Spooks was an absolute banker.

I was one of those people who got to the end of the first half of the two-parter, went and put the kettle on, and then watched part 2 on BBC 3.

Rather irritatingly, I couldn't see the third episode (shown on BBC 3 30 minutes after episode two was shown on BBC 1 on Monday - keep up!) because of work, so in the space of 24 hours I went from being one of the smug 'I won't tell you what happens next but it's good' brigade of digitalTVites to one of the 'don't tell me, I'm waiting til next weelk hands-over-ears plebs.

If you missed the first two - and they've both been shown twice now so you had your chance - the crux of the plot was this: MI6's bosses are in cahoots with corrupt ministers to create a real fear of terrorism to the point where the prime minister agrees to form an executive committee which bypasses parliaments and makes decisions without democracy. All in the name of protecting democracy from terrorism - which in turn is being inflicted by the state.

They could do all sorts - control the media (all the media, not just the Murdoch ones they influence now) and detain people without trial. Oh yeah, and the judicary were Government-appointed.(as opposed to married to it, eh Mrs Blair?)

In typical Spooks fashion, the world - or Britain at least - came darn close to being taken over by the corrupt few at the expense of the voting majority. But MI5 saved the day, in the end. And I bet I wasn't alone in thinking, just for a moment, that 'it couldn't happen here, could it?'

By my reckoning, the answer is no. The ministers in the programme quoted a fictional bill which made it possible for the PM to go from leader of the ruling party to dictator and the swish of a pen.

But then again, what's all this about John Reid wanting to stop court cases being over-turned on a technicality? Hmmm, when I read this I was suddenly back at Spooks.

I'm pretty sure John Reid doesn't want to take over the world (maybe just Labour for now) but removing the right to a case being quashed because the proper processes weren't followed is, to me, the start of a slippery slope.

Yes, it's frustrating when Nick 'Mr Loophole' Freeman gets celebrities off driving offences time and again because the police didn't follow proceedures to the letter - but who is to blame for that? The police, I'd say, for not doing their job properly.

And once you say to someone 'sorry, but we know that we didn't follow the rules to the letter, but you can't appeal anyway', where does it stop? Do we get two years down the line and find someone appealing that their conviction is unsafe because they were beaten up by police during interview, only to be told 'sorry, but we still think you're guilty?'

Or can MI5 suddenly start using torture, because they are confident that the court will still be confident of a would-be terrorists guilt? Going back to Spooks the other night, and I remember the line from one of the crooked politicans being 'As soon as allowed Guantanamo Bay, all bets were off' or words to that effect.

I sat through Spooks thinking to myself 'it'll never happen, people will protest too much from the start.' Now I thinking: Maybe, maybe not. Reality mirroring fiction? Quite possibly.

Treat them like dogs

Treat 'em like dogs. That appears to be the latest line from Government when it comes to kids. Send 'em to school for 50 hours a week and then they'll be knackered.

That's what you do with dogs, isn't it? Tire them out to the point that they'll just crash in the corner, guaranteed not to poo on the carpet or chew up the sofa.

In an instant, I reckon Alan Johnson has solved all the country's anti-social problems. Children come home from school with too much energy. That's why they maraude around at night, makin mischief, having under-age sex and trying to work out how to get a quick swig of Woodpecker cider.

Make the school day longer, even if it is just adding an after-school club for the teens to run around in for an hour or so, will ensure they just go upstairs and lock themselves in their rooms and go to sleep. Even staying up to get a sneaky peak of some pseudo-porn on Channel 5 will be too much for their sleepy eyelids.

Forget having to bury your poor primary school test results, Mr Johnson. The youngsters will live in fear of having to work even longer in future if they fail.

And why stop there? If they refuse to behave when out with their parents, they should be made to wear silly little checked coats.

What about healthy eating? Simple, serve it up in a bowl - on a table, not on the floor, that would be cruel - and if they at first refuse to eat it, just leave it. They'll get hungry eventually. And they'll know better than to leave it next time.

And if there's any chance they are about to disappear down to the shops to stock up on Crunchies, just stick a lead on them. The lead could also be handed to teachers to stop them getting to the school fence at lunchtime where naughty mums are selling chips through the railings in the name of 'choice.'

That's what kids should get. A Dog's life. In the truest sense of the word. And if they don't fit in, well, there's always a greyhound 'rehoming centre' nearby.

Survey of the week

A third of British female population prefer buying shoes to having sex, according to a new survey.

A survey by New Look, the shop which, among other things, shoes. Now fancy that!

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

The smoke from the chimneys of these terraced houses hangs in the air in the Stubbins Valley, right on the edge of Greater Manchester.

The Brilliance of Blair

My mum would kill me if she saw that headline on anything I'd written.

But, for the first time in recent memory, I actually had a positive conversation about Tony Blair will an office colleague this week. Honestly.

Why? Well, who couldn't help but be impressed with the way he took on the TUC on Tuesday and, in my opinion, won?

Trade unions do have a role in life. They are there to help people in the workplace. They aren't their own political parties and the world would be marginally more understandable if they kept to their original brief of looking after the workers.

Since when was Government foreign policy anything to do with the RMT? Can you imagine Bob Crow's mob running the war in Iraq?

Sgt Major: "Strike!"

Bob Crow: "Come on then lads, you heard what the man said. One out, all out."

If I was Tony Blair, I'd have not even mentioned foreign policy in my speech to the TUC. I'd have stuck to the success of the minimum wage. The fight to sort out pensions. Why Labour's changing the NHS.

But he didn't. He took them on, and won. So what if Commando Crow and his motley men walk out? They're not even in the Labour Party anymore. You have to be in it to influence it, to distory a Lottery phrase, Bob.

The speech itself was pretty ordinary. Usual scripted fodder. But it was adlib at the end which was at its best.

At the end of the speech, he went on, much to many's surprise: "However difficult it is, however fraught our relations from time to time, make no mistake - I want the TUC to go on being addressed by a Labour Prime Minister not to addressed again by a leader of the opposition."

All of a sudden, everything became clear. Labour needs to work together if it is to remain in office. Labour won in 1997 because the Tories were in disarray.

It took one sentence, that's all, for Tony Blair to put a lid on everything that has rumbled on for the last week or so. One sentence. And I'm naive enough to believe those spin doctors around him weren't too sure of what he was going to say.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The problem with Tony isn't Tony, it's his cronies who think they're protecting their man when, more often that not, they've hurt him.

Time for Tony to be the real Tony, even if that means not trying to be your 'regular kinda guy.'

Hero of the week

TWICE this week, I've been late to work because of Paul Crone.

For anyone not 'lucky' enough to live in the Granada ITV region, Paul Crone is the guy who does the 'and finally' segment on Granada Reports. You know, every local TV station has them. The one who goes to interview a dog which can do the weekly shop with a blindfold on, or does a bungee jump with a parrot that's just completed its 30th.

But Paul - or Cronie as he likes to be known - has gone one step further (and you'll see why that's an unintentional pun in a minute) by filling airtime at the end of Granda Reports with various charity activites. He raises a lot of money for the North West Air Ambulance, and that has to be commended - although I'd argue that airtime he uses for that would be better used leading a campaign to make the Government fund the air ambulance.

But if he wanted to use his fame to raise money, could he not just use the airtime to show some of the people who have benefitted from the charity he wants to raise money for? And if he really has his heart set on walking around the North West, does he really, really have to do it with a large van following him at around 5mph every step of the way.

Twice this week, at totally different points of my way to work, I've got stuck behind this van. I felt quite sorry for Paul the first time - he was high up in the hills and it was chucking down - there he was in shorts and a t-shirt. Why he needed a van full of people warm, dry, and causing tailbacks, I don't know.

The second time was on a very busy city dual carriageway. All the traffic was forced into one lane to overtake Paul. I'm prepared to hazard a guess that the big van with his picture on it wasn't his idea, more the idea of his sponsor or Granada. Cos corporate types love nowt more than being associated with charidee.

Which is why I dread going shopping on either Red Nose Day or Children In Need night, because work-shy sops in supermarkets take the opportunity to don a) a red nose or b) a Pudsey Bear costume and rattle a can under your nose while the shelves go unstacked, and quite possibly, families across the region go hungry. There's a case of Children In Need living up to its name!

My point is this, charity is supposed to begin at home. It is supposed to involve, in the case of Children In Need, picking up the phone and ringing an 0800 number and pledging, say, a tenner. You've know you've done it, no-one else need to. Like when the brown envelope comes round at work when someone's leaving. You put your money in - generous or as tight as you like - but you know you've done your bit. Then you have to come up with something witty for the card, but I digress.

Anyhow, charity, it appears, is no longer about helping people, but being seen to be helping people. Why else do Asda, Tescos and Sainsburys fight over the charities they want to support. Is it supposed to make us feel good when the queues are stretching back from the tills because the 18-year-old gromits on weekend duty keep botching up because they are more interested in who 'got off with who' down Jumpin' Jak's last night rather than running a checkout? Are we supposed to feel a warm, glowing sensation when the irritating woman on the areoplane tannoy wakes us up (having already done so to announce drinks, then food, then the film, then the £2.50 headphones, then the duty free, then the reminder about duty free) to ask if we have any loose change to help children in Africa? Are we heck - it's all about corporate types feeling good. In the case of the areoplanes - sod the fact their areoplanes are killing the planet, they're helping Variety Club kids have a holiday with our loose change!

What I'm getting at is that charity seems to have gone beyond helping people and for many is more about corporations feeling good about themselves. I think there is an element of attention-seeking among some too - any local newspaper journalist will tell you that. People who sit in bath-tubs of beans or have their legs waxed for charity and then want it in the paper that they've raise £30 for kids in Rwanda aren't doing it to raise the money. They want the attention. And they get it, sadly. Just think how much was spent on the beans to fill the bath tub, or the waxing products to remove Builder Bill's hairs.

At work, this week, I've had 15 emails from a charity organiser telling me about someone who is visiting every football club in England, telling me he has time to do interviews at each stop. So what?

But amid all this is a true hero. A woman who, despite fighting cancer herself, has raised £2million for charity. Not through quick 'look at me stunts.' Far from it. Nor has it been due to being tied up to some big corporation. Stand up, Jane Tomlinson.

She's done remarkable things for charity. She has just ridden across America. You'd be hard-pushed to know that though. Sure, she got some publicity, but she didn't hawk herself round asking for it. She got on with the task of raising the money and going through real pain - no lads, worse than a leg wax - to raise money for the cause. There was no picture-opportunity at every stop en-route. No live link-up to the studio. She got on with money, did a bit of publicity when people sought her out and, I think, Sky News did a one-hour show on her at the end of her race. And even then, her husband said she didn't want to do any more publicity.

That makes her a true hero in my book. A charity star. A woman who shows that charity really is about the giving, not the glory. A woman who gets on and does it - regardless of whether a single person is watching. And for as long as we have people like Jane Tomlinson, there is hope for us all.

Survey of the week: Slop

Guess what. A study of UK social networks has revealed the emergence of a new demographic – the Framily, this being a combination of our friends and family.

The Framily Findings Report – an in-depth study into British group behaviour during everyday life – has revealed that the boundaries between friends and family have blurred to such an extent that most Brits have a mixture of both in their core social support networks.

It goes on: "While traditionally, society rules that the family is the foundation of Brits’ everyday life, the study has uncovered that 16% of Brits’ spend just as much time with friends as family, and one in four spend more time with their friends than their blood relatives."

It added: "This is demonstrated by 67% of Brits saying that they consider their best friend to be a family member…while 54% reveal that their best friend is actually a sibling or cousin. And our families and friendships have become so intertwined that almost 60% of people today consider their parents a friend over and above their parent / guardian role.

The study of over 1000 - gosh, 1,000 - adults show that the new British Framily is the primary group of family and friends with whom you regularly share evening meals, with 15% cooking and eating main meals together more than five times a fortnight.

And it turns out that "Evening meals appear to be the centre of the Framily day and it is clear that for the Framily, sharing the day and social interaction is the most important thing on the menu. 96% of those questioned revealed that their Framily meals are about telling stories, talking about their day and having a laugh – not preparing or experiencing time intensive, sophisticated cuisine but instead simple, tasty and hearty meals. "

Now who could have asked for this survey? Let's see if this helps. "While 91% said that the Framily meal is eaten around the dining room table, the food needs to reflect the warmth and all embracing personality of the Framily with pasta and sauce (56%), lasagne (45%) and casserole or a stew (54%) being the top Framily meals.

Now we're getting to it. Now who would put a survey forward which creates a social group which primariy gets together to eat. Step forward. Dolmio. Just fancy that.

Jenni Trent Hughes, spokesperson on behalf of Dolmio, says that Framilies embrace all the best bits of a traditional family unit and by acknowledging and welcoming friends to join this unit enhances our lives and feelings of acceptance.

Bobbins. What she means is people live further away from families, work longer hours so don't have time to prepare meals from scratch so end up putting mince on the frying pan and putting on the slop they call Dolmio. What would Mamma say?

She goes on to say that Framilies bond best over dinner. Presumably even better over one which uses the Italian culinary world's answer to Ikea in a glass container.

Cue the expert, some chappie called Trent Hughes: “This new social trend embraces our family and friends – and brings them together in one big, happy Framily.”

But he adds that the framily will never replace the family.

Which brings us neatly to the following question: Why the bloody hell bother in the first place?

Bloggin' all over the world

IT appears I'm not alone. I'm not the only person who turned to blogging because they get bored on the train.

Sadly, I'm not as witty as girlonatrain but I try my best.

But seeing the girlonatrain blog did send me through several other blogs as well which I enjoyed and thought I would share.

There's also afreemaninpreston which I hope to one day understand.

And his site in turn took me to Call Centre Confidential which, once you get into it, is very amusing.

Proof, if it were needed, that even at the age of 26 I need to be gainfully employed at all times...

Click on it to see it in all its glory!

Bozza nonsense

Oh dear. Boris has gone and done it again. He's offended people, apparently.

Remember two years ago when, after Ken Bigley's death, he was suggested Liverpool enjoyed wallowing in grief? Fair dos, he was sent up to Merseyside and made to apologise the great and the good in the port city, singing the praises of Liverpool to the point where I expected him to appear on telly with a Scouse accent the next day.

Sadly, that comment means every word he writes or utters is now scrutinised to the nth degree to see if it causes offence.

And so it came to pass last week that, when commenting on the political problems besetting the Labour Party, he managed to cause offence again.

"For 10 years, we in the Tory Party have become used to Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing, and so it is with happy amazement that we watch as this madness engulfs the Labour Party."

Now, by that comment, do you sudden assume everyone in Papua New Guinea eats each other? No, of course not. But the fact is they do have a history which does include rather a lot of family nibbling.

So stand up Jean L Kekedo, the high commissioner for Papua New Guinea in London, to claim the moral highground of self-created distress as this flippant comment.

He said he was angered by the comments, and, as David Cameron's chief - possibly one concrete - policy is to offend no-one, Bozza had to backtrack.

Johnson later said: "I meant no insult to the people of Papua New Guinea, who I'm sure lead lives of blameless bourgois domesticity in common with the rest of us."

Note how Labour don't seem to have taken any offence at Boris's inital comments, but is he really accusing me of leading a life of blameless bourgoi domesticity? How dare he! I want him round here, now, to apologise! Off with his head!

Hannibal the remake: Perhaps someone could eat Hilary Armstrong?

Blair's legacy: It's possible

I've had an idea. One you'll like. One Tony Blair's little people, the ones who reckon he should appear on Blue Peter to give him a legacy, will also like. One which will cement him in political history - for the right reason.

In this autumn's Queen's Speech, he should include a bill which would make it law that a general election be held if the leader of the ruling group is ousted/resigns/dies and so on.

There. I've said it.

Were such a Bill to become law, it would bring to an end the constant talk of conorations of a party's next leader. It would stop the constant bickering between rival factions in a party. And it means that we wouldn't have so-called political journalists on 24 hour news channels around the clock predicting what will happen rather than reporting it.

Think about it. As soon as Blair let the cat out of the bag that he still planned to resign, and his mates said it would be within 12 months, the future was set in concrete. For the next 12 months the pages of newspapers, and the hours of news channels, will be filled with rumour, conjecture and the sound of every Labour MP with a gripe against Blair trying to get their 15 minutes of fame.

I'm probably quite sad. I enjoy reading about politics. I enjoy scandal. But what I don't enjoy is a bunch of elected representatives diverting all their energies to ensuring whatever happens when Blair leaves bests suits their own personal wishes.

This latest whoo-haa all seems to stem from the Labour MP Chris Bryant. Last week, deep in the Welsh valleys, he began putting together a letter which called for Blair to set out a timetable for his departure. Why would an MP do that? An ultra-Blairite MP at that?

Could it be that he felt aggrieved that he had been constantly overlooked by the PM for promotion after pictures of him appearing in just his y-fronts appeared on a gay website? There you go, Tony Blair's future appears to hang or fall by the whim of a vengeful exhibitionist. Brilliant, eh?

Blair's mates - David Miliband and repulsive Hiliary Armstrong, who could be described as school mistress-like if she wasn't so dense - then appear and say they think he'll go in a year. Will it be a succession to Gordon Brown? They won't say, but then Jack Straw - ex-foreign secretary, probably dumped because he was getting too many headlines off Blair - pops up and says Brown should follow on. Then Alan Johnson appears on TV and refuses to rule out going for the leadership himself. And amid all this, David Blunkett pops up to say he doesn't want to get involved until his diaries have been published. That's in November by the way, his diaries that is.

On the backbenches the letters are flying around, some in favour and some against Blair going, and no doubt everyone will be thinking who they should line up alongside. It's all good stuff, if you're in the Westminister village. But what about the rest of us? The ones who voted for people to run the country.

No surprises here, but it takes a voice from outside the Westminister bubble to speak some sense. Up in Sedgefield, which Tony Blair has been an MP since the 1980s, you'll never hear a bad word spoken out Blair. The one time I was sent there as a reporter, shortly after the Hutton Inquiry was published, it was like being in some political Stepford Wives - no-one had a bad word to say about Blair. It was like a spin doctor's wet deam. And a reporter's nightmare.

Still, it was here that the voice of common sense prevailed this week. Step forward John Burton, Tony Blair's agent.

He said, in the Northern Echo, that: "It is pathetic and disappointing. You have a mixture of left-wing extremists who have always been against Tony, a few failed Cabinet ministers and a small number of loyalists who have now turned.

"But they should remember that they are there because of Tony - 170, 170 and 70 majorities are landslide victories, and Tony won a lot of them their seats.

"It is a disgusting way to treat people. If it was local councillors behaving like this, they would be kicked out of the party, but when they get down to Westminster, they think they can say whatever they like, irrespective of how it hits the party.

"I am disappointed because they are tearing the party apart and actually making less chance for themselves to get re-elected and less chance of another Labour leader, be he Gordon Brown, John Reid or whoever, winning the next election."

And there's the point. Those in Westminster jockeying for position (and airtime) don't care what people think of them at the moment because they know an election is a way off.

If a change of leadership meant a new election, they'd have to put up a united front. They'd vote, discreetly for their new leader and off the country would go to the polls.

I don't think there is a bigger act of arrogance by MPs currently embroiled in their self-created whirlwind of political nonsense than to assume they should be the only ones to choose the new leader. And the same applies to the Labour Party membership.

Parties are elected to run the country, not control it. In 2005, millions voted for a Labour Party led by Blair. As the man who, possibly more than any other prime minister, has pushed forward the cult of personality and image, he should be the man that ensures we never again have to endure this guessing game by allowing the people of the UK the right to decide who leads the country when a PM steps down.

Blair spins out of control

This may sound like a stupid question, but who determines what one person's legacy becomes?

According to the Cambridge Online dictionary, it is 'something that is a part of your history or which stays from an earlier time'. But who determines whether that legacy is a good or a bad thing?

And, more worryingly, why is taxpayers' money being used to pay for people around Tony Blair to dream up ways he can leave a positive lasting impression on the British public?

The memo in the Mirror earlier this week, hilarious as it was, wasn't so much an exit strategy for Tony Blair as the political version of a lap of honour for the political version of Sunderland Football Club.

Over the course of TB's season in the top-flight, having comfortably knocked the spots off rivals to take New Labour into the big time, we've had one disappointment after another.

Yet his cronies, who, due to security reasons, I would guess are the only people he gets to spend any time with, believe they make sure Tony leave on high, leaving the 'public wanting for more.' He's 'the star who won't even play that final encore.'

And it's Blair who accuses the media of being obsessed with his leaving date! Surely an appearance on Blue Peter (much as it would be amusing to see the po-faced lobby correspondents all sitting on beanbags in the background) and a tour of Britain's top 20 buildings won't make people forget the problems of late?

Iraq. Tuition fees. Afghanistan. America. NHS cuts. Congestion charging. None of those make for a proud legacy in my opinion.

But a Labour supporter might argue Iraq needed sorting, tuition fees help universities create better graduates, Afghanistan tackled the war on terror, our relationship with America has helped trade, and NHS cuts only come as result of local mismangement of the massive funds put in by Labour. Congestion charging, well, how else do we save the planet?

Which proves my point. Blair's legacy, in my opinion may be one thing, but to the next man, or woman, it might be something totally different. We see Churchill as a hero, yet the British public kicked him out shortly after the end of the second world war.

Blair will never go down in history as a Churchill. Sure, the War on Terror has come our doorstep, but have Blair's actions ended it? No. Has he gone a long way to sorting it? Different people have different views, and regardless of how many appearances he does on Newsround or Desert Islands Discs, those around Blair won't be able to spin opinions formed over the last decade.

What this latest memo serves to do is prove that, despite the general disdain for spin, those around Blair still convince him it is possible to turn the truth on its head and hide the bad things. You can't spin history - Blair should know that. And if he doesn't, you have to question how he ever ended up behind the door of number 10 int he first place.

Midnight matchmaking...

What's the point in your life when you'd think to yourself 'Things can get any worse for me?' Begging on the street? Waking up and worrying because you've no whiskey to have on cornflakes? Or genuinely beliving that your life will be better if you open your heart up about a relationship on the radio?

Ok, so I know it's only a few weeks since I last had a pop at local radio but really, have you hard 'Lovelines with Graham Torrington?' It appears to be syndicated on pretty much every radio station in the country late at night. There's nothing more annoying in the car than flicking between stations and hearing the same thing again and again. And Graham Torrington, or GT as he is known, takes it to a whole new level.

I stumbled across his show the other week when driving home after the late shift at work. I couldn't find any decent music so kept hitting the search button. Up until that point in my life, I thought the unshameable went on Jeremy Kyle (more on him in the future).

But oh no. There's late-night love phone ins. If you cringe when you hear 'Jonny in Toxteth wants to say how much he missed Molly from Woolton and hopes they can become a real-life Romeo and Juliet when he gets out of HMP Walton' type mentions on shows which play slow ballads to a)send people to sleep and b) keep Richard Marx in royalities, you'll hate GT's Lovelines.

GT's programme is interactive. With little music. With people who ring him up when he picks the discussion topic of 'our strangest fantasies.' Women called Sheryl, Beryl and Cheryl ring him up and talk out how they love firemen (queue jokes about hoses and poles) while Roger, Ricky and Roland queue up to tell about their Navy dream (submarines, anyone?)

That's all in 20-minute drive home. I only kept it on because it's preferrable to listening to the sound of car engine rattling, or Radio 1's late-night dance show - and often you can't tell the difference between the two.

But the point of no return in the 'has my life come to this stakes' came shortly after midnight. GT turns into the Midnight matchmaker. And reads out the profiles of several people who've put their details on Dating Direct, which sponsors the show. There was one the other night 'wants to meet someone who is a passionate Christian and a devotee of Italian food.' And they wonder why they end up on late night radio looking for a partner.

There's nothing wrong with online dating - I know lots of people for who it's been a roaring success. But to ask to have the details read out on the radio by husky GT and his midnight matchmakers, God help me, if things ever get that bad...

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

I'm going to be rather sad. Each week I'm going to put up a photo I've taken. And being dead original, I'm going to call it My Photo Of The Week. Even though I may not have taken it in the past seven days, and this photo is case in point of that.




It's a rather large ferry heading out of the River Mersey at sunset. You can see a larger version of the photo here

Molly's jolly is a Campbell's soup

THE rather grotesque face of Molly Campbell has been plastered across the big screen in our newsroom most of the week. That's one of the downsides to have 24 hour news channels on all the time during the so-called silly season.

I didn't really give two hoots about her until she held a press conference in Lahore to say she wanted to stay with her dad.

That's a 12-year-old girl holding a news conference which was shown around the world instantly. Mad, isn't it?

But what is even more mad to be is that everyone seems to have forgotten that her mother, Louise, is her legal guardian, not her father. So whether Molly likes it or not, her father kidnapped her when he took her out of the country to Pakistan.

And if the Pakistani authorities had any sense, they'd send her back to the UK asap. Because since when did a 12-year-old's wants over-rule the British legal system?

When I was 12 I'm pretty certain I didn't want to go to school, only wanted to exercise when doing a paper round and would have preferred my mum left my tea outside my room so I could keep on the old Sega MegaDrive all night.

But strangely, I went to school every day, did PE and had a tea round the table. Why? Because it's what 12-year-olds who don't want ASBOs. They do as their told. And the same applies to Molly.

Molly, incidentally, insists she isn't going to be forced into an arranged marriage. And she wants to change her name to Misbah. Misbah Campbell. Presumably, it still remains out of her control when her surname will change.

Last post for the grumpy ones

I've always had sympathy for post masters working in small, rural post offices, struggling to survive as the Government appears to go all-out to force them to shut.

Switching benefit payments direct to banks, and ditto with pensions, cost them a lot of business - after a storm of middle-class protest, the Government agreed to help the out with grants. And many have diversified.

Go into the Ribble Valley, the most scenic part of Lancashire, and you get wonderful tea shops in post offices. In areas where the post office has already shut, local communities have opened them in churches and pubs.

So where am I going with this? Well thanks to the way it is funded, the BBC's local radio stations provide the world's worst news bulletins after 7pm in the evening. In the North West, all the stations merge together to provide a north west news round-up rather than say, a Lancashire one, which you might expect on BBC Radio Lancashire.

And the location at which the late-duty news reader is normally based often determines the amount of coverage the area gets in the regional bulletin, or so it seems. Therefore I assume that the reader on duty the other night is from Lancashire - hence the appearance of a small-scale protest about Blackburn's central post office.

At first I assumed the post office was to close - which would be something of a blow to Blackburn. But this staff protest was in opposition to the post office being franchised out to a private company to run which these staff claimed would lead to lower standards of service.

Lower standards of service than currently exists in pretty much any central town or city post office? I'm not some sort of post office spotter but in recent years I've had to use central post offices in Newcastle, Birmingham, Chorley, Liverpool, Accrington, Burnley and, yes, Blackburn and I can assure those protesting that it is not possible for the service to get any worse.

One woman in the obligatory BBC vox pop - and I still can't believe this was seriously such an important story to prompt a place in a five-minute regional news bulletin - claimed this privatisation would mean all the staff with 'old school training' would end up leaving.

A threat or a promise love? She boasted that Blackburn Central Post Office offered personal service which would be lost. Personal service? Getting them to look at you in the face would be a nice start. They certainly aren't customer friendly. They see a long queue and go for a break. How else can it be that at 1pm every day, only five of 15 counters are open? They are the most miserable, poh-faced people going, but you can understand why.

The central post offices are the grimmest places going. I'm not a snob - hey, I'll shop in Morrisons every now and again - but I feel dirty when I come out these beige-coloured, grey-carpeted hovels, having normally spent 15 minutes queuing up with a collection of drunks and asylum seekers (who hold the queue up because they can't speak English and the staff's attempt at speaking to them in their native tongue involves slow, loud English) just to be served by people who evidently hate their jobs.

If post offices are to work in the future, they need to attract people to use them, not just those who have to use them. And that involves good customer service. So if franchising these branches out to companies who will redevelop them and operate them more efficiently, so be it. And if Grumpy and Co who work in them now leave in protest, then all the better.