Mo was too good for the likes of Blair

Hard on the heels of the death of Robin Cook comes the loss of Mo Mowlam, the most popular and charismatic politician in the New Labour firmament.

That was her problem of course. I was in the conference hall that day in 1998 when Mo got a standing ovation in the middle of Blair's speech, and I am convinced her career was doomed from that moment on.

The people around Blair were terrified of her popularity and thereafter became determined to cut her down to size.

I expand on these points in a full appreciation of Mo's career published on the thisis network of websites which can be read here

We need a fair voting system

The Electoral Reform Society has picked up on a column I wrote in the wake of the May 5 General Election about how the electoral system had once again produced a skewed result. It's good of them to include little old me in a list that contains such luminaries of political journalism as Mike White, Andy Grice and Peter Riddell. You can read it by clicking here and then scrolling down to May 14.

Good times!

This is a picture of me, my wife Gill and son George doing one of our favourite things - going walking in Derbyshire!

Robin Cook 1946-2005

Robin Cook was the politician whose views probably most closely echoed my own (although he wouldn't have agreed with me about English devolution!) His death is a huge tragedy and in my view leaves a real hole at the heart of the Labour movement.

The best piece I have so far seen on this came from David Clark (a former policy adviser) in the Guardian, which can be read at the peerless Guardian Unlimited site.

My own view is that Robin would have returned to government under Gordon Brown once the great charlatan had taken his leave of No 10, probably as some kind of constitutional affairs overlord. Unlike Mr Blair, Mr Brown regards this agenda as vitally important and is understood to be considering a number of options for radical reform.

You can read my full take on Robin's career here.

The real Watership Down

As you will see from my profile I'm a bit of a fan of Richard Adams' Watership Down. When I was younger and living in the South I often planned to go walking there but somehow never got round to it. Now a guy called called Chris Boyce has put together an amazing site which takes you through the real locations in the book. You can find it here

My own contribution to the mass of web stuff surrounding Watership Down, originally published on the thisis sites in April, will be back online shortly.

England needs a voice

The Campaign for an English Parliament has picked up on some stuff I wrote in the Newcastle Journal about the "democratic deficit" in England compared to Scotland and Wales. For years I supported the idea of regional assemblies as a means of addressing this, but the referendum in the North-East last November sort of blew this out of the water somewhat. Meanwhile, Scottish and Welsh MPs continue to have a big say over how public services are funded and managed in England, while English MPs have no such say over how they are delivered in Scotland and Wales. This is not really politically sustainable in the long term. The recent election result narrowly missed landing us in a situation where Labour's entire Parliamentary majority was dependent on the votes of Welsh and Scottish Labour MPs - but this is bound to happen at some future point unless the problem is addressed.

You can access the CEP newsblog here.