Harriet Harman attacks Blairite spin.

Two cheers for Harriet Harman condemning the front page story about the government seeking Stop and question

David Cameron’s restatement of the Conservative position on schools should have calmed down the flurry of dispute when David Willetts made his original speech. It was good to read, in DC’s own words, that this is not a “Clause IV” moment, and good to see that we do still believe as

“Excuse me, who are you?” “Where are you going?” “Why are you walking about on the streets this afternoon?” “Are you a terrorist?”

You

The London lawyers have done it again - another blockbuster divorce settlement following hard on the heels of a big settlement after just three and a half years of marriage. I wonder how big the legal fees were on all that? Our Petitioner/Respondent system encourages lawyers to encourage their clients to fight every inch of the way, instead of trying to get a more amicable agreement based around arbritration.

This time the

In the early days of communism after the Russian revolution there was a titanic struggle between those who thought communism should concentrate on the one country that had adopted it, Russia, and those who thought it must be a global movement through continuous revolution. Stalin led the Russians, Trotsky the internationalists. Stalin won, the Russians suffered, and in the end the free world so showed the superiority of its system that communism in Russia collapsed. In a way Trotsky was right - it was only if they wiped away the alternative that communism had a chance of controlling all of the people all of the time.

The greens are similarly split today. The ultra greens have a messianic creed. They think there is only one

The Dispatches programme tonight spent a long time and a lot of money coming to three obvious conclusions:

1. Most people want weekly, not fortnightly collections

2. After a fortnight rubbish has 30 times as many bacteria and spores as rubbish kept for a week

3. The rubbish stinks far more after two weeks than one, and the gases given off are unpleasant chemicals

In the week when the EU attacks the USA again for not doing enough to curb its carbon emissions, we learn

This week I went to dinner with Principals from the 13 FE Colleges serving the Thames Valley, and with fellow MPs from both the Labour and Conservative parties. There was no lack of Principals at the feast.

Funding hovered over the ample dinner like Banquo’s ghost. Eventually the inevitable happened. We were back in that futile argument I have lived with all my life in the UK public sector. If you, the politicians, give us more money the world will be perfect. If you don’t give us more, there will have to be cuts in what we do.

This was a good humoured and sensible version of a common argument. I do not wish to pick on the FE Colleges, as they are amongst the better run parts of the rambling public sector. The truth is, as Labour are discovering, pushing much larger amounts of cash into the public sector does not suddenly solve all the problems. There is no amount of cash likely

When David manfully plunged his dagger through the heart of the policy of building new grammar schools in places that do not have them, did he realise this policy was long since dead? The Aunt Sally of grammar school building was dead under Maragret Thatcher and remained dead under all the subsequent leaders of the party. There is no need for a murder investigation to trace the hand of Willetts, as he was attacking a corpse.

The most contentious thing David Willetts said was that the gramnmar schools

With many questioned thinking HIPs is an unpleasant disease, and many in the estate agency and surveying world condemning the idea of Home Information packs, it was good to learn at the eleventh hour today that Home Information Packs are to be delayed. It’s a pity they were not put in the dustbin instead.

Reading David Cameron’s education policy article in today’s Times, it is difficult to see what all the fuss has been about. There is the continued support for existing grammar schools, to reassure the MPs for Buckinghamshire, Kent, Berkshire and the other places lucky enough to retain these good academic schools.

There is the new proposal that we will create a grammar stream in every comprehensive - the quickest and fairest way of giving the more academically inclined pupils everywhere

I spent some of yesterday lobbying Conservatives to speak and vote against the FOI Bill when it reaches the Lords. I am pleased to report that the leadership of the party recognises the damage this Bill is doing to trust in Parliament and is certainly not encouraging the Lords to push it through. Better still, my enquiries revealed that so far no peer has come forward to sponsor and propose the Bill in the Lords. As this is a private members Bill and not a government one, it needs a willing peer to pick it up and run with it.

Now the peers have seen what the media did to David Maclean, they are obviously having second thoughts. Brave as our peers are, it is not much of an invitation to be asked to carry a hand grenade with the pin already out through the Lords stages, especially when the cause is such a bad one. Or to change the metaphor, the leading ladies and genetlemen in the Upper House wouldn’t mind a starring role, but are

I was pleased to see press briefing that the Conservative leadership is not behind attempts to exclude Parliament from FOI.

David Willetts went on the record expressing disagreement with the FOI amendment Bill. One cheer for that - but where were you David on Friday when you could have expressed your disagreement by voting against? I cancelled my engagements that day - why didn’t you? Clearly the Leader of the Opposition and

25 MPs voted against the Bill to remove Parliament from the FOI provisions.

They were:

The government should announce it is not going to

There are strong rumours that Gordon Brown will recognise the dangerous drift in the UK’s energy policy. Commentators think he will come out in favour of a series of new nuclear power stations, and a tidal barrage to generate power across the Severn estuary.

He certainly needs to do something, and quickly. The UK’s energy position is weakening rapidly. Our requirements now outstrip North Sea oil and gas from the UK sector. Our nuclear power stations still generate about one fifth of our electricity, but they are all getting old and in need of closure. Meanwhile President Putin sits astride the energy pipelines to western Europe, ready to turn the tap off if he sees an advantage in doing so. This is no time for the UK to increase its dependence on imported gas from the European mainland, nor from nuclear power generated by France given the shortage of power on the continent.

Some ultra greens seem to oppose all ways of generating electricity. They condemn coal and gas stations because they produce CO2. They condemn nuclear because they do not like it, even though it does not produce CO2. Some even oppose schemes like the Severn barrier and the windmills, developed and invented to meet the green point about using coal and gas. At some point the government has to tell people that we need to build new power facilities if we wish the lights to stay on. The government should aim for diversified sources of power where we do not depend on Russia or the Middle East, involving the market to find the least costly way of achieving the capacity we need.

Next week we are told the government will announce an easing of planning controls over individual properties, where people wish to extend and improve.

I usually am the first to say “Yes” to any deregulatory crumb which any government lets drop from the groaning tables of bureaucracy. It is so rare for them to come up with anything which makes life a little easier for the law abiding who want some freedom to get on and do as they wish in a responsible way.

There is no doubt that the present planning system creates many problems. It often impedes or stops the householder from extending their property as they would like. It always slows it down and makes it dearer. It restricts the supply of building land, driving up the price. It gives to the lucky few who win the planning lottery to build

The press has savaged Parliament for voting to exempt itself from the Freedom of Information legislation, and rightly so.

The main mood on the doorsteps is still one of disillusion with the Commons and politics. People want an open and accountable political process. They are suspicious of how 78 Labour MPs