Speculation and rumour

With the papers continuing to focus on the Jon Venables case,I think the Telegraph's leader this morning has got it just about spot on

Mr Straw has been right to resist the demands of the mob but he also allowed a dangerous vacuum to develop.

says its editorial

He chose, for reasons that he set out in the House of Commons yesterday, to say nothing; but in doing so he unleashed a frenzy of speculation, some accurate, some not, that might well have made matters worse.

Whatever the passions that this case arouses and let's not be in any doubt for good reasons,they are passions,Straw is right to defend the legal process.

Unfortunately in this 24 hour media world,it is increasingly difficult to prevent speculation,some of it accurate,others damaging to leak out.

It's an awful case and it gives the system of justice little room for manoeuvre

Straw lands Blair in it

I am just catching up with Jack Straw's testimony at the Chilcott inquiry.

As they say,hindsight is a wonderful thing but it is clear that the former foreign secretary is carefully distancing himself from the former Prime Minister.

It is also clear that it was far from certain that there was a basis to go to war on the back of weapons of mass destruction and that Straw himself had a real moral dilemma over going to war.

Straw it seems worked hard to go down the UN route closely it seems with Colin Powell whilst it appears that his boss and George Bush were intent on overriding international law.

Where his testimony goes wrong is that he continued to vote for the war after the failure to get a second UN resolution.

Straw for PM

Now here is a scenario that might just work.

Simon Carr writing at Open House says

A new Labour leader is installed by a cabinet cabal and immediately
calls a general election knowing they'll lose.
Why? To give the Tories four years of being contaminated with recession.
Once again, Conservatives are the natural party of economic
incompetence, benefit cuts, reductions in public spending, fiscal
misery. Labour emerges with a reasonable chance of winning again in the
upturn.

and the protagonist is Jack Straw

He makes a proposition to the young contenders for the top job. “Let me be
the caretaker leader. I will lead the party into the election. I will
take onto myself all the poison of defeat. Immediately afterwards, we
will have a full-scale internal election for leader in the normal
democratic way and the winner will start off untainted by defeat.”

It makes interesting reading and you never know it might catch the Tories off guard

Straw owns up to mistakes

Just when the conroversy starts to die down,Jack Straw makes a ground entrance and aplogises for the 10p tax controversy.

Jon Craig describes how

On a radio phone-in, I'm All Right Jack, touted by some MPs as a caretaker leader in the event of a Labour meltdown on Thursday, said: "Government is not perfect. I'm sorry that this has happened."
And he told one caller: "I'm sorry that you have been placed in this position and it shouldn't have happened."

Meanwhile this morning's papers are full of more bad polls for the government.The Independent shows a 14 point lead in its latest poll,double that of the last

The latest ComRes survey for The Independent, taken between Friday and Sunday, puts the Tories on 40 per cent (up two points since last month), Labour on 26 per cent (down five points), the Liberal Democrats on 20 per cent (up three points) and other parties on 14 per cent (unchanged).

The Guardian predicts

Gordon Brown is heading for crushing reverses on Thursday night and will see Ken Livingstone swept from the London mayoralty, according to two final polls before the local elections published yesterday.
The projections would mean Labour would lose more than 200 council seats in England and Wales.

And on top of all that the Telegraph is claiming

Up to seven million savers will see their pension pots shrink from this month as a result of Gordon Brown's cut in income tax.Millions of letters have been sent out by the country's leading pension providers over the past few weeks telling clients they need to contribute more to their monthly pension schemes because of the change in income tax from 22 per cent to 20 per cent

More prisons problems for the government

More problems for the government and particually for Jack Straw as the media are reporting that a terrorist was released just seven months into a three year sentence as a way of easing prison overcrowding

Times Online reports

A ban on terrorists being released early from jail was announced tonight after Times Online revealed that a convicted terrorist was freed 17 days early under plans to ease overcrowding.
Jack Straw, Justice Secretary, was forced to alter Government policy after today’s revelation that Yassin Nassari was freed from a maximum security prison just seven months after a three-and-a-half-year sentence was handed down.
The controversial early release scheme, known as end of custody licence (ECL), was introduced last year to create more space in the UK’s overcrowded prisons. The Government insisted that only “non-violent” offenders would be freed early, but Nassari was convicted of trying to smuggle missile blueprints into the country

Peter Hoskin writes that

Jack Straw’s been vocal about prisons this week, even suggesting that judges might be “too tough” in the sentences they dish out. Until more prisons are built, incidents like this will continue to shoot down all his arguments.

Lords reform moving slowly forwards

This morning's FT carries a report on the progress of the reform of the Upper House.

This seems to have fallen off the political agenda since earlier last year when Jack Straw

outlined details of a White Paper which proposes a House where some peers are elected and some still appointed, as they all are now.
The Lords could be renamed - with "the reformed chamber" an interim title.

The proposals at that stage allowed for 540 members of which half would be elected,the other half appointed

Elected the lords marked 96th anniversary of the Parliament Act 1911 with a statement that

Wouldn't it be outrageous if it took Parliament more than 100 years to fulfill its commitment to replace the House of Lords with something democratic?

And wanted to commit a deadline for the reforms to be in May 2011.

The FT today reports

Jack Straw, justice minister, is leading intensive cross-party talks on the future of the second chamber. The talks are now reaching consensus and a committee hopes to publish proposals before the summer recess.

If they are correct,the 540 members has now fallen to 400,to be called senators.

It is agreed that the "senate" will be either 80 or 100 per cent elected.Batches of three or four senators would each represent 80 to 100 "multi-member" constituencies. Existing life peers would be gradually replaced as the senators are elected in stages every four or five years.

So hang on until 2011