Amother day, another nail in the coffin of Labour’s increeasingly half-hearted attempts to force the British people to carry ID cards and enrtust their personal details to a national government database. The BBC reports:

Home Secretary Alan Johnson has dropped plans to make ID cards compulsory for pilots and airside workers at Manchester and London City airports. The cards were due to be trialled there – sparking trade union anger. … But Mr Johnson said the ID card scheme was still very much alive – despite Tory and Lib Dem calls to scrap it. He said the national roll-out of

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The BBC has the story:

The date for the Norwich North by-election, triggered by the resignation of Labour MP Ian Gibson, is expected to be set for 23 July. … He had a majority of just over 5,000 at the last election.

The BBC understands that the writ for the election will be moved on Tuesday, with the poll set to be held two days after Parliament breaks up for its summer recess on 21 July.

Clearly Labour wants to get the expected loss of this seat out of the way at the height of summer, when MPs are away …

Ian Clement may have resigned last week as Boris Johnson’s deputy mayor, but his troubles are far from over.

From the Bexleyheath and Crayford Conservatives’ website:

At a meeting held on 25th June of the Bexleyheath and Crayford Conservative Association Executive Council, a unanimous decision was taken to immediately suspend the Association Membership of Ian Clement in light of recent reports in the press about his conduct.

The process of formally terminating his membership has begun. By the terms of our constitution, this will require a special meeting of the Executive Council, whereby fourteen days notice must be given to Mr Clement.

Last …

An inquiry by MPs into the 1 April G20 protests has concluded that untrained police officers must never again be placed in the frontline of public protest.

From the Guardian:

The conclusion from the Commons home affairs select committee inquiry into the G20 protests of April 1 follows admissions from senior Metropolitan police officers that some inexperienced officers, who were clearly quite scared, used “inappropriate force”.

The report by the cross-party group of MPs says they “cannot condone the use of untrained, inexperienced officers on the frontline of a public protest under any circumstances”.

The inquiry also calls for the police to seriously

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The Manchester Evening News has the story:

A Liberal Democrat candidate for the next General Election has defected to Labour. Paul Moss had already been selected as candidate for Denton and Reddish but has now quit the party.

Mr Moss said: “Nationally the Liberal Democrats are a complete joke. And I have seen how the Lib Dems in Stockport have completely ignored local people and have helped to seriously damage communities like Reddish through their uncaring policies.”

A Liberal Democrat spokesman said: “It’s a shame he feels this way. He certainly didn’t express these views when he was trying to become our

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Ladies and gentlemen, we have the first constituency poll of the Norwich North by-election campaign, and it shows a close contest in store. Before I give you the figures, though, it should come with two big health warnings. First, the poll’s sample size is very small – 500 overall, and fewer than 300 for the voting figures. Secondly, polls this early in a by-election campaign, and when a polling date isn’t yet known, have proven unreliable predictors in the past. With those caveats firmly in place, here it is (comparisons with 2005 general election result in brackets):

Tories 34%(+1), Labour 30%(-15),

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The Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow has been a busy boy – he’s been trying to keep pace with the Government’s U-turns since Gordon Brown made his statement announcing the Iraq inquiry last week. He reckons there have been a possible nine, and a definite five:

Indeed, it’s interesting to compare this list with Nick Clegg’s consistent pressure on the Government over the past few days, and the clarification he’s sought from inquiry chair Sir John Chilcot.

Economist columnist-blogger Bagehot has today analysed this litany of reverses in an attempt to explain Mr Brown’s reverse Midas touch:

I prefer to see the whole, shambolic episode as a parable of the dialectical weakness that has undone Mr Brown’s premiership.

The prime minister made his announcement without proper consultation, either of other political leaders or other interested parties, such as current and former generals. His proposal came in for criticisms—on the openness question, the composition of the panel, the time-frame and so on—that ought to have been glaringly predictable, and would certainly have been made plain by any meaningful canvassing of views. As a result, an initiative that was doubtless expected to be a vote-winner threatened to become a political disaster. The government has responded with an ongoing frenzy of back-tracking and buck-passing, leaving it to Sir John to resolve many of the controversial issues himself. (There is a useful catalogue of the various U-turns here.) What ought to have been a cross-party endeavour instead became, in the votes in the Commons yesterday evening, a futile test of the government’s strength.

There you have it: an encapsulation of the whole Brown tragicomedy. The motive may (or may not) have been noble. But the execution was a catalogue of shoddy judgments and mistakes, combining lack of consultation with a political tin ear, failings that perfectly illustrate why Mr Brown’s overall position is so vulnerable. That vulnerability in turn explains why he was obliged so swiftly to climb down. He is in large measure the author of his own predicament; and the predicament is in turn emasculating him.

And Labour’s U-turns aren’t restricted solely to Iraq. Just today, Harriet Harman scrapped the Government’s plans to limit the scope of the committee set up to oversee the reform of Parliament. Ministers had been planning to prevent the Wright Committee from examining any Government business. However, Ms Harman today contacted Lib Dem shadow Leader of the House, David Heath, to inform him that she would be accepting his amendment allowing the committee to look at Government business.

David Heath commented:

From today’s FT (well worth reading today for other reasons):

The government will “definitely not” proceed with a national road-user charging scheme if it wins the next election, the new transport secretary has said, in the most comprehensive renunciation so far of a policy adopted in 2004. …

In July 2004, Alistair Darling, then transport secretary, committed the government to a national system of pay-per-mile charging . The scheme was intended to replace charging for road use via taxes on fuel. As cars become more fuel-efficient, taxes produce less revenue per mile driven and any deterrent effect of tax

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Ros Scott, the Lib Dem party president, has just issued the following announcement that Chris Fox will take over as interim chief executive of the party during July:

Following this month’s announcement that we will be appointing an Interim Chief Executive I am pleased to say that following a selection process Chris Fox has been appointed to this important role.

Chris Fox joined us as Director of Policy and Communications earlier this year and he will continue to fulfil the tasks associated with this job . This is possible thanks to the strength of the individuals

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