David Brooks, one of the most influential conservative commentators in the US, has just penned a love-bomb to David Cameron in the New York Times. The Republican party, he argues, must take lessons from across the Atlantic to revive its fortunes. Here is the key passage:

The flow of ideas has changed direction. It used to be that American conservatives shaped British political thinking. Now the influence is going the other way.

The British conservative renovation begins with this insight: The central political debate of the 20th century was over the role of government. The right stood for individual freedom while the left stood for extending the role of the state. But the central debate of the 21st century is over quality of life. In this new debate, it is necessary but insufficient to talk about individual freedom. Political leaders have to also talk about, as one Tory politician put it, “the whole way we live our lives.”

Well worth a read.

Lord Darzi’s pledge yesterday that future health service changes will be evidence based and subject to external review is all aimed at making some entirely necessary changes to the shape of services more understandable and palatable.

As part of the reassurance, service changes will be put through the government’s “gateway review” process, one that subjects major government projects to peer review to identify failures and risks early so they can be put right.

Will these be published, Lord Darzi was asked. “Yes, we will publish them,” he said. But did he not know that the Office of Government Commerce, the review process guardian, is currently fighting its way up and down the
courts refusing to release the reviews on the grounds that staff will not be frank about problems if they
believe their admissions will become public?

Really, Lord Darzi said. Nonetheless, ” we will publish them. This is about transparency, and if you want to engage the public in this process you have to be transparent”.

A couple of hours later the health department press office is on the phone. The OGC had been consulted. “Ara made an error. We will publish the clinical assessments that go into the gateway reviews, but not the whole review”.

The result? Disappointment at the Campaign for Freedom of Information which had been delighted at the apparent weakening of the government’s stance on non-publication - one that the courts look almost certain eventually to overturn.

“Lord Darzi’s arguments in favour of publication are far more persuasive than the government’s arguments against,” Maurice Frankel, its director, said. “It shows that ministers invidually are persuaded, it is just that the government collectively refuses to be”. Quite.

There is one huge roadblock to any future leadership challenge to Gordon Brown: any challenger would need the backing of a fifth of MPs to trigger an election. This restriction is a big reality check to those speculating that Mr Brown’s position is in danger.

But, as someone pointed out to me recently, this is not the only way that Mr Brown could be deposed. There is a Labour rule that would allow for a change of prime minister without the immediate need for a party leadership election. It is effectively the “silent coup” clause.

If the cabinet joined forces and convinced a serving Labour prime minister that his time was up, he would become “permanently unavailable”, in the words of the party rule book. The cabinet, “in consultation with the NEC”, would then be able to anoint a new prime minister “until a ballot…can be carried out”. An election is not immediately triggered: the cabinet could decide to “leave the post vacant until the next party conference”.

There appears to be the wiggle room in these procedures (which I have pasted below) to put off an embarrassing leadership election until a general election — if the cabinet were united.

Clearly there are some massive qualifications to this fantasy politics. Can you imagine Mr Brown stepping down that easily? Or the cabinet acting acting in unison? And how bad would things need to get to convince the cabinet that appointing a doubly unelected prime minister would be wise? All highly unlikely. But it is always worth knowing the rules of the game.

4B.2e Procedure in a vacancy

(i) When the party is in government and the party leader is prime minister
and the party leader, for whatever reason, becomes permanently unavailable,
the cabinet shall, in consultation with the NEC, appoint one of its members to
serve as party leader until a ballot under these rules can be carried out.

(ii) When the party is in government and the deputy leader becomes party
leader under (i) of this rule, the Cabinet may, in consultation with the NEC,
appoint one of its members to serve as deputy leader until the next party
conference. The Cabinet may alternatively, in consultation with the NEC,
leave the post vacant until the next party conference.

Labour’s national executive committee are meeting again this week to revive the search for a new general secretary to replace Peter Watt - who quit last year after the David Abrahams proxy donations controversy.

On Friday the party slipped out the news that David Pitt-Watson, the City fund manager who was poised to take the job, had walked. The founder and chairman of Hermes Equity Ownership Services was concerned about potential liabilities from taking up the job at a time when Labour is about £20m in the red.  

There is speculation that Mike Griffiths of Unite - who was pipped to the post by Pitt-Watson - could stand again.

But my understanding is that the unions are trying to secure a more consensual figure and have Keith Sonnet, deputy general secretary of Unison (now part of super-union Unite), lined up. If you want to know more about him here is a link.

Another frontrunner is likely to be Ray Collins, a senior figure in the Transport and General Workers Union (also part of Unite).

Paddy Power, the bookmakers, are paying out on a Boris victory. Even though the final result is still seven hours away.

The loss of London would be the final nail in a devastating day for Labour. Soon we will find out for sure. 

Minutes after the polls closed and a good 20 hours before we can expect the official result, Conservative Home have called the London mayoral race for Boris Johnson. Brave stuff.

The betting markets have moved heavily against Ken Livingstone. According to punters at Betfair, he now has just a 15 per cent chance of winning.

This graph shows the pattern of betting on Livingstone through the entire campaign.

One key part of Gordon Brown’s trip to the US has until now remained a secret: the prime minister caught up with Rupert Murdoch.

The meeting, held in Mr Brown’s suite at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, lasted about half-an-hour. We’re not sure what they chatted about. But the timing of the get together should give us a clue.

Mr Brown’s meetings with the media tycoon have begun to synchronise with the electoral calendar — they met at Chequers last year just before the prime minister decided against calling a general election. Mr Brown is probably wishing he could delay today’s local elections too.

One wonders whether Mr Murdoch already knew that his stable of UK papers would back a Tory candidate for London Mayor (you can read the endorsements here, here and here). Whether he told Mr Brown that The Sun and The Times were deserting him, at least for now, was probably irrelevant. I’m sure Mr Brown got the message.

Those who have worked with Mr Brown say he pays incredibly close attention to how the papers cover him — much closer attention than the average reader. The mayoral result on Friday may well reinforce his theories about the power of the press. More seasoned observers of Mr Murdoch’s career may well see it as another example of how seamlessly he moves with the prevailing political winds.

There won’t be much coverage tomorrow of the energy debate on Thursday morning: alas.

But 33 Labour MPs rebelled this afternoon to back an amendment to the Energy Bill which would have encouraged homes and companies to install renewable energy systems such as solar panels or wind turbines.

They joined the Tories and Lib Dems to back an amendment by Alan Simpson, a Labour backbencher, calling for “feed-in tariffs” - which would set a fixed longterm energy price for people who installed green energy systems.

The government is still looking at the viability of the tariffs, a key part of the Tories’ energy policy.

But Mr Simpson, talking in the Commons today, made a vivid and depressing contrast between Germany (where these exist) and the UK.

We are far, far behind on almost every measure of sustainable energy.
 
 .

Gordon’s tea with Thatcher last summer seems like an eternity ago.

At the time, their only common ground seemed to be that Gordo - like the Baroness - was “not for turning”.

It is hard to remember a single example of the prime minister admitting to getting anything wrong.

This morning that changed when he conceded, on the Today Programme, that he made “two mistakes” in the way he abolished the 10p income tax rate.

The PM said the policy was right but the measures did not “cover as well as we should have” the issue of low-income workers and 60-something pensioners.  

It is not hard to sense the invisible hand of an adviser, if not several, urging Brown to become more touchy-feely.

The pitfalls are obvious.

This is the man who built his political reputation on steely, stern, principled, unyielding solidity. People found his personality peculiar but liked his firm hand. That will change with each successive U-Turn.

Unlike Tony Blair, the Scotsman doesn’t do “human” too well - as Nick Robinson describes over on the Beeb blog.

The Kate Hoey rebuttal has just come out.

Boris Johnson’s campaign had claimed this morning that Hoey (Labour MP for Vauxhall) would be the first member of his new administration if he becomes mayor at the end of this week.

Within minutes rumours started circulating that the whips were about to move in on the sometimes obstreperous MP. And yes there was a meeting with Geoff Hoon, chief whip, later this morning.

Hoey (pictured left) has just issued her reply:

Yes she would advise Boris on sport on a “non-partisan basis”…in a non-executive role.

But

“The key part of the Boris Johnson statement – ie that I will be the first member of his administration – is wrong.  I have simply agreed to act in a similar position, for example to Conservative MPs John Bercow and Patrick Mercer – in that I have said that I will advise on a non-partisan basis in respect of my lifetime commitment to bringing sport to the people of London.

This is not an endorsement of Boris Johnson for Mayor. I will be voting for my party and Labour candidates on Thursday.

I am a Labour MP and I am standing for Labour at the next election.. I support the Labour Government. I have and shall continue actively to campaign for Labour in these elections, not least for Val Shawcross, my local GLA member. “