The Telegraph tries once again to prove that it is really just the Daily Mail printed on bigger sheets of paper today.  There is a rather ugly 'Tessa tells all' report (or at least 'close-personal-contacts tell all').  Also Liz Jones opines on the relationship problems of poor Sian and Lembit.

Celebrity in this way should hardly be the subject of a supposedly serious policy blog such as this.  However, we've blogged about personality politics before and the Jones piece is interesting in that it equates Lembit and Sian's difficulties with those of Jennifer Aniston, Nicole Kidman and Kylie Minouge:

"These wannabes [less famous male partners] are fine when the women are vulnerable – Jennifer with a failed marriage; Nicole distraught at Tom's proclamations of love for his new wife, Katie; Kylie battling cancer; Siân desperate to settle down. But it is a different story when the women are back on top. Suddenly, alpha woman is not such an attractive proposition, despite the lifestyle benefits she brings."

Liz Jones - The Telegraph

The piece is interesting, not because of what it has to say, but because the travails of a Lib Dem MP can be written about along side the likes of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise.

By implication the piece also shows that Lembit will increase his bankability as a 'name' by this episode. It is impossible to underestimate how important this is in today's media culture.

The master of modern communications would be able to use this elevated position subtly to have influence the policy debate too.  Tony Blair managed this in the Cool Britannia years.  However, the position of Prime Minister gives you credibility coming out of your ears.

The line is much narrower and much trickier to walk when you have to compete for both the celebrity and credibility stakes. Its a position Charles Kennedy managed to acheive for some, but certainly not all.

Lembit's name is gaining more currency.  But his credibility mountain is now higher to climb than even Chatshow Charlie's was.

With the party of liberal democracy plunging in the polls (see below) - it is good that the Lib Dem leader opened up a new front on the policy debate.

Ming's speech to IPPR on welfare reform comes at a useful time.

The BBC picked up on the main nuggets that was trailed before hand in a piece that has been updated slightly since he made the speech:

"People should be given education and a chance to help themselves, but instead millions were being trapped into living on benefits, said Sir Menzies.

He said lone parents should return to work when their youngest child is 12 - not 16 as currently.

And he said he wanted to end the "bias" against couples in the tax system."

news.bbc.co.uk 19th December

What a shame therefore that there has been so little pick-up of the story in any of today's papers.

Few deny that it is hard for a third party leader to get coverage in the press - particularly when all they want to write about is a resurgent Conservative party.

Complaining about the media does us little good however. 

The political situation we're in demands an ever bolder, ever clearer message in order to capture the press' attention.

Also in today's news

• Those polls in full in The Guardian - Conservatives 40% (+3) Labour 32% (no change) Lib Dems 18% (-4)
  
• The Economist highlights some fascinating repercussions new insights in neurology are having on free will and liberalism itself.
  
• "Ipswich proves how badly we need Tory libertarians" according to Simon Jenkins in The Guardian today in his take on the drug and prostitution law reform debate.
  

Is it any co-incidence that Steve Bell's most realistic picture of Tony Blair is also the most disturbing?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/archive/0,,1284265,00.html

Reform of the drug laws is in the air - or at least in the papers. Many liberals instinctively feel that radical reform of the drug prohibition would be a good thing.

More authoritarian people tend to suppose that this is because liberals believe that the individual should be able to do whatever s/he likes, no matter how harmful, as long as it doesn't effect others.  This argument they find flawed as there are clearly people in society less able to look after themselves and make sensible choices than others.

However, whilst certainly a factor in liberal thinking, it is far from the clinching argument. The practical effects of prohibition are seen as so awful that the continuation of the current regime seems to dogmatically ignore facts.  Bertrand Russell said:

“The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.”

So it is with the laws around drugs.  Whilst the evidence stacks up in favour of legalisation, liberals have no chimera's against not doing so.

Mary Anne Sieghart in The Times today deals with some of the evidence in the drugs debate and quotes from Transform Drug Policy Foundation:

"Transform estimates that the prison population would fall by between a third and a half, ending overcrowding and the need to build more jails. Billions of pounds spent enforcing prohibition and coping with its consequences would be saved. Hundreds of thousands could be treated as patients rather than criminals. The number of drug-related deaths would fall dramatically. And desperate young women could be rescued from pimps, potential rapists and murderers."

Mary Anne Sieghart - The Times

These figures seem too fantastic to be true. Certainly drug-related crime accounts for much of our massive prison population, but few would seriously contend that by reducing the legal impact of one social ill - no others would spring up in their place.

Only by implementing these reforms would we really understand the impacts;  a fantastically problematic argument for those of us who advocate some of the most radical measures.

The broadsheets are seeking to intellectualise the Ipswich serial killer story.  Three commentators tackle prostitution head on in the opinion sections today.

Alice Miles in The Times and Deborah Orr in The Independent have similar views.  Rather than telling women to stay off the streets, Deborah Orr says:

"It might have been kinder for the authorities to have told the women at risk that they could go to their doctor and get prescriptions for their heroin, which might also be a way of keeping them off the streets more permanently. One study found that 98 per cent of sex workers on the street had a drug problem.

Alice Miles agrees:

"How much evidence does the Government need before it concludes that heroin should be prescribed on the NHS for addicts to short circuit the personal and public chaos an addicted life generates?"

Even Simon Heffer in The Telegraph agrees that drugs lie at the heart of the problem (though he pleads for an authoritarian approach to drive drug users and pushers into prisons.)

Surely though the commentators are getting ahead of themselves.  By being clever and focusing so much on drugs, the commentators have dismissed the massive market demand for sex.

As long as that demand exists there will be a supply - from willing or unwilling women.

Successful intervention in the drugs market, were it possible, would no doubt change the profile of the people on the streets.  But another reason the go out on the streets would soon arise as long as there is money to be made in selling sex. All other arguments merely over-intellectualises human behaviour.

Two major policy initiatives that Labour are likely to take into the next General Election were announced yesterday. 

The Prime Minister put his weight behind an NHS restructuring that would, amongst other things, see the closure of many A&E units. All papers provide extensive coverage (though it has been knocked off the front pages generally by speculation over the Pre Budget Report).  That the Telegraph is so lukewarm signals that the Government have a long way to go to win this argument:

"...the common-sense objection to this plan remains: the most sophisticated treatments will be of little use to a patient who has died before he arrives at hospital."

The Telegraph

Many people's experiences of A&Es - especially if they attend at the most critical times - are far from perfect.  But the sense of reassurance that people gain from being within striking distance of their local A&E will be more of a critical factor in the debate than the promises of superior care that accompany them.

Education is the other area that policy proposals now look set to become election pledges in the future.  The proposals contained in Lord Leitch's review of skills suggests, again amongst other things, that we should gradually raise the period of being in compulsory education or training to 18.  (See The Guardian, The Telegraph or The Times)

As this is one of Gordon Brown's own commissioned reports this will probably have more legs than the Tomlinson Report - which covered some of the same ground and was quickly dumped.

"Education for all till 18" from one side sounds like almost as interesting election slogan as "Save our A&E."

The Telegraph

Also in today's news

• Vince Cable develops the idea of independence for our financial institutions further in an article in The Financial Times.
  
• The Indepdendent reports that sales of 4x4s have fallen for the first time for 10 years both here and in the US - a reaction to policy or public opinion?

The Trident White paper will be available shortly after this blog is published.  Widely trailed in all the papers today (and many of yesterday's) none of us will be shocked when we hear Tony Blair announce the start of a process to replace trident.

CentreForum are hosting a timely debate in the House of Commons on this subject this evening (details available from the CentreForum website).  The two speakers, Dr Dan Plesch and Dr Jeremy Stocker will present alternative sides of the replacement debate. Though they differ on the need of replacement, it will be interesting to see if consensus on timing issues can be reached:

The white paper will also reject arguments urging a delay on a decision to commission new submarines by at least five years, as the Lib Dem leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, and many independent analysts have proposed.

Given the long lead times before operational availability - 14 years between the Trident decision and the day it replaced Polaris - it would be too risky. Delay would also not be cost effective, mainly because the nuclear reactors that propel the present boats need replacing soon.

The Guardian 4th December 2005

The costs of Trident are huge - but delaying the decision for short term political respite would almost certainly end up being even more costly.

Also in today's news

• William Rees-Mogg in The Times appears to agree with our blog entry last week about the ongoing threat David Cameron presents to the Liberal Democrat vote.  For this we apologise.
• Marcel Berlins warns of the threats to justice of Impact Statements read out before sentencing - such as that last week by Adele Eastman.  Someone commenting on the article sums it up even more succinctly than the esteemed professor:

"A drunken homeless man who is, as in recent cases, severely beaten up or set on fire, needs the same protection under the law as the devoted daughter or caring teacher. Without this, the law institutionalises an underclass (or untermensch) and violence against the vulnerable and despised will rise still further."

Kazbe commenting on Marcel Berlins "Why Victim Impact Statements should be axed" in The Guardian.

Its the start of a new month, so time to check on the polls.

Anthony King provides some interesting analysis of the Telegraph's latest poll.  The headline figures show that the Conservatives are at 37% (-2) Labour are at 32 (no change) and the Lib Dems are on 16 (also no change).

The main spin the Telegraph puts on it is Cameron marooned; must do better.  This is certainly true if he is to have a hope of winning an overall majority.  But King delves deeper into the figures and pulls out some worrying news for the Lib Dems.

"...the Tories' new concern for the environment may be having a positive effect. It may be helping to change and improve the party's overall image and it may also be helping to woo wavering Liberal Democrats. YouGov at the moment is not only finding that fewer voters now back the Lib Dems than in the past but that an increasing proportion of those who do still back it are in general more favourably disposed towards the Tories than they
used to be."

The Telegraph 1st December 2006

This is particularly worrying for the many Lib Dem MPs with small majorities against the Tories.  It may well be that although the 'vote blue to go green' message has had little effect on Tory voters it has resonated with the more environmentally conscious Lib Dem voters.  If you ask the same voters that divide 37,32, 16 how they would vote given only the two larger parties to choose between, you get 43-34 split in favour of Cameron.

The key to Cameron's parliamentary majority seems buried in the liberal centre ground.  Can Menzies Campbell defend it or will the prospects of backing a determindely centrist David Cameron prove too much?