Several of today's political stories bring to the fore a question that has been rumbling on at least since the Scottish and Welsh elections in early May: the question of partisanship in the new political arena. Can politicians afford to maintain their traditional hostility to members of other parties at a time when party leaders want to appear inclusive and PR electoral systems require coalition?

Let's look at a couple of examples:

• Some Labour peers are by all accounts apoplectic about the appointment of Sir Digby Jones as Minister for Trade Promotion and Investment, and they are unlikely to become much happier now that the Daily Mail has revealed Sir Digby's recent efforts to run for the London mayoralty with Conservative support. ('Labour's Digby "wanted to stand as Tory mayor"')
• Labour activists also want to know why Quentin Davies, an old-school Tory Europhile whose instincts on social policy are distinctly authoritarian, feels at home in their party. As one Tory strategist put it at last week:

What makes the whole thing so infuriating, is that it just doesn’t make sense. There is no logic in Davies swapping sides. He is a socially conservative retard, appallingly illiberal. He is a bucket of bile. Nicholas Soames is probably more liberal. Why would someone like that join Labour? ('Here comes trouble')

• Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, there is the continued reluctance of large elements in the Welsh Labour Party and the Welsh Lib Dems to enter a coalition Assembly government. First saw the All-Wales Accord / Triple Crown / Rainbow Coalition fall by the wayside as Lib Dems got cold feet about jumping in with the Tories; now Rhodri Morgan, who only weeks ago described his coalition options as "a choice between the inedible and the unpalatable" and claimed that Plaid were "unfit to run a cockle stall", is two special conference votes away from a red-green coalition - but not without sniping from several Labour MPs. Kim Howells accuses Morgan of "helping to deliver our communities into the hands of nationalist separatists and incompetents" ('Howells in attack on Plaid pact'), whilst Don Touhig calls the One Wales document electoral "suicide" ('Coalition means "suicide" for Labour'). Neither Labour, Plaid nor the Lib Dems can really claim much credit from these ill-tempered shenanigans.

The 'Heirs to Blair' theme of current Conservative thinking is further reinforced today.  Former News of the World editor, Andy Coulson is going to try to do for the Conservatives what Alastair Campbell did for New Labour.

Michael Howard is well known to be angry at Cameron's grammar schools policy.  What will he think therefore of this move? In case you didn't catch it, the Newsnight confrontation between Howard and Alastair Campbell is still available for viewing on the BBC2 website (click forward 57 minutes for the good stuff).

The most interesting take on all this in today's papers comes from former Number 10 Spin Doctor, Lance Price in The Telegraph ('Cameron needs a media strategy')  In it Price explains that Cameron is doing well on the presentation front already, but the vision and strategy are lacking.

He isn't wholly persuasive in his arguments.  He claims New Labour prior to 1997 put forward coherent messages about what they were for, not just what they were against.

By doing that, New Labour kept all but a tiny minority of their traditional supporters on board and built a coalition of support that proved unstoppable.

My recollection of 1997 probably differs from Lance Prices in a number of ways.  But I seem to recall New Labour doing a very good job at bashing John Major's government and not such a great job at proposing an alternative vision any greater than the 5 pledges on the back of a credit card.

Also in today's news

There was considerable interest in the movements of the British housing market earlier this week with the Daily Express and Daily Mail leading with diametrically opposing front pages ('House prices still soaring' in the Express and 'Is the house price boom over' in the Mail) For an authoritative view have a look at The Economist ('Fighting over their castles')  Nothing particularly new, but a typically robust overview that you would expect from that magazine.

No, not West Ham against Tottenham, but yesterday's other unlikely finale. 

Following Ming's decisive intervention in the Trident debate on Saturday, it seemed his fortunes and reputation were, finally, on the up.

What a difference a day makes.

A quick perusal of the broadsheets this morning does not augur well. According to the Indy, "the party was in a state of confusion over its commitment to proportional representation" (Campbell drops Lib Dems' insistence on electoral reform), the Grauniad follows suit with "PR precondition in reversed then reinstated" (Campbell sets Brown tests for Lib-Lab coalition)and the ever impartial Telegraph announces that "the party was plunged into disarray" (Campbell is ready to make a deal with Labour). Probably not the media reaction the leadership was hoping for. 

The source of this confusion? The eternally anonymous "senior official".

This does all seem a bit bizarre. Did anybody actually come out of Ming's speech in the certain knowledge that he was preparing for coalition talks, the price of which was dropping electoral reform?

It now seems likely that, barring another remarkable turnaround, the Harrogate conference will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

Yes, Prime Minister has many lessons for any observer of the political world. Every episode was instantly quotable but none more so than the time Sir Arnold, the grand wizard of the Civil Service, advised Sir Humphrey about Politicians' Logic.  It goes like this: All dogs have four legs; my cat has four legs; therefore my cat is a dog. Politicians, Sir Humphrey translated, think: Something must  be done about this problem; this is something; therefore we must do it.

Politicians' Logic is even more prevalent when analysing the causes of problems - such as explaining why our prisons are full.  Much of the comment has been about the impact of tougher sentences, the rise in violent crime and tabloid campaigns to let the punishment fit the crime.

The Economist - whilst acknowledging all these factors - reminds us of one devastatingly simple reason that the Government ought to be crowing about:

"One reason the prisons are full is that there are more police officers—141,000, compared with 122,000 in 2000. They can now go after crimes that are hard to crack but attract long sentences, such as drug-trafficking."

The Economist

That part of the cause is rather obvious when you think about it - and could be presented as a great success to be trumpeted loudly by Ministers.  However, to be wholly logical the Government should also have anticipated such a rise, especially as their own departments predicted it quite accurately.  Maybe then, Ministers would rather keep quiet and hope people's attention drifts elsewhere.