SnowBalls

Last week, Ed Balls, Secretary of State at the newly-named Department for Children, Schools and Families, said something which, remarkably enough, smacked of common sense.

Mr Balls, Gordon Brown’s Mini-Me, used to write speeches for the Prime Minister when he was shadow Chancellor. It was he who introduced the expression “post neo-classical endogenous growth theory” into a particularly turgid Broon monologue, which Michael Heseltine memorably dubbed “not Brown’s but Balls".

Anyway, last week Balls tried a different tack and said something sensible. He said that childhood should be a "time for learning and exploring" and children should get the chance to play outdoors.

"My assumption is that, if it snows, kids go out and build snowmen and have snowball fights, that in October kids go out and play conkers, that they play marbles," he declared.

Absolutely spot on, except that, in my experience, the best conkers usually had been picked, pickled and smashed by the end of September.

The point that Balls was trying to make is that these days, children don’t get out enough. Schools and clubs are afraid of letting them engage in the rough-and-tumble games of yore for fear of being sued. Health and safety (invariably elided into “healthansafety”) considerations have made us do our best to turn our offspring into a generation of wimps.

This depressing trend achieved its nadir yesterday in Llandudno. Every July for 39 years, a donkey derby has been held on Bodafon Fields. For almost two generations, children have got on the backs of donkeys, bounced about for a bit as their steeds charge down the course, have sometimes – fairly often, actually - fallen off and have generally had a beltingly good time.

God knows that this summer has been dire enough, so one might have hoped that this year’s derby would inject a little jollity into the otherwise unremitting gloom. Not so. The derby became the latest victim of healthansafety fascism.

The organisers, Llandudno Rugby club, were told that they couldn’t allow children to ride donkeys at a gallop. They couldn’t get insurance because of healthansafety. The insurers had been prevailed upon to offer a reluctant indemnity, but only if the donkeys were moving at walking pace and the riders were holding their parents’ hands. Anything more boisterous, and the club was on its own, at the mercy of Messrs Sue, Grabbit and Runne.

So the club had to call the derby off. As a protest, its members strapped cuddly toys to the donkeys’ backs and sent them careering across Bodafon Fields. None of the toys was hurt. An orange orang-utan apparently won. The watching kids were well and truly hacked off.

So Balls is right. Children are being deprived of the fun and excitement they deserve – no, need – at their time of life. Healthansafety has gone much, much too far.

But whose fault is it? Whose government has allowed the claims farmers to thrive and the compensation culture to flourish? Under whose watch did it become the case that you can’t turn on your radio without being assailed by ads from ambulance chasing “lawyers” urging us to pursue all and sundry through the courts, because, you see, where there’s blame there’s a claim?

It is Labour who have allowed this wretched state of affairs to develop, doing nothing to curb the compensationitis that is making us all frightened of our own shadows and terrified of being sued.

That Balls appears, belatedly, to have recognised this is welcome. Let him now issue an instruction to all teachers, next time it starts snowing, to send their charges straight outside into the cold and frosty air and let them slip, slide and snowball one another silly.

What a nerve

Further to my post about Edwina Hart’s proposed retention of the neurosurgery unit at Morriston hospital, which will result in North Wales brain surgery patients having to travel to Cardiff or Swansea for treatment, I was intrigued by the following extract from a report in yesterday’s South Wales Evening Post:

Val Taylor, aged 72, of Garden City, Fforestfach, who was one of a team of volunteers who helped to collect the petition, said Swansea was best-placed to serve patients needing a brain operation. She said:

"Edwina Hart said in her own words that we should not let anything like neurosurgery services go outside Wales.

"She is trying to keep all the specialist departments in Wales.

"We are keeping the life-saving service in Swansea - there are no two ways about it.

"I am hoping the fight is over now.

"Edwina Hart would have too much to lose if she took the neurosurgery unit out of Swansea. By keeping it there it is convenient for all."

Too much to lose? What could she possibly mean?

And how convenient does she think Swansea is for someone from Cerrigydrudion?

The name's Hain...

No, it’s not Daniel Craig. It’s the Secretary of State for Wales championing equality.

Chapter 3 of this year’s Wales Office annual report was intended, apparently, to give an insight into the work done by the department as a “champion for Wales”. In fact, it amounted to little more than a succession of photos of Peter Hain and his former under-secretary, Nick Ainger, paying ministerial visits.

I asked Peter in this week’s Select Committee what he was doing in the photo above. He was, he told me, presenting the prizes in the 2006 “Welsh Woman of the Year” event. Was the Wales Office sponsoring the event? No, it was the Western Mail. So what was the extent of Champion Peter’s involvement? He, er, presented the prizes. As, indeed, he added enthusiastically, he had for some years.

So he would have presented it the previous year, when the winner was none other than Karen Robson, the excellent Conservative candidate for Cardiff South and Penarth in last May’s Welsh Assembly election.

More about Victoria

I have received the following from Cliff Prout, telling me more about Princess Victoria’s visit to Colwyn:

On 15th October 1832 Princess Victoria and her mother the Duchess of Kent were returning from a visit to the Marquis of Anglesey at his home, Plas Newydd, and stopped at the Ship Hotel for the horses to be watered and rested. She is reputed to have crossed the road to the Maes Cadwgan Farm where she was given a glass of milk. Princess Road was constructed to commemorate the occasion.

I got the year of the visit wrong in my post last week. Victoria would have been about 13 at the time.

Incidentally, my attention has been drawn to a post by a curmudgeonly nationalist blogger, taking me to task for being so enthusiastic about the Royals’ visit. Tough.

Leaving Rhodri in the Lurch

Peter Hain appeared before the Welsh Select Committee today, to be grilled on the Wales Office’s annual report. He was flanked by two civil servants, only one of whom – Alan Cogbill, the Wales Office’s director – spoke.

Peter looked rather tired and subdued, not by any means his usual combative self.

I asked him about the commitment given by the Labour – Plaid Cymru coalition in the Welsh Assembly to hold a referendum on primary law-making powers at or before the end of the current Assembly term. Since Peter is the gatekeeper to the legislation, will he grant the request for a referendum when it is made?

Peter was very cagey. He said that the capacity of the Assembly to deal with extra powers needed to be tested. One had to be cautious. He would have to be satisfied that the conditions were right for winning the referendum. He pointed out how narrow the majority was in favour of devolution in the first place. In short, he implied, he would have to be pretty sure of victory before he gave the green light.

This is not the first time that Peter has expressed reservations about a referendum, and his reticence underlines the stresses within Labour ranks over the concessions made by Rhodri Morgan to Plaid during the coalition negotiations.

I have no doubt whatever that Peter would be entirely willing to leave Rhodri Morgan in the lurch with his nationalist bedfellows if he thought that a referendum could not be won, or even if he just didn’t want to hold one. That would please Labour MPs such as Don Touhig, who are implacably opposed to further devolution, but would cause fury within the Assembly Labour group.

Pimlico Plumbers II

My admiration for Pimlico Plumbers has grown still further.

The boiler in my flat went down yesterday. A quick call to PP resulted in their turning out at 8.00 a.m. today. Too late to spare me a cold shower, but fast enough to ensure I won’t be repeating the experience. The plumber, Michael, was courteous and efficient. His van’s number plate was RAD5.

Coincidentally, I later received the above photo from the Max Clifford organisation.

I had better add that I am not on a commission.

Once every 184 Years

Met the Earl and Countess of Wessex at Wynn Gardens, Old Colwyn today. The weather was unexpectedly fine, and a large crowd had turned out, including three delightful ladies from Minnesota.

Wynn Gardens were renovated some years ago by Old Colwyn Environment Federation, led by the indefatigable Cliff Prout, who received an MBE for his community service in this year’s Birthday Honours.

The Earl and Countess spent the best part of an hour in the gardens, and seemed to take the time to chat to almost everyone present. They were very good value. The Countess planted a walnut tree, using the shiniest spade I have ever seen.

Cliff made a short but very amusing speech, pointing out that it was the first royal visit to Old Colwyn since Princess Victoria in 1823. She must have been about four at the time. What, I wonder, was she doing there?

Silly Season

Leading this morning’s Today programme was the news that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith smoked cannabis when at university. I immediately said to Sara, “I bet I get a call today asking if I did, too.”

Bang on cue, just before noon, I was telephoned by a BBC Wales researcher, telling me that he was doing a survey of all Welsh MPs, asking if they had ever smoked cannabis. Had I?

No, I assured him; I had never smoked cannabis, nor, indeed, had I ever consumed any illegal substance. He seemed disappointed.

Silly season is almost upon us.

Still Spinning

The Welsh Affairs Select Committee’s inquiry into globalisation and its impact on Wales continues to fascinate; I believe its conclusions may very well prove of enormous significance.

Yesterday’s session underlined the employment challenge Wales faces in the new globalised environment. We heard evidence from Caroline Flint, newly-appointed Minister of State at the Department of Work and Pensions, and Peter Hain’s deputy in his day job.

Ms Flint is generally regarded as one of the better-looking Members of Parliament. Easy on the eye she may be, but easy on the ear she’s not. Her extraordinarily wordy evidence consisted primarily of talking up the state of employment in Wales and down-playing the fact that Welsh economic inactivity is significantly worse than that in the rest of the UK. It took me three goes before I could get her to admit that the proportion of the Welsh population in receipt of incapacity benefit is over fifty per cent higher than that of the UK as a whole.

Gordon Brown’s arrival as Prime Minister was supposed to mark to demise of spin as a tool of government. Someone should get around to telling Ms Flint that.

Flagging Pride

As I walk to and from the House these days, I can’t help feeling slightly repelled by the sight of Union flags fluttering from every available flagpole. The recent outbreak of bunting is a consequence of Gordon Brown’s ordinance that the flag should be flown from Government buildings every single day, and not just on the 18 official days on which it used to fly. It was even flying today on the formerly notoriously naked flagpole of Portcullis House.

It’s not that I am opposed to the flying of our national flag; on the contrary, I consider myself both a patriot and a unionist, taking pride when the Union Jack, the Draig Goch, the St Andrew’s saltire and all our national flags are flown. It’s just that Gordon’s decree has rather devalued it all, prompted as it is by political expediency rather than love of country. Gordon has adopted the mantle of Britishness as a cloak to conceal his political nakedness over the unresolved West Lothian question.

Why, we ask, should Gordon, a Scot, be running the NHS in England when, as a result of the half-baked devolution settlement, he can’t do so in Scotland? Why should he control policing in Wales, when Alex Salmond calls the shots north of the border? Don’t worry, says Gordon, I’m British. Look at the red, white and blue flying over No. 10. Forget the constitutional niceties.

It really won’t do, and I, for one, am not going to be suckered by Gordon’s frantic flag-wagging. He and his party have damaged our constitution, and we need to look seriously at how best to make it right.

And, in any event, if the flag is to be flown, it should be done with respect and reverence, raised at dawn and lowered at sunset, and not just left dangling there until it frays and discolours, like a tawdry advertising banner hanging over a McDonald’s in some out-of-town retail park.

..et lux fuit

Received an extraordinary e-mail today from one Alexis Cleveland, the relevant parts of which read:

“I am writing to let you know that I will be leaving my appointment as Chief Executive of The Pension Service, which is part of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), on Friday 20 July.

“Sir Gus O’Donnell, Head of the Civil Service, has asked me to take up a new position with the Cabinet Office, as Director General of Transformational Government and Head of Cabinet Office Management.”

I am agog to know what Transformational Government is. It sounds a bit like transubstantiation. Clearly, Gordon has identified a mystical quality to administration which previously eluded even Tony Blair.

I await seeing what Ms Cleveland can do with five loaves and two fishes.

18 Doughty Street

Dashed across London after Defence Questions (where I raised with Des Browne the issue of Iran’s suspected supply of arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan), to be interviewed by the legendary Iain Dale for the “Class of 2005” programme on 18 Doughty Street.

Iain is a very gentle and courteous interviewer, rather like a younger version of David Frost. He has a tremendously impressive set-up at the eponymous townhouse, which I expect will go from strength to strength, as internet broadcasting becomes the name of the game.

I don’t know when the programme will be broadcast, but I’ll put up the link when it’s on the web.

Iain kindly offered to get me a cab to take me back to the House, but I decided to walk instead. I had not been in the area for years – since I was at university, in fact, when I lived there for a while - and I wanted to see if it had changed. I’m delighted to say it hadn’t.

No-brainer

Little could do more to underscore the perception in North Wales that the Welsh Assembly Government is an institution with a heavy South Wales bias that the news that the new WAG health minister, Edwina Hart, has decided to overrule the recommendations of a report by Health Commission Wales (HCW) on neurosurgery services.

HCW recommended that Wales should have one neurosurgery unit in Cardiff and that the unit presently based at Swansea’s Morriston Hospital should be closed down. A vocal campaign in Swansea, orchestrated by the local newspaper, would appear to have succeeded in persuading Mrs Hart to reject HCW’s conclusions.

Mrs Hart, whose Gower constituency is immediately adjacent to Swansea, says that both the South Wales units can be retained if neurosurgery patients from North Wales, who currently travel to Liverpool’s excellent Walton hospital, are treated at either Swansea or Cardiff. She apparently regards this as an “all Wales solution".

I don’t know how often Mrs Hart has been to North Wales, but if she had any experience at all of the nightmare that is the A470, she would not regard her proposals as in any sense a “solution” for North Walian neurosurgery patients. At best, the road journey from Colwyn Bay to Cardiff takes four hours – probably much longer in an ambulance. Walton, by contrast, is no more than a ninety minute drive down a dual carriageway.

It looks very much as though North Wales patients and their families are to be put to wholly unacceptable inconvenience simply to ensure that Mrs Hart's local hospital retains a neurosurgery unit. Mrs Hart had better brace herself for a tidal wave of protest from the uncharted territory that lies to the north of Merthyr Tydfil.

Heading for the Hills

The appalling weather that has, so far, made this summer pretty miserable, abated today, just in time for me to visit the impressive Loggerheads Country Parc, right on the edge of Clwyd West and close to Mold. I was there to help celebrate the launch of the three-year Heather and Hillforts (H&H) Project.

The £3 million scheme, which has received £1.5 million funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, will preserve the six Iron Age hilltop forts on the Clwydian range and Llantysilio Mountains, together with the heather moorland surrounding them. Among the many strands of the project will be a moorland training programme at Coleg Llysfasi.

The H&H area contains one of the highest concentrations of Iron Age forts in Europe. All await proper excavation. The full extent of the largest, Penycloddiau, was revealed only after a serious heather fire in 2003. Fiona Gale, the county archaeologist, told me that plans are in the pipeline to start excavating it soon.

I was delighted that the Heritage Lottery Fund was able to support an important project in one of the most beautiful areas of North Wales. I hope that similar good causes can also be supported; that, after all, is what the Lottery was set up for in 1995. Unfortunately, this Government has increasingly used it as a substitute for general taxation, and the Olympics are also siphoning mountains of money out of the Lottery at the expense of local projects.

Pictured with me (l. to r.) are Helen Mrowiec, project leader; Fiona Gale, Denbighshire County Council Archaeologist (decorated suitably in Iron Age woad); and Michael Griffith CBE, Chairman, Heather and Hillforts Landscape Partnership Board.

Off with his Head!

The least edifying item of this morning’s news was the spectacle of BBC1’s controller, Peter Fincham, executing multiple gyrations and pirouettes in his efforts to explain why he need not resign after the admission that his channel had screened a doctored report of the Queen’s photo session with Annie Leibovitz, which appeared to show her Majesty storming off in a huff.

The Beeb has long been suspected of covert anti-royalism, but this is perhaps the most glaring evidence yet that such sentiment exists within the corporation. If Mr Fincham wanted to dispel that impression, he would fall on his sword immediately.

Stroke of Ill Luck

Also spoke briefly today in an Opposition day debate on stroke care.

Strokes are, increasingly, survivable, but only if patients receive proper care without delay. Unfortunately the Welsh Assembly Government appears to have failed Welsh stroke patients pretty badly. The 2006 National Sentinel Audit for Stroke reveals the extent to which Wales has fallen behind England and Northern Ireland. Only 45% of eligible hospitals in Wales (nine hospitals) have a stroke unit, compared with 97% of eligible hospitals in England. Only three sites (15%) have acute stroke unit provision.

Chillingly, the report’s authors conclude that patients in Wales are more likely die from stroke, or, if they survive, will have higher levels of disability than in England or Northern Ireland.

I am constantly dismayed at the extent to which the WAG has failed on health care in Wales. More money is being spent on health per capita than in England and we have excellent medical professionals, yet the outcomes, in so many areas, lag far behind those in the rest of the country.

In many places, it is virtually impossible to find an NHS dentist. Orthopaedic waiting times are much longer than those experienced in England. Now we learn that we are much more likely to die of a stroke than we would if we lived on the other side of a non-existent border. It can only be the fault of WAG.

In Wales, we pay our taxes and National Insurance contributions at exactly the same rate as anyone else; why, therefore, should we put up with an inferior service?

Computer says No

Spoke today in a Westminster Hall adjournment debate I had secured to focus attention on the Motor Insurance Database (MID), which is used by police forces throughout the country to help determine whether or not cars are being driven without insurance.

There can be no doubt that there is a major problem of uninsured driving in the United Kingdom. Horrifyingly, an estimated one in every twenty cars on the road is being driven without proper insurance – one of the worst records of any European country. The consequence of this is to push up insurance premiums for honest motorists, to the tune of £15-£20 per person per annum. It is therefore vital that we do all we can to put uninsured drivers off the road, and the MID has proven enormously helpful to the police in their efforts to catch them.

However, problems can arise. I was prompted to apply for the debate by the experience of my constituent, Mrs Maureen Smith, of Rhos-on-Sea. Her story illustrates the difficulties that can arise from a database which is not properly maintained.

Mrs Smith recently loaned her car to her daughter, Mrs Helen Parry. Mrs Parry has her own motor insurance policy with a well-known UK motor insurer which permits her to drive a vehicle owned by another person, with that person’s consent.

One her way home, Mrs Parry was stopped by police officers who were carrying out a routine check. They told her that a search on the MID indicated that she was not insured to drive the vehicle. Mrs Parry explained that, although the car belonged to her parents, she was insured to the drive the vehicle under the terms of her own policy. The officers checked the database again and told Mrs Parry that this was not the case. So far as they could establish, she was uninsured, and they proceeded to seize the car.

Mrs Parry, understandably distressed, was relieved of the keys and obliged to stand in the rain at the side of the road, until her mother, who she had called on her mobile phone, appeared on the scene. I should also mention that Mrs Parry, who is a 29 year-old nurse, was at the time 20 weeks pregnant.

Mrs Smith, when she arrived, told the police that, irrespective of their views of the legality with which Mrs Parry was driving the car, they were aware from their database check that she, Mrs Smith, was insured to drive it and asked for her keys back.

The officers refused to return the keys and sent Mrs Smith to Llandudno police station, where she had to pay a fee of £105 to obtain the release of her own car. At the same time, Mrs Parry produced her own documents to prove that she was indeed insured to drive it. By then, she had been issued with a £200 fixed penalty notice and her licence had been endorsed with six points.

To the credit of North Wales Police, when they discovered the error, they arranged for Mrs Parry’s endorsement and penalty to be cancelled and for Mrs Smith’s £105 to be returned to her. They even gave her a bouquet of flowers.

The fault lay with Mrs Parry’s insurers. They had not uploaded details of her policy to the database, so that she appeared to be uninsured.

I have since discovered that the details of around 400,000 motorists insured by the same insurance company had not been provided to the database within the required timeframe; it is unclear how many other policyholders have experienced similar difficulties.

I put it to Rosie Winterton, the Minister replying to the debate, that police officers should be told not to regard the database as infallible; it is, rather, just a useful tool. Furthermore, insurance companies who do not supply details of policy changes to the MID promptly, and whose delay results in the seizure of their policyholders’ cars, should be required to pay compensation. To her credit, she promised to write to the motor insurance industry and keep me informed of developments.

I was grateful to have had the opportunity to raise the issue in Parliament; I suspect it is a far bigger problem than even the Government realises.

It also highlights the danger of over-reliance on computer systems: bad enough when it results in the loss of your car, but infinitely worse if, as may be the case when we get the unwanted ID cards, it results in the loss of your very identity.

Son of the Manse

Gordon was a bit better at PMQs today, although he could hardly be worse than last week. He was still wearing what is clearly his lucky pale blue tie and appeared generally slightly more confident. He had clearly done some swotting, because he knew who Hizb ut-Tahrir were, although he still wouldn’t say whether or not he intended to ban them.

One surprisingly optimistic note was struck when, in response to a question from Graham Stringer, a Labour MP, he said that the Government intended to look again at the issue of the super-casino planned for Manchester.

He added: "In September we will have a report that will look at gambling in our country - the incidence and prevalence of it and the social effects of it.

"I hope that during these summer months we can look at whether regeneration in the areas for the super-casinos may be a better way of meeting their economic and social needs than the creation of super-casinos."

I wholeheartedly welcome this. Addictive gambling is pernicious, and there are already too many social problems in that part of the country. Perhaps Gordon’s Presbyterian instincts as a son of the manse are beginning to assert themselves. How different from the Flash Harry approach of the Blair years.

Lit up in Ealing

Looks like Labour may well be in difficulty in the Ealing Southall by-election. I spent a few hours there last week and was very pleased with the generally very positive response that the Conservative candidate, Tony Lit, and his team were receiving.

Today comes the further news that no fewer than five long-standing Labour councillors have defected to the Conservatives. Eat your heart out, Quentin!

I will probably be spending quite a bit more of my spare time in Ealing between now and polling day next week. If any readers would like to help out, they can volunteer at:

http://www.campaigntogether.com/.

This YouTube video gives a flavour of the mood in the campaign.

Nantglyn

This evening, I visited Nantglyn, one of the most beautiful parts of the constituency, for a fund-raising function arranged by a Conservative supporter. The rain, which has been torrential for weeks, miraculously stopped and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly in the evening sunshine, sipping wine and wandering around one of the finest gardens I have had the pleasure to visit.

I never cease to be grateful that I represent one of the loveliest constituencies in Britain. What a shame that towering over the garden on a nearby hillside was a phalanx of giant wind turbines, emitting a dull, throbbing, low-frequency noise. I do hope that they really are making a difference to global warming.

Keep on Running

I was intrigued when visiting David Cornock’s blog (which I do religiously) to notice a link to the "Barnes Runners" website. Given that almost all David's other links are political, I wondered who Barnes Runners could be. Was he, perhaps, a retired WWII backroom boy who had moved on from inventing dam-busting munitions into the wonderful world of web-based polemic?

Nothing so esoteric. Barnes Runners is in fact a running club based in the leafy riverside suburb that David is lucky enough to call home. Not only that, but David himself is both the newsletter editor and chair! (I suppose you need a chair after a hard 5 km run.)

I strongly advise readers to visit the BR website, if only to see what BBC political journalists get up to in their spare time.

First Blood

A clunking fist? No, a limp wrist. Gordon Brown’s first Prime Minister’s Questions was not an experience on which he will look back with pleasure.

The House was crowded at the end of Welsh Questions, Members looking forward to Brown’s first outing, his first set-piece encounter with David Cameron. As it turned out, David easily defeated Goliath.

As he rose to stand at the despatch box, Gordon really did look the part. He no longer cut the rumpled figure of old. He had bought a smart new dark grey suit and a nice new pale blue tie. His hair was neatly parted and, for all I know, his shoes were polished, his nails unbitten and he had a clean hankie. I couldn’t see that closely.

But one thing soon became clear. Gordon is no Tony. Cameron had the measure of him and Gordon was found wanting.

David had decided, rightly, to pursue the issue of security. Specifically, he asked Brown why the Government had not yet banned the militant Islamist group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, two years after it said it would do so. Brown looked nonplussed. Frankly, he appeared never to have heard of Hizb ut-Tahrir. He read from his prepared brief, giving an interesting and comprehensive answer to a totally different question – the one his advisers had told him he would be asked.

David persisted: two years had elapsed; why hadn’t the group been banned? Gordon, seemingly panic-stricken, struggling desperately to reacquaint himself with his power of speech, blurted out, “We can ban it under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and of course, of course, of course, I think the Leader of the Opposition forgets I have been in the job for five days.”

Oh dear. He might just as well have said, “Not my fault, guv.” Tories jeered, while Labour Members squirmed. Even his arithmetic was wrong; he had been in office for seven.

And on it went. David asked if we were to have a border police force. Gordon said such a force would be useless without compulsory ID cards. Nonsense, said David. Gordon produced what he (or his advisers) thought would be a devastating riposte. Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, former Whitehall security chief and recent shadow cabinet appointment, backed ID cards, he said. Back came Cameron: if you want to trade quotes, he said, what of new Chancellor Alistair Darling, who had called ID cards “expensive and intrusive”? Alistair had, indeed, put his opposition to Gordon's flexible friends beyond doubt by asserting, “I do not want my whole life to be reduced to a magnetic strip on a plastic card.”

Brown looked awful. He clearly didn’t like the pressure or the wall of noise coming at him from across the chamber. Stunned, he crumpled onto the green bench, and one half expected Jacqui Smith, sitting next to him, to dab his face with a wet sponge. A Tory shouted, “Bring back Tony.” That must have really hurt.

Brown will probably improve as the weeks pass; to be blunt, he has to. However, this was his first big test and he flunked it.

First blood to Cameron.

Pimlico Plumbers

I once knew a man who was an Eddie Stobart spotter. He was a retired lieutenant-colonel and wholly conventional, save for his hobby, which was to note down the name of every Stobart lorry he passed in a special notebook he kept in his car for the purpose.

Eddie Stobart, for the uninitiated, is the Cumberland haulage contractor who gives his hulking great green 40-tonne artics delicate and inappropriate ladies’ names, such as “Dolly” and “Cynthia”. My friend’s ambition, for some unfathomable reason, was to record them all. His wife and children found his pastime infuriating, but I regarded it as a harmless but amusing eccentricity. How could a successful, grown man find such delight in such a banal, meaningless pursuit?

Rather to my concern, however, I have recently found myself tempted to follow in my friend’s obsessive path. Every morning, I walk to the House of Commons as the Pimlico Plumbers fleet is setting out on its daily rounds. Pimlico Plumbers is the hugely successful business founded by the millionaire Charlie Mullins, Britain’s wealthiest plumber. Charlie’s shiny blue VW vans are a familiar sight around Westminster, racing to plumbing crises all over the capital, and no doubt making a mint for Charlie – remember Woody Allen’s observation: “Not only does God not exist, but have you ever tried to find a plumber on a Sunday?”

So, as I walk to work, I usually eyeball at least one PP van. They are notable for two things: they are always extraordinarily clean and they have special, personalised number plates. And what brilliant numbers they are. So far, I have spotted, inter alia, BOG1, W4TER and DRA1N. Charlie must have spent a fortune on the plates, but they certainly get his vans noticed.

Today, in PP spotting terms, was a red letter day. I had the rare pleasure of sighting two PP vans in quick succession. Their numbers were B101LER and LAV1. I jotted them down in my mental notebook.

A few weeks ago, my wife was canvassing in Kinmel Bay during the Welsh Assembly elections. She saw a PP van parked in the driveway of a house she visited. The lady who lived there told her that it had been driven there by her son, who worked for PP in London and was visiting her for the weekend.

When my wife told me about the encounter afterwards, I asked her what the van’s registration number was. She gave me an odd look. The sort of look my friend the Eddie spotter used to get from his wife.

Common Cause

Attended the chamber, where the new Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, made a statement on last week’s terrorist attacks.

As was the case after the 7 July bombings two years ago, the mood of the House was one of unity and defiance, summed up by the veteran Labour MP, Bob Wareing, who recalled the spirit of the British people at the time of the Blitz. Party divisions were put aside; the shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, offered the support the Government the Opposition’s full support and co-operation in addressing the terrorist issue.

I asked the Home Secretary if she would be willing to listen to representations from police forces to ensure that sufficient funding was made available for security policing at ports. I am pleased to say that she confirmed that she would do so.

It is perhaps sad, but true, that adversity and a common enemy brings out the best in the House of Commons, just as it does in our country at large. We realise at such times that there is more that unites than divides us.