Pedalling a line

Top marks to the British Lung Foundation. They've succeeded where others have failed and managed to get MPs from different parties singing from the same hymn sheet.

Take this quote from the Tory MP John Baron, dated May 9: "I’m......delighted to support the British Lung Foundation’s campaign to encourage us to look after our lungs. We don’t realise how fragile our lungs are and what an important job they do in keeping us mobile and active."

The Tory MP Andrew Selous had a similar view on May 8: “I’m delighted to support the British Lung Foundation’s campaign to encourage us to look after our lungs. We don’t realise how fragile our lungs are and what an important job they do in keeping us mobile and active."

Labour's Andy Love said on May 13: "I was delighted to support the British Lung Foundation’s campaign to encourage us to look after our lungs. We don’t realise how fragile our lungs are and what an important job they do in keeping us mobile and active."

Labour's Hywel Francis (pictured) couldn't agree more in a press release issued a week after the event: "I am delighted to support the British Lung Foundation’s campaign to encourage us to look after our lungs. We do not realise how fragile our lungs are and what an important job they do in keeping us mobile and active."

It is a rare cause that unites politicians across parties verbatim - perhaps the BLF should have brought in a couple of tandems. You can find out more here or call the BLF Helpline on 08458 50 50 20.

Brown backs Bluebirds - and Pompey

There was a buzz about Downing Street today as Gordon Brown prepared to face the world's media after one of his most difficult weeks in office.

Inside Number 10, hacks gathered to question the Prime Minister on the big issues of the day - the economic slowdown, the credit crunch, rising inflation, natural disasters, geo-political instability.

So naturally I asked Mr Brown whether he'd be supporting Cardiff City in Saturday's FA Cup Final. As a Raith Rovers fan, he has some experience in supporting underdogs so I wanted to give him the chance to send a message to the Bluebirds that he's on their side.

Here's the response, as delivered live on the BBC News Channel:

"Two days ago I met Dave Jones, the manager of Cardiff City, and some of the officials and I wished him well as he approached the Cup Final.

"I also met Sol Campbell at the same reception and having satisfied myself that he was going to be fit for the Cup Final I also wished him well in the match ahead.

"I think this is going to be a great match. I think it is essentially a clash in the great Raith Rovers versus Celtic match context, between the premier league club and the challenger and I wish both sides well in the tournament.

"Dave Jones has done a great job as manager but obviously Portsmouth has had a great season as well. It's going to be a great clash - look forward to watching it."

I got the balanced, even-handed response I expected but feared. Still, worth a try.

I'll be generous and resist the temptation to suggest Mr Brown is dithering or sitting on the fence.

It must be hell being PM - you get to watch the big domestic games spending 90 minutes of agony cheering for a draw.

I'm off to check the records to see when Raith Rovers last beat Celtic.......

House rules

Housing soared up the political agenda as prices rose and has remained there as prices fall. "We can't know how bad it can get" as the English Housing Minister put it.

Devolution means different responses in different parts of the UK. In the week Gordon Brown unveiled plans to increase shared equity schemes and buy unsold homes to rent them to tenants, the Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy presented to Parliament an order to allow the Welsh Assembly Government to suspend the sale of council houses.

Older readers may remember Mr Murphy's view on this Legislative Competence Order (LCO) when it was mooted last year. This is what he told the Welsh Grand Committee in December:

"I think that, overwhelmingly, most LCOs, when they come here, will be passed without too much fuss. However, there may be occasions when things are a bit more controversial, and I will cite two LCOs as examples.

"I think that the LCO that deals with the ending of the sale of council houses will produce controversy. For the past two decades in Wales, the fact that houses have been sold by local authorities has meant that people in Wales, by becoming home owners, have improved their lot.

"There are areas of housing need that we must be careful about, and the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy touched on one or two of those issues today. However, a warning shot should be sent by those of us who represent constituencies that have traditionally contained a large proportion of council houses."

Perhaps the warning shot missed its target or has Mr Murphy shot himself in the foot?

Crewe Junction

Top marks to Jon Sopel of the BBC News channel for his opening question to Labour's candidate in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election: "How's the class war going?"

Tamsin Dunwoody, for it is she, was briefly non-plussed by the query, prompted by her party's campaign highlighting the relative affluence of her Conservative opponent Edward Timpson.

"We have a candidate opposing us who lives in a one and a half million pound mansion," Ms Dunwoody, late of the Welsh Assembly, said during a live interview.

That sum would barely buy a wing of Tony and Cherie Blair's latest purchase, a country house once home to Sir John Gielgud. Labour are branding Mr Timpson a toff, employing activists dressed up in top hat and tails to greet him in the constituency.

Cherie Blair's memoirs make much of her humble origins, although her husband went to Fettes - "the Scottish Eton" - which probably makes him a toff in Labour circles.

David Cameron and Boris Johnson have had to downplay their own schooling at Eton for political reasons. Visitors to Britain might think it slightly strange that some parents fork out tens of thousands of pounds buying what they think is the best education you can get, only for the beneficiaries to feel the need to distances themselves from it.

A campaign leaflet stoked up the class war. At least Labour aren't using the by-election to rail against the hereditary principle - probably just as well as Tamsin is the daughter of two Labour MPs and the grandaughter of a Labour general secretary and a member of the House of Lords.

The full list of by-election candidates, should you be interested, can be seen here.

If all this talk of old school ties is making you nostalgic, read this inspiring story about someone who had the misfortune to teach me at (comprehensive) school.

A different blame game

Some respite for Gordon Brown, currently more beleaguered than a relegated Premier League manager. Ken Livingstone isn't the only Labour figure prepared to take responsibility for this month's electoral drubbing rather than blame someone else.

Lynne Neagle chairs the Labour group in the Welsh Assembly. She is also AM for Torfaen, where Labour had a pretty grim day on May 1.

Here's her take on what the elections mean for Welsh Labour:

"The electorate has just told us that we haven’t done enough – and what we have done clearly hasn’t been communicated well enough."

"The very idea that none of what happened in the local elections in Wales has ended up at the door of the Assembly is monumentally worrying – it must make us question just what kind of an impact the institution has made on the Welsh psyche?

"We control education, health, housing, community regeneration – and according to some – we’ve established clear red water between ourselves and an unpopular UK Labour Government.

"And yet on May 1st, the clear red blood of good Welsh Labour councillors ran thicker and faster than their counterparts in England. It is time to take some responsibility.

"Playing the blame game just undermines the value of the Assembly in Wales – and indeed there was little in the results of last week that wasn’t foretold in the Assembly elections of last year. Our reaction to that result has been sluggish, and we’ve paid the price.

"The communities for whom only Labour will ever deliver are tired of waiting for lasting change and they’ve just got that message across in the clearest way possible.

"It takes a strong character to ask for a discussion with the person who has just bloodied your nose – but that is what Welsh Labour must do with the electorate, starting today."

Slap happy once more

A lot has changed in Welsh politics recently but students of political linguistics will be cheered by the return of one familiar phrase.

Plaid Cymru may be in government in Cardiff now but farther west they feel rather excluded from the new local government shake-up in Carmarthenshire.

In a statement guaranteed to evoke nostalgia for what seems a bygone age, Councillor Arwel Lloyd says the Independent/Labour coalition is "a slap in the face" for democracy.

Three years after I first identified the phenomenon Plaid have resurrected this traditional campaign description.

The party has yet to exhume "snub to Wales" although the word "snub" may not be out of place here.

Leadership frenzy

For months - almost since he got the top job - the political world has been agog with rumours about the party leadership.

The verdict from the voters was, at best, mixed. Speculation about the man at the top was never far away whenever the party's politicians and activists were gathered together.

A fixture on the political landscape for so long, could the leader survive demands to make way for a young pretender who could re-vitalise the party?

Should he stay or should he go?

Now we know.

Mike German will step down as leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats this autumn.

The only party leader from the original Assembly still standing, he announced his decision today.

"I said earlier in the year that I would stand down when it was sensible and practical to do so, and having received this request from the party's senior officers, I have decided that I will resign following the debate on the constitution at our Autumn Conference."

(Can there be a more appropriate way for a Lib Dem leader to leave than after a debate on the constitution?)

Mr German's announcement has fired the gun, as we hacks say in these circumstances, for the race to succeed him.

You will doubtless find detailed analysis of the potential candidates elsewhere but I will be taking a passing interest in the campaign.

Regular readers of The National Assembly for Wales - The Record of Procedings (always devoured chez Cornock over breakfast) will be aware that Eleanor Burnham has recently been stressing the breadth of her experience.

Not content with regularly throwing the "as a former magistrate" into speeches, EB JP has also spoken recently "as a former teacher of underachieving disaffected 14-16 year olds" and "as a former hospice fund-raiser".

Her campaign team will be hoping that come the autumn speeches do not begin "as a former future leader......"

The Men in Grey Beards

Fantasy politics can be a fun game for Westminster journalists on those rare days when there's no Government crisis to report.

Now MPs seem to be joining in the game. Paul Flyn unveils his fantasy cabinet here. Gordon is still Prime Minister - Gordon Prentice, that is. Mr Prentice, along with the other Flynn selections is unlikely to be offered office under any likely PM but the significance of the line-up is the suggestion that Gordon Brown should go before the next election.

The Newport West backbencher poses a question that currently focuses Labour MPs - and offers this answer: "Yes of course it’s possible to win a fourth term. Here is the plan. Gordon Brown survives until the D-Day of January 1st 2010. By then he will have rebuilt his authority and he can resign with dignity and honour."

The blogging equivalent of a visit from the men in grey suits - the men in grey beards, perhaps? - or the traditional leaving gift of a pearl-handled revolver and a bottle of whisky?

Spending a penny wisely

If anyone ever asks you the point of a political institution, you may wish to refer them to this quote from Jenny Randerson, a Liberal Democrat member of the Welsh Assembly.

"Making sure there are enough public toilets, in the right places and accessible to all who might wish to use them, is exactly the sort of thing the Assembly was set up to debate."

Bad news for anoraks

Another radical response to Labour's electoral disaster, this time from Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy:

"We talk a lot about constitutional issues, these things have to take second place to the realities of everyday living."

A bold idea. He'll be telling Welsh politicians to stop gazing at their navels next.