The Ed Matts' amateur photoshopping row - or rather, more of a kerfuffle - led to The Guardian asking its readers "Can You Do Better?" -

Early indications are that, yes, they can.

The haste with which John Reid sought to connect today's incident to the recent untidy political demise of Howard Flight is probably more indicative of the narrowness of Labour' s majority - 153 - in the Dorset South seat than to any serious expectation of accountability at the top of the Tory party.

But you can't really blame the government's attack dog for trying, even if in this instance he's more of a Pointer.


The Green Party launched their manifesto, promising to phase out VAT and abolish Britain's "weapons of mass destruction". They'd be interested in Prof Philip Stott's piece on energy generation in The Times. The party is targeting five constituencies and feels it has a good chance of picking up disenchantde Labour voters.

According to former foreign secretary Robin Cook, Gordon Brown will take over from Tony Blair as PM "sooner rather than later".

Perhaps this blog is just being over-sensitive, but it wonders if Andrew Billen in The Times maybe thought about an alternative intro to his piece on Trevor Philips and immigration.

He writes:

THE trouble with elections, says Trevor Phillips, the Commission for Racial Equality’s chairman, is that they prevent people from talking like human beings. Perhaps it is as well, then, that our first encounter is back in February, when the election is merely a black cloud on the horizon.