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Where oh where, asked Tony Blair at today's Prime Minister's Questions, was the third contender for the Lib Dem leadership, after both Ming Campbell and Simon Hughes had made appearances. The answer was that he - Mark Oaten - was sitting next to me on the set of BBC Two's The Daily Politics, where more voters could see him!
If you like a fag with your pint, go and have one quick while you still can. In the first of a series of backdowns to backbench pressure, ministers have given in to demands for a free vote. I am assured that this will be a genuinely free vote so - bizarrely - health ministers will vote for a ban and therefore against government policy!
My suggestion that the rush towards the centre ground is leaving us ever-so-slightly short of big ideas seems to have struck a chord. In the 60s they called the consensus Butskell-ism (after Butler & Gaitskell in case you're too young to remember). What now I wonder? Blameron-ism? All suggestions gratefully received.
Now I am contractually required to stay neutral but here on my blog I can confess to veering towards the Lib Dems now that it's clear that they're to pick a baldie as leader - whether it's Ming, Mark or Simon. Even between them they couldn't muster a full head of the stuff.
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My series on The Prime Ministers is on Radio 4 (Tue 0930, repeated Sun 2245) - or click here to listen. Most recent:
And Decision Time, on how ontroversial decisions are reached behind closed doors in Whitehall, was on Radio 4 on Wednesday 11 March at 2000.
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