Blog Posts by Ian Dunt

Crediting Ed Miliband is one of the great unsung political arts. For two years, he has secured a series of impressive accomplishments in the punishing role of leader of the opposition, only to be met by indifference and jokes about fratricide.

Mention Miliband's name in a pub and most likely you will be met by a blank expression. If someone has heard of him it is usually because he competed against his brother for the leadership. Really politically advanced drinkers may mention he has the body language of a shy alien, too many teeth in his mouth, a curiously shaped head and no shoulders.

What you will not hear, but which deserves recognition, is that he prevented a internecine battle in the Labour party after its second-worst ever electoral performance. He avoided a party split along Blairite/Brownite lines for over a decade from tearing itself apart, as he moved on from the New Labour period. And he stopped it from falling into a new division between him and his brother in the

As I mentioned earlier this week, any slip-ups Cameron made on David Letterman's Late Show would be highlighted in the UK, while his accomplishments would be glossed over.

This morning, the news items led with the prime minister not knowing the English translation of Magna Carta or the writer of Rule Britannia.

In actual fact, the PM did pretty well. His guess for Rule Britannia was fair enough (Edward Elgar) and he correctly answered where (Runny Mead) and when (1215) the Magna Carta was signed.

His answers to Letterman's idiots guide to the UK were suitable accurate and wry. What is the deal on Wales? The host asked. "It's part of the United Kingdom... it's a small country, a very proud nation," Cameron answered. Did they vote for you? "Some of them did," he replied, "but my party tends to do better in England".

Letterman went on: "I'm told you have three viable political parties... but all of them tend to be to the left of everything that might line up here in the US."

Cameron

Good politicians are ardent students of the loss/gain ratio. For every situation they approach they play a little game of rational choice theory in their head. What do they have to lose? And what they have to gain?

David Cameron's decision to appear on the Late Show with David Letterman is a classic example of not getting the loss-gain ratio right. It is a popular US chat show few Brits pay much attention to. If the interview goes well no-one in the UK — the people who will actually be asked to re-elect Cameron — will hear about it. But if it goes wrong, the video will go viral. Lots to lose, little to gain.

So why is Cameron doing it? According to Downing Street, the PM wants to use the goodwill from the Olympics to "bang the drum" for British business and, presumably, tourism. It's commendable that he would take political risks to make the most of what the Olympics offered the UK. But, in truth, a part of him must surely be attracted to the glamour of US entertainment television.

The

With depressing predictability, the murder of police officers is usually followed by a debate on armed patrols and the return of capital punishment. It's the usual motley crew of Tory MPs and mid-market tabloid commentators. The tragic killing of two policewomen in Manchester yesterday has triggered the latest bout, but their proposals would put the police in greater danger, rob them of legitimacy and wreck a policing model which is the envy of the world.

Fortunately, the police themselves are the best defenders of the current system. From the officer on the beat to their representatives at Acpo and - with more complications - the Police Federation, they are opposed to being armed. As Sir Hugh Orde said this morning, it contravenes Sir Robert Peel's dictum of policing by the community for the community. This is particularly important where the community does not, as a whole, own guns. A country where the public are barred from owning weapons and the police wield them on the street

The last few months revealed many of David Cameron's political weaknesses, but today highlighted one of his greatest strengths: he is very good at issuing apologies on behalf of the government. This sounds a flippant, even ironic, ability. But it is the cornerstone of a morally legitimate state.

Just as he did following the Bloody Sunday inquiry, the prime minister issued a frank and full apology for the Hillborough tragedy and its aftermath to a silent, noticeably shocked Commons.

Cameron's establishment credentials lend his pronouncements of regret weight. It does not feel — as it did when Ken Livingstone apologised for slavery, for instance — like someone pursuing an individual crusade. It feels like a reluctant politician speaking on behalf of the British state. For that, it has more resonance.

Cameron combines that establishment poise with basic human empathy. There have been times, especially on the campaign trail, when it is inappropriate and American. But on days like today it

David Cameron threw so much red meat to his backbenchers today that Downing Street cleaners will be getting rid of the stench of it for weeks. "All the things I wanted to see have happened," the ghoulish, CBBC villain Peter Bone commented to the BBC. "I wanted to see Ken Clarke go, to see the party chairman [Sayeeda Warsi] go. So far, so good."

In the aftermath of the enthusiastic Tory rebellion over House of Lords reform, many commentators concluded the Tory party had become ungovernable. It was the glee of the rebellion as much as its size which startled observers. Cameron knows voters reject disunited parties, so he will have calculated that veering it away from the centre will be worth the price of disciplined backbenches.

And what a shift to the right he has executed. Ken Clarke, the first man to bring liberal ideas to the British justice system in a generation, has been replaced by Chris Grayling. Clarke is wrong about almost all economic issues and right about almost all other

By Ian Dunt

Minutes after Natalie Bennett was elected Green party leader, deputy leadership candidates Caroline Allen and Alexandra Phillip were dropped from the race because of their genitals. That's where positive discrimination gets us.

The Green party has an enforced gender split at the top. If the party leader is male, the deputy party leader must be female and visa-versa. It's the most robotic interpretation of gender politics imaginable, like getting a Hal from 2001 to read out Germaine Greer. What it's done, in this particular instance, is to rule out an all-female Green party leadership, which would have been a desirable and exciting outcome for feminists and non-feminists alike.

Instead, Allen and Phillip were dropped because they owned vaginas, while Will Duckworth and Richard Mallender remained in the race because they had penises. If that sounds childish, it's because we should put these rules in their plainest possible terms.

This is evidently unjust, although it is no

It's been a tough week for the left. Ecuador's decision to grant asylum to Julian Assange triggered an outbreak of highly questionable comments from some of the pillars of progressive politics and now more sensible thinkers are taking stock.

The giants of the radical left came out, one after the other, and issued statements which we can only hope they will regret. Tony Benn, one of the godfathers of the British left, John Pilger, its most committed foreign correspondent, and Ken Loach, who turns left-wing thought into beautifully conceived, internationally celebrated drama, revealed that their critique of America far outweighed their consideration for women's rights.

George Galloway went a step further. In a series of blush-inducing pronouncements on sexual morality, he alienated many of those who have stood by him during previous controversies. For memory's sake, Assange is accused of holding a woman down so he could have sex with her without a condom and, days later, having sex with