I have been urged to make an entry again some while ago. What should I comment about? We're just at the end of the party conference season and I haven't even commented about the extraordinary phenomenon of our having in power a Conservative Liberal Coalition which seems so far to be working, not something I would have predicted before. This demonstrates to me that there is more flexibility in the British political system than I or perhaps any of us would have supposed and is in itself a good thing.

Apart from my doubts both about the new Labour leader and more especially how he came to be elected in preference to his clearer better known more experienced and better qualified to lead older brother I remain uncertain about the future for Labour in opposition. I may yet prove to be wrong but I suspect that they are likely to remain in opposition for a long time, at least five years, probably more. By then we may have a fairer electoral system in place thanks to the new found influence of the Liberals in government. This may hopefully have altered the adversarial character of British politics for good.