Radical Departure

Ed Husain is a former Hizb ut-Tahrir member who has campaigned against the ideology of Islamism. But here, for the first time, he makes the case for a different kind of political Islam, one that is plural, secular and democratic.

When I was a student at Newham College in the East End of London in the 1990s, and an activist of Hizb ut-Tahrir, "Islamism", or political Islam, seemed to have answers to difficult questions about identity and belonging. It offered an explanation of the world as I found it.

It offered solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict. It gave definition and direction to a global social network of savvy, supremacist Muslims, who were in revolt against the status quo at home and abroad. My teenage rebellion was channelled into conflict with my parents' much more sober Islam.

Eventually, I grew out of Islamism, but many of my old comrades remain staunch advocates of a rigid, separatist ideology, as are many younger Muslims on Britain's university campuses.

Open-mindedness and pragmatism are not characteristics of my younger co-religionists. Many are rightly concerned about the killing fields of Iraq; about Israel's siege of Gaza; about the rise of anti-Muslim sentiment across Europe; about the lack of a sense of cultural belonging in Britain. They are angry, disaffected and often unable to resist the propaganda of the Saudi-trained clerics who still dominate religious discourse in Britain, especially on university campuses.

Founded in 1953 in Jerusalem, Hizb ut-Tahrir works towards the overthrow of every government in Muslim-majority countries, aiming to create a united, confrontational empire for a billion Muslims worldwide. The irony is that Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain owes a great deal to the Socialist Workers Party, through one of HuT's earliest and most energetic activists, Farid Kassim. He started his political life in the party, and introduced much of the SWP's organisation and doctrine into his new group.

You can call activists such as Kassim "Muslim Trotskyites". They believe that "democracy is hypocrisy" and the "man-made ruling system" must be overthrown as a matter of religious duty. Their primary concern - as with their violent offshoots - is to create an "Islamic state" in an Arab country, supported by a nuclear-armed Pakistan, under the rule of their caliph, in which their particular interpretation of sharia law will become state law.

In my student days, I, too, was a Muslim Trot and believed that political Islam, or Islamism, was an ideology that would unite all Muslims. I was part of a vanguard, with a quasi-Marxist world-view. We replaced "workers" with "Muslims" and swapped "Islam" for the "social" in socialism.

Different from Hizb ut-Tahrir is the political activism of groups such as the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) and the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB). These organisations are fronts for the Middle Eastern political party the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as the south Asian party Jamaat-e-Islami. Although both parties are also committed to creating an Islamic state, the focus of their British supporters' most visible activism is Iraq and Palestine. To that end, the IFE and the MAB have joined forces with George Galloway's Respect party and squandered the raw talent of a generation of bright, young and educated people.

On the other extreme are those Muslims, and non-Muslims, who rather implausibly claim that Islam is only a private and personal religion, with very little to offer its adherents by way of practical solutions to political and social problems. But not only is it intellectually dishonest to deny that religion can provide believers with a political compass; it makes it more difficult to argue for a modern form of western Muslim political identity - one informed by faith but which can also withstand the manipulation of both mainstream and radical Islamism.

Critical state

The original advocate of an Islamic state was the Pakistani journalist and founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Abul-Ala Maududi (1903-70). He campaigned for a separatist, confrontational Muslim political bloc, defined in oppo­sition to the west. In Britain, Maududi's thinking has influenced prevailing Muslim activism. Ask any leading British Muslim organisation to jettison Maududi's teachings and just watch how it recoils.

“Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and programme of Islam," Maududi wrote. One response to his separatism comes from India and the unlikeliest school of Muslim thought: the Deoband movementGranted, the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban were produced in Deoband-influenced madra­sas in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. And yes, in Britain, the most insular Muslim communities in, say, Blackburn or Dewsbury are of the Deobandi school. But to blame the Uttar Pradesh-based scholarly Deoband seminary for these developments is like arguing that Cambridge University is responsible for the views expressed by Nick Griffin.

It would make more sense to remind hardline Deobandis here in the UK of their pluralist heritage and of their forebears' history of opposing Maududi's destructive separatism.

Indian Muslims, numbering more than 138 million, are an instructive political example for British Muslims. Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani, for example, was one of India's greatest Islamic scholars, a supporter of Mahatma Gandhi and a genuine democrat. He was vice-chancellor of the Deoband seminary, controlled to this day by Madani's descendants and students. Sonia Gandhi, chair of the Indian National Congress and a female, unveiled non-Muslim, sat with Madani's son recently at a huge gathering of Deobandi clerics. Would British Muslim Deobandi seminaries in Bury allow for such a gathering with, say, Harriet Harman?

Madani supported the Indian National Congress, opposed the creation of Pakistan as a separate "Muslim country", argued for a secular state in India and advocated "composite nationalism", in which people from different faiths were bonded together as human beings first and foremost. This is the mainstream Deo­bandism of India. Yet our view of Deobandi Islam has become fixated on its fundamentalist fringe - the Taliban.

With just under half of all British mosques and many more madrasas in northern English towns under the control of the Deobandis, Madani's life and legacy would be a powerful argument with which to convince these segregated commu­nities to engage with the British mainstream, politically and socially.

Just as Madani, as an observant Muslim and scholar, allowed for Islam to inform his progressive political thinking, Christian Democrats in mainland Europe follow a similar trajectory. They are not a monolith, but vary from one country to the next. They borrow from liberalism, conservatism or socialism on different policy issues, but broadly remain social conservatives.

In Britain, the old saying that "Labour owes more to Methodism than Marxism" is testament to the strong Christian socialist tradition within the Labour Party. Keir Hardie was a Methodist; the Independent Labour Party was founded in what was a Methodist chapel. So if Christianity can inform political thinking across Europe, why can't Islam? It can. And it does. Muslims should be proud of it, while ensuring that Maududite Islamism does not creep in through the back door.

Two thinkers, in addition to Madani, help guide Muslim democratic political engagement. The first is the great jurist Imam Shatibi, who wrote and lived in Granada, in Muslim Spain, during the 14th century. For Shatibi, sharia law could be encapsulated in the maintenance of religious freedom, life, offspring, reason and property. Any mode of government that provided for these five principles was Islamic government. (Some Muslims have bravely argued that, by this definition, Britain's government is already an Islamic government, because it provides security for religious freedom, life, offspring, reason and property.)

In reality, how do we achieve the five principles? Here, I turn to a non-Muslim thinker, the great philosopher John Locke, and his doctrine of religious toleration. Locke (1632-1704) believed that the state, or "earthly judges" (flawed and fallible human beings), cannot decide on the competing claims of "Truth", based on religion. Even if those earthly judges were to know the "Truth" (the Islamist project is based on imposing such a truth), this could not be enforced by state power - beliefs cannot be forced on free people. Moreover, coercion would result in hypocrisy and social disorder. A more desirable state of affairs is one that allows for religious diversity and pluralism. And it is in such a free market of ideas that we in Britain, Muslims and non-Muslims, compete. Or at least we should.

Angry young men

It has been a long journey for me to reach this point of understanding. My political awakening came with the outrage I felt at the slaughter of Bosnian Muslims during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. That outrage was exploited by Brit­ish Islamists. Today, another generation of angry young British Muslims is being radicalised by ideologically skewed interpretations of the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, as well as social displacement at home.

It will take time for them to mature politically; in the meantime, we must allow them the space in which to grow, develop and change, but still ensure that all of us challenge their preconceptions and prejudices - without assuming that the label "Islamists" will stick for life. We should not forget that several members of the current British cabinet were once on the far left.

I'm far from pessimistic. The UK is much more enlightened than many other European countries. Our public space is secular, but not in the same way as in France, a revolutionary republic in which legislators want to criminalise veil-wearing Muslim women in order to "free" them. Britain, on the other hand, shows how Muslims can engage in a religiously neutral public space, and at the same time allow their religious convictions to inform their political choices.

Ask the audience. Who Was Flanking Cameron At UEL?

Who were those students seen behind David Cameron on Monday while he made his speech on constitutional matters at the University of East London (UEL)?

"They weren't our students," my source at UEL tells me. "We were puzzled when we saw the pictures on TV because there were so many white faces. Whereas the population of UEL is much more black and Asian."

And I'm also told that when the Student Union President Joseph Bitrus was asked on LBC radio today why the student audience looked so bored with the speech, Mr Bitrus too expressed puzzlement, and said that they weren't his students.

So did the Conservatives bus their students in from somewhere else just to be sure that Mr Cameron's speech got a good reception and there weren't any embarrassing protests?

Indeed, were the audience students at all?

I think we should be told. After all, one of the themes of Mr Cameron's speech was "transparency".

China Quake Activist Sentenced On Subversion Charges

Remember The all Chinese Activists That Has Been Arrested Because They Dare To Challenge the Chinese Authority For freedom Of Speech.

A Chinese activist who investigated whether shoddy construction contributed to deaths in the Sichuan quake in 2008 has been sentenced to five years' jail.

Tan Zuoren was formally charged with inciting subversion in connection with the bloody suppression of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

But human rights groups say the real reason for the action taken against him were his investigations.

Many school children were among the 80,000 people killed in the earthquake.

'Subversion'

Mr Tan was arrested while preparing a report into the collapse of school buildings during the Sichuan quake.

"He was sentenced to five years in prison for inciting subversion of state power and deprived of his political rights for three years," said one of his lawyers, Pu Zhiqiang.

"There were no charges related to the quake. All of the proceedings were linked to 4 June (1989)," Mr Pu told AFP news agency by telephone.

But Mr Tan's supporters and the London-based rights group Amnesty International has said that his independent investigation was probably the real reason for his detention.

His trial in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, was adjourned without a verdict in August last year.

'Step backwards'

The verdict and sentence, thought to be the maximum possible, was then read out in less than 10 minutes on Tuesday.

Mr Pu said Mr Tan planned to appeal.

"I think this is a very important case for China ... It shows the Chinese legal system has taken a big step backwards. Tan's 'crime' was entirely one of speech, of conscience," said Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who has also campaigned for earthquake victims.

Mr Ai, who compiled a list of the children who died in the quake, was roughed up when he travelled to Chengdu to attend the August trial.

A Hong Kong television crew was also prevented from attending that trial and had their hotel room searched under the pretext that they were hiding drugs.

Several thousand school buildings collapsed during the earthquake, fuelling angry allegations by parents that corruption had led to poor construction standards.

In many of the affected towns, schools collapsed but other nearby buildings withstood the quake.

Government officials promised an investigation while, at the same time, pressurising parents to keep their grief - and anger - to themselves.

Mr Tan asked internet users and people who had lost their children in the quake to help compile a detailed database of the victims.

He also asked volunteers to detail any evidence of poor construction at the schools.

The Message from Cameron We Need To Get A Grip

Rifts emerge as polls show Tories eight seats short of majority

David Cameron has warned his top team to "get a grip" to halt the Conservatives' dip in the opinion polls which threatens to deprive the party of an overall majority at the general election.

The Independent's latest monthly "poll of polls" shows that Labour has cut the Tory lead to single figures in the past month and suggests that Britain is heading for a hung parliament.

Mr Cameron is reviewing the way his team makes decisions after a series of mistakes which has put his party on the defensive and raised Labour's hopes of avoiding what looked like a certain defeat. In recent weeks, the Tories have talked up and then played down the prospect of big spending cuts this year and Mr Cameron admitted he "messed up" over the party's policy on rewarding marriage in the tax system.

Although the Tories deny they are having a "wobble" or a "panic", one insider said yesterday: "David [Cameron]

is banging heads together and saying we must get a grip."

Tory sources admit that tensions between key Cameron advisers have contributed to a sense of drift but insist the narrowing poll gap has reminded the party leadership that it needs to sharpen up performance.

Steve Hilton, Mr Cameron's director of strategy, is believed to favour a broad-brush campaign built around the Tories' "year of change" slogan. But the shadow Chancellor George Osborne, who is in charge of the election effort, believes the Hilton "vision approach" is too vague and that the party needs to spell out a small number of concrete pledges so voters know how the "change" would be delivered.

Insiders say Mr Cameron has now sided with Mr Osborne against Mr Hilton in an intense internal debate. "We have not had a clear message," one Tory frontbencher admitted. "There has been no one in charge, no one to take a decision, and cock-ups have been made. The last few weeks have been a mess. The word has now come down [from Mr Cameron] that George [Osborne] is in charge on this."

The "poll of polls" puts the Tories on 39 per cent (down one point on last month), Labour on 30 per cent (up one) and the Liberal Democrats on 19 (no change). These figures would give the Tories 318 seats at an election, Labour 252, the Liberal Democrats 47 and other parties 33. Crucially, Mr Cameron would be eight seats short of a majority.

John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, who compiles the weighted average of the polls conducted by ComRes, ICM, YouGov, Populus and Ipsos MORI, said: "Many of the headlines may have been bad for Labour, but in practice this has been a good month for the party."

He said that last month's attempted Labour coup against Gordon Brown did not do any damage to the party's standing, while the announcement that Britain has emerged from recession seemed to have added two or three points to Labour's ratings.

Professor Curtice said: "Labour's immediate task is to consolidate this gain and ensure it is not a temporary blip. The Conservatives' mixed messages on the financial deficit may well have helped Labour in that regard."

One senior Cameron aide insisted yesterday that there has been "no row" and no change of personnel but confirmed the Tory campaign was kept under constant review and that Mr Cameron wanted a "110 per cent focus".

Another senior Tory said that the party had never taken victory for granted and was always going to face scrutiny as the election approached. "We have had a wake-up call - much better to have it now than at the start of the election," he said.

Yesterday the Tories warned that there would be "panic" in the financial markets if Mr Brown managed to hold on to power. Kenneth Clarke, the shadow Business Secretary, told Sky News: "I think most people decided quite a long time ago that they have had enough of Gordon Brown. I think there is a great general desire to get rid of him and the present government, which has plainly played out, and is quite incredible when it comes to tackling the debt and the deficit that they are leaving behind. There would be quite a panic on the markets, I think, if by some extraordinary turn of events Gordon Brown were returned to power."

William Hague, the shadow Foreign Secretary, told the BBC: "I sit next to David Cameron every morning as we look at the political situation. He does not wobble."

Labour strategists are surprised by the apparent drift in the Tory campaign. Labour's private polls suggest that, because many voters want a change of government, they are now looking more closely at the alternative and realising that they do not know what the Tories would do in power.

Who calls the shots? Campaign chain of command

1. David Cameron

The Tories' best asset, having dragged them back to the brink of power after 13 years in the electoral wilderness in his four years as leader. He has never taken victory for granted and now demands a final spurt to the finishing line after recent wobbles. Will be keen to remind voters how he has changed his party as Labour launches "same old Tories" attack.

2. George Osborne

A special adviser in the last Tory government, aide to William Hague when he was Tory leader. Now shadow Chancellor and election co-ordinator. Cameron's closest political ally. Keen to sharpen upthe offer to the voters to include specific key pledges to answer the "change to what?" question.

3. Steve Hilton

Former adman is director of strategy. Seen as third most powerful player in the Conservative Party after Cameron and Osborne. Cameron's intellectual guru. Favours a broad-brush election campaign based on projecting a vision of "change", modelled on President Barack Obama's "time for change" crusade, to exploit public disaffection with Gordon Brown.

4. Andy Coulson

The former editor of the News of the World, where he resigned after scandal over tapping telephones of Royals and celebrities. Head of communications and planning. Less keen than Hilton on "cuddly" policies such as "hug a huskie" or "hug a hoodie". Wants a hard edge to policy andpresentation, and has become a highly influential and trusted adviser to Cameron.

5. George Bridges

Respected former political aide to John Major from 1994-97, he became head of the research department and later campaign director at Conservative Campaign Headquarters. Took time out from Tories in 2007 when he got married but returned to the fold in December 2009 to work on the election. Insiders say he has formed a close alliance with Osborne and Coulson. Seen as on right of the party. Sits on the board of the Centre for Policy Studies.

Tories May Wobble But Brown Remains Their Strongest Asset

There is one conclusion to be drawn from the past month. The Brownites are better at playing politics than the Cameroons. Now that Peter Mandelson is in charge, every aspect of government has been sublimated into politics, and to Tory-bashing. Gordon Brown is desperate to deflect attention from the size of the Budget deficit, the need for large-scale cuts to reduce it, and his twelve year record of overspending and waste. He wants to fight the next election on the fifty per cent tax rate, Michael Ashcroft's tax status and the Tories' plans to destroy the NHS. This is a strategy which has no basis in reality or truth, yet it is still afloat.

Lord Mandelson deserves much of the credit. But the Tories have assisted him. They have been too high-minded and insufficiently intellectually rigorous. As a result, their plans for public spending have come under far closer scrutiny than that of the government - as if they were in charge already. Public expenditure cuts are a highly complex matter. Anyone who thinks that there is an easy answer has not begun to understand the question. On the one hand, the deficit is far too high and must be reduced. On the other hand, economic activity must be maintained. To some extent, we will have to grow our way out of the deficit. That would not be possible if there were an economic implosion caused by over-hasty reductions in government spending.

As these circumstances are unprecedented, there are no easy formulas. Nor is there a consensus among the experts. Some forecasters believe that the economy could grow by as much as ten per cent between now and the end of 2013. That would generate around £50 billion in additional tax revenue: a useful sum. If we added £50 billion of spending cuts and £20 billion from higher VAT and carbon taxes, the crisis would be over, even though - and this is alarming - the deficit would still be too large, despite all those billions.

But other forecasters cannot see where the growth would come from. They think £20bn to £25bn is more realistic. That would leave a dangerous gap. So who is right, and whom will the markets believe? We will only find that out with the passage of time. This will be of little comfort to an incoming Chancellor, under pressure to take quick decisions: under the scrutiny of nervous markets. The markets are nervous. Though they will not necessarily want quick action, they will want a guarantee of decisive action. These are not areas which admit of certainty, but there is one confident prediction. Assuming a Tory government, with the promise of an early budget and an expenditure plan, the markets would be in a mood of wary expectancy. If there were to be a hung Parliament, there would be the mother of all sterling crises.

Not that the deficit is the only problem. In order to prevent deflation and a depression, it was necessary to throw money at the economy. But will it be possible to manage a recovery without that money turning into inflation? How quickly will it be safe to bring an end to quantitative easing and restore interest rates to normal levels, in time to curtail inflation without aborting the recovery?

Again, no one knows, and there is an exciting range of possibilities. On the high growth and steady cuts scenario, everything would be under control by 2014. Though we had gone through an inflationary blip, which had reached three per cent, that had been dampened down. In 2010-11, there had been a succession of public sector strikes, but picketing social workers had never seemed as threatening as Arthur Scargill's miners. At around four per cent of GDP, the budget deficit was still too high, but with growth set fair and the government's plans to reduce the borrowing requirement to zero over the next five years, there was no pressure on sterling. On the contrary, travellers on the continent were enjoying the pound/euro rate - even if exporters were complaining. As the election approached, the Tories were resurrecting a phrase from the previous decade: "sharing the proceeds of growth". There was now scope for modest tax cuts and spending increases.

For four years, the Leader of the Opposition, Miss Harman, had been predicting disaster, abetted by her shadow Chancellor, Mr Balls. The voters were less inclined than ever to believe them.

Then there is the low growth-high inflation scenario. By 2012, the markets had lost patience with the UK and the government was forced to call in the International Monetary Fund. The resulting cuts had led to widespread unrest and the country was still stuck in stagflation. In response, the Tory Parliamentary party had become ungovernable: "worse than in John Major's day" as one veteran put it. The leadership had tried to reassure itself that the voters would never elect Harman-Balls. Tory MPs were beginning to fear that the 101-year-old Michael Foot could have won this election.

Although it is unlikely that either extreme will occur, a plausible case could be made out for both of them. The science of economics - if science it be - is still in its infancy. It may be that as a result of the recent degringolade, we will have a better idea of how to control the growth of credit, so that it remains a stimulus and never becomes a tsunami. It may also be that every few decades, the human race will succumb to the temptations of irrational exuberance. Above all, to paraphrase Willie Whitelaw, it is hard enough to predict the past without starting on the future.

That does not excuse the Tories' failure to establish their intellectual position. David Cameron ought to have delivered a major speech to a serious audience, outlining his thinking on the deficit and, in broad terms, the measures which his government would adopt. He could have made the reasonable - indeed, irrefutable - point that oppositions cannot plan in detail, because they can neither see all the papers nor sit down for shirt-sleeve discussions with middle-ranking civil servants. He could also have stressed the need for a carefully planned and sustainable programme rather than panic measures. But he should have insisted that planning was not a synonym for procrastination.

All members of the shadow cabinet should have been instructed to read, mark and learn the text. Having done so, they should not have departed from it by the scuitilla of a nuance, on pain of career-jeopardising displeasure. If commentators and other irrelevant persons had asked questions, they too could have been referred to the big speech. The high ground would have been secure.

Leaving the way open for an onslaught on the low ground. The Tories need an attack dog to take on Lord Mandelson. This should not be Mr Cameron's role; he should leave negative campaigning to others. But low blows are an essential part of the electoral process, if pale Ebenezer's fate is to be avoided. "Pale Ebenezer thought it wrong to fight. Roaring Bill, who killed him, though it right".

It is not as if Roaring Mandy is invincible. He is sharp and quick, but there is one recurrent defect: his lost contact with the moral high ground in politics. He has never learned to fake sincerity.

Lord Mandelson has another difficulty. The other day, a Cabinet minister had lunch with a journalist. "What happens if you win?" enquired the hack. The minister looked astonished. It was clear that this possibility had not occurred to him. Having regained the power of speech, he replied: "There'd be an immediate leadership challenge". Mandelson may be running the election campaign, but Gordon Brown will be leading it. That is a challenge beyond even Lord Mandy's powers.

Suddenly, The Telegraph Is Saying Grumpy Old Gordon Brown Doesn't Look Such A Lost Cause

Now who has the last laugh Labour or the Tories I know who I would place my bet on

The law of political gravity is usually inflexible. Like Newton's apple, a government in free fall is not destined to change course. In the past weeks, a series of disasters has conspired to hasten Gordon Brown 's descent. A coup plot, a feeble economic recovery and Tony Blair's performance at the Chilcot Inquiry might, singly or collectively, have marked the spot where Mr Brown hit rock bottom.

Yet exactly the opposite has happened. Of three recent polls showing the Tory lead sliced to single figures, the YouGov survey for this newspaper put the Conservative advantage at only seven per cent, down two on last month. If that picture were to be replicated at a general election, David Cameron would fail to win an overall majority.

Mr Cameron must feel that he is playing the arcade game of Whack-a-Mole, in which the object is to flatten an adversary whenever it sticks its head out of a hole. Each time Mr Brown receives a mallet blow, inflicted either by the Tories or his own side, he pops back up undented.

Even worse for Mr Cameron, the Brown conundrum decrees that events which should have crushed the PM's chances have worked to his advantage. The failed coup appears to have united a restless Cabinet who must make the best of the leader they have.

"But it's more than grudging support," says one Cabinet minister. "Gordon's making efforts to address the very destructive problems of the past." Poisonous briefings and the "bad behaviour that made teamwork impossible" have been discarded. Whether or not No 10 is a temple of harmony, there is at least an acceptance of ideas not bearing a Brown copyright. For example, Mr Brown yesterday promised to put mutualism, as practised by John Lewis and promoted by Tessa Jowell and Lord Mandelson, at the heart of Labour's manifesto.

Britain's emergence from recession on a wafer margin of 0.1 per cent does not bolster Mr Brown's claims to be an economic magus. It has, however, been to his benefit, reinforcing the message that cutting too deep and too early will cripple a vulnerable economy. In comparison, Mr Cameron's assurance that immediate cuts need not be "particularly extensive" appears to have been reworked by St Augustine. Make me austere, oh Lord, but not quite yet.

Of the three likely knock-out blows to Mr Brown, Tony Blair's Chilcot show was the gravest. Mr Blair's lack of empathy towards those who died in Iraq and his disregard for the niceties of democracy or international law were predictable and yet startling. Mr Blair had gone into a lethally-destructive war on the same righteous but self-centred impulse that might prompt one to give up chocolate for Lent.

In many critics' eyes, his evidence was a six-hour obituary to New Labour, the party that mistook its leader for God. Who would want to re-elect these dead-eyed cultists? Only Le Monde got it right. In an editorial, the French daily lambasted "le star du New Labour", surmising that Britons blamed Mr Blair bitterly and personally.

Chilcot has made him a lightning conductor for Mr Brown. Venom against Labour has been expunged on Mr Blair. The wrinkles had been Botoxed out of his performance, if not his smoothly-tanned countenance, in a way that placed his successor's mediaphobic manner in an almost flattering perspective. Cabinet members, some Blairites included, shuddered at the former PM's warmongering against Iran and wondered whether such sabre-rattling befits a supposedly impartial emissary to the Middle East.

Mr Brown, as far as anyone knows, is not spoiling for another reckless war, preferring stringent financial sanctions against Tehran. Those who hope he will apologise to the Chilcot panel over the invasion may be disappointed, but the tone of a PM who has so far issued three regrets for the failure to rebuild Iraq will be more modulated than his predecessor's. Mr Brown's hands are not clean, but neither are they dripping unmourned blood.

For the first time since his brief honeymoon, Mr Brown is looking far better than a predecessor whose velvety ruthlessness has never appeared less seductive. Meanwhile Mr Cameron must rue the day when he was labelled heir to the vainglorious Blair. The rude captions on the Tory leader's posters are a sign that ego politics are now seen as best left to dodgy African potentates.

At No 10, Mr Brown's aides are attributing the PM's improving fortunes to more solid foundations. Crime is down, unemployment is much lower than in previous recessions, people are more optimistic about their financial prospects and, with 30 per cent of voters undecided or veering to fringe parties, Labour is hoping to "claw back one point at a time".

Well, maybe. The Government has not accrued much extra support, while Tory backing has slipped away as Mr Cameron continues to make unforced errors, such as suggesting that burglars leave their human rights at the door. This populism ignores the fact that few householders, however protective of their possessions, want a licence to flay, torture, spit-roast or feed to the cats any malefactor with designs on their flat-screen televisions.

Despite the uncertainty on whether the Tories are nice or nasty, Mr Cameron's wobbles, on the economy and other matters, may abate. The polls still say the best Labour could hope for is a hung Parliament, possibly made messier if Mr Brown refused to go. Even so, the Government is sensing a last chance of victory. One Cabinet minister who spoke out against class war says now that those raised on the playing fields of Eton or in the mews of Knightsbridge "are just rather removed from parks where dogs roam and children can't play".

"People can identify with grumpy old Gordon," says a senior colleague. "Even at his worst, they know who he is." Mr Brown is an unlikely trump card for his party, but Mr Cameron should fear him all the same. Stubborn, intractable and with a self-belief that dwarfs even Mr Blair's concrete conviction, Mr Brown has the stamina for this fight.

All his life, he has battled – against personal tragedy, physical impairment, Tony Blair's supremacy or banking meltdown. That bulldozer quality is the ingredient that makes him such a bad consensual politician and such a formidable foe.

Mr Brown, who prefers war to peace, enjoys elections. According to one friend, he is "just beginning to hit his stride". His instincts are becoming less shaky, his luck less bad, and his appetite for work even more prodigious. Yesterday, as usual, he was at his desk before dawn.

Three polls do not change the course of a campaign in which Mr Cameron is still well ahead. The truth, chilling for the Conservatives, is that Mr Brown can only fight rearguard actions. Having fluffed an almost unlosable election, he is determined to snatch an almost unwinnable one. If he has really acquired the alchemy of turning disaster to advantage, that ambition no longer looks quite so absurd.

Vote Of No Confidence In Tory Economic policies

How Can You Trust the Tories The Nasty Party The Difference Is Choices Trust Labour & Vote Labour In Both Local & General Election In 2010.

Poll lead slips to 7 points as vast majority of voters say Cameron should be clearer about plans for cuts.

The Tories are 16 points ahead among men but trail Labour by four points among women

Tory Turmoil Over Tax

Tory turmoil over tax is one of the reasons why David Cameron fails what a Right-wing mate – and yes, I do have a few – calls the £10 test.

My rich Thatcherite associate judges politicians on whether he’d trust them to look after a tenner.

Gordon Brown’s personal probity’s beyond reproach, the PM able to lecture Caesar’s wife on the value of being above suspicion.

The Tory friend’s no fan of Labour but he reckons Brown’s honest and would return the £10.

Nick Clegg’s a nice-guy-next-door kind of Lib Dem who’d push the paper through the letter box when you’re on holiday so burglars wouldn’t spot the house is empty.

The wealthy Tory thinks Clegg would also remember to give back the £10 note, possibly ironed to look smart.

But get him on the subject of Cameron and he erupts, a human Krakatoa, absolutely venomous about the Tory leader’s shortcomings.

He rants that Cameron would either forget or couldn’t be bothered to give him his tenner.

The smiley PR man spinning his way towards Downing Street’s denounced as politically soulless by the instinctive Tory.

I beg to differ and believe Cameron’s a Son of Thatcher who relishes slashing and burning public services.

Yet the widespread suspicion of the Tory leader will be ruthlessly exploited by Labour in the election.

A key player in Labour’s election campaign muttered all the party’s polling finds voters remain uneasy about Cameron. He’s superficially attractive until people stop and think.

Once they do, voters worry Cameron’s not what he seems, the image reappearing of the camera-happy cyclist secretly followed by a chauffeur with the shoes.

Frantic Tory backpedalling on tax cuts is the wobbly policy back wheel of Cameron’s buckling personal appeal.

What was presented as a £4.9bn easy ride for married couples has turned into a Penny Farthing promise not worth the hot breath.

If Britain was half as broken as the chief Con asserts, if Brown was anywhere near as useless a leader as Cameron insists, the Tory toff would be round the corner and out of sight.

But opinion polls hint at a hung Parliament, a result Labour would hail as a victory when the party was written off as fit only for the political knacker’s yard.

After all that’s happened – a global financial crisis, the 10p tax fiasco, the ridiculous Labour plots – I too am sometimes surprised Cameron’s not sealed the deal.

Then I remember the £10 test and the Cameroon scepticism of my Tory mate.

Huge Debts Of-Tory Candidate Leave Voters With Prospect Of Disqualified MP

"HOW CAN YOU TRUST THE TORIES TO RUN THE COUNTRY WHEN THEY CANT GET THEIR OWN HOUSE IN ORDER"

One of the Tories’ star PPCs has been reported as having defaulted on ‘debts’ of nearly £325,000. The Mirror reveals that Bristol East candidate Adeela Shafi, who was hand picked by Cameron to open for him at Conservative conference in 2008, has ”has had three county court judgments against her since 2007″.

The Insolvency Act 1986 and Enterprise Act 2002 outlaw undischarged bankrupts from standing for Westminster and provide for bankrupt MPs to be turfed out. Application for a bankruptcy petition by creditors (her husband was declared insolvent in 2000) could leave the Tories without a candidate or, should Shafi pull off a shock win in Bristol East, a Member of Parliament. Scrapbook doubts this is the kind of gamble voters will plump for on May 6.

The bombshell leaves Shafi open to allegations of recklessness from fellow Tories and recalls the recent case of the SNP’s original candidate in the Glasgow North East by-election, who was forced to stand down within five days of selection after failing to declare serious financial problems.

This is the kind of campaign development that party staffers dread and the stuff of absolute nightmares for election agents. What’s that sound?

The wheels coming off one of the Tories’ most visible campaigns.