Cameron's leadership: A Miraj

How amusing but also how appalling to hear David Cameron on the Today programme this morning, lashing out at anyone who has recently dared to criticise his leadership of the Tory party. I suppose if he attacks everybody, then that makes him inclusive.

Cameron was actually on the airwaves to tout his latest policy idea, which is to take away the right of appeal from children who have been excluded from schools. To my mind, as a school governor, the appeal process is vital, giving an opportunity for a child's case to be scrutinised by a higher 'court of appeal' than the school, allowing for justice to revisited and done if the exclusion has been unfair. Cameron, incidentally, got it wrong in saying that "perhaps" school governors could sit and hear exclusion cases as if that was some new idea that had just occurred to him. Governors already do that, the final decision does not rest with the head teacher as Cameron appears to believe.

Then it was on to the meat of the interview, Cameron's wobbly leadership of dissenting Conservatives.

Ali Miraj, on the board of two Tory policy reviews and the man who introduced Cameron at the launch of his leadership campaign, has become disillusioned, asking for "some substance and some credibility and not box-ticking and gimmickry". He has also said that "Cameron in my view has got substance, somewhere in there, but I'm afraid that in recent weeks, that has been taken over by PR."

Showing a spectacular lack of substance and a rather immoderate temper to judge by his rising tone of voice, Cameron hit out at Mr Miraj saying "I think listeners will draw their own conclusions about someone who one day asks for a peerage, to be elevated to the House of Lords, and the next minute launches a great attack on the leader of the Conservative Party."

With what evidence does Cameron make this serious assertion? Miraj has denied it.

Miraj, a former Conservative councillor and twice a parliamentary candidate, has responded: "Instead of engaging with the actual significant points I was making, he is trying to smear me now, which in my view is very, very disappointing and smacks of a complete lack of integrity. They can smear me as much as they want. They will be the losers if they don't engage with the points I have made."

Cameron then turned his anger on Lord Saatchi, who has said that "nicey-nicey" politics will not help the Tories win the next election. Cameron said, paying scant heed to the 18 years of Conservative rule (when of course the guiding Thatcherite motto was that there was no such thing as society) that his "answer to Maurice Saatchi is that the big question facing Britain today is how to mend our broken society."

Next up for scorn was Lord Stanley Kalms, the party donor, who last week dared to opine that Cameron's Conservatives "need to do some rethinking". Cameron retorted: "I don't think he knows what's going on in the Conservative party review groups. Stanley Kalms has never supported the Conservative party under my leadership. He takes a very backward looking view of these things."

I wonder whether any of this would be happening now if David Davis had won the Conservative leadership. Perhaps ordinary Conservative voters outside Mr Cameron's metro-bubble are wondering too. Is he thinking what they're thinking? I doubt it.

Richard Stott

I was deeply saddened when I heard this morning that Richard Stott, with whom I worked closely during the editing process for the single volume of Alastair Campbell's diaries, died this morning from the pancreatic cancer he had been fighting against for much the project.

I had known Richard slightly ever since I worked in the Downing Street press office, but got to know him well as we went about the protracted editing process. I came to admire him as a journalist of great flair and fibre, and phenomenal energy. He coped with the disease with immense courage and bullish good humour, as well as what I would describe as an optimistic fatalism, often shown in sudden flashes of biting - but good-natured - wit, very often at his own expense.

I will always recall the long discussions we had about the relative merits of one form of words over another for various footnotes. He would often correct me over a point of syntax, and I would often correct him back on a point of detail. He never got impatient or gave the impression that he thought his view (ie as one of the great modern newspaper editors) was any more valid than the whippersnapper he had been asked to work with.

The last time I saw him, perhaps a few months ago, he had just had weeks of therapy and seemed to be very much on top of the cancer, cracking jokes - usually at the expense of the man he called either "Campbell" or (for more pointed fun) "the diarist", who had worked for Richard when he was editor of Today. Working closely with Richard was a great education and great entertainment - he would frequently have me in stitches with a mischievous remark, lobbed like a hand grenade into the most serious conversations.

I can remember at that last meeting, a long evening called to take careful stock of where we were with the diaries with publication looming, that despite his obvious ill-health he had the team laughing off our worries for him. He did a very funny and totally spot-on impression of Alastair reading out his work for the audiobook version with every snort and throat-clearing that anyone who has had a conversation with AC would recognise instantly.

I'm sure Richard was pleased to know that The Blair Years was published, and I know AC made a point of driving to see him in hospital, where he had worked on the last proofs of the book, where he was presented with the very first copy off the presses.

I am sorry I will never see or talk with Richard again. He was a good man, a Labour man, and only 63. Cancer is the cruellest of diseases.

Streatham Vale Flower Show

Since I was elected as a councillor, I have attended the Flower Show that is held biannually in the Holy Redeemer Church Hall in the Vale. It's always a fun event, organised by the Streatham Vale Property Occupiers Association, harking back to the earliest days of the Vale in the late twenties and early thirties, when the residents would vie to win various cups and shields for their garden and allotment produce, their cakes and their jams.

The show is still going strong today, and today's event saw trestle tables displaying the best in flower and vegetable arragements. Tea was served, old friends caught up with news and raffle tickets were sold - I won a nice little paintbox for my nephew when the draw was made by excited local children, overseen by former Conservative councillor for Streatham Vale (1986-98), Simon Hooberman.

The Flower Show is a testament to continuity, and the strength of the community young and old in Streatham Vale.