"I feel it is necessary to issue this personal statement in response to press
and internet speculation over the last ten days. Earlier this year a Sunday
newspaper began questioning whether my marriage to Ffion was in trouble, and
last week another media outlet asked whether there was a statement about our
supposed separation. This seemed to be linked to equally untrue speculation
surrounding the appointment of Christopher Myers as a Special Adviser.
Christopher Myers has demonstrated commitment and political talent over the last
eighteen months. He is easily qualified for the job he holds. Any suggestion
that his appointment was due to an improper relationship between us is utterly
false, as is any suggestion that I have ever been involved in a relationship
with any man.

This speculation seems to stem from the fact that whilst campaigning before the election we occasionally shared twin hotel rooms. Neither of us would have done so if we had thought that it in any way meant or implied something else. In hindsight I should have given greater consideration to what might have been made of that, but this is in itself no justification for allegations of this kind, which are untrue and deeply distressing to me, to Ffion and to Christopher.

He has now told me that, as a result of the pressure on his family from the untrue and malicious allegations made about him, he does not wish to continue in his position. It is a pity that a talented individual should feel that he needs to leave his job in this way. Ffion and I believe that everyone has a right to a private life.

However, we now feel it necessary to give some background to our marriage because we have had enough of this continued and hurtful speculation about us. I have made no secret of the fact that Ffion and I would love to start a family. For many years this has been our goal. Sadly this has proved more difficult for us than for most couples. We have encountered many difficulties and suffered multiple miscarriages, and indeed are still grieving for the loss of a pregnancy this summer. We are aware that the stress of infertility can often strain a marriage, but in our case, thankfully, it has only brought us closer together.

It has been an immensely traumatic and painful experience but our marriage is
strong and we will face whatever the future brings together. Several years ago
one Sunday paper reported that Ffion was three months pregnant, without ever
checking the story with us. This made even more difficult the fact that we had
only just experienced another disappointment. We have never made this
information public because of the distress it would cause to our families and
would not do so now were it not for the untrue rumours circulating which
repeatedly call our marriage into question. We wish everyone to know that we are
very happily married.

It is very regrettable to have to make this personal statement, but we have often said to each other 'if only they knew the truth…' Well, this is the straightforward truth. I will not be making any further comment on these matters."

Sikhs@War - short film from www.sikhsatwar.info from dot hyphen productions on Vimeo.

With the current format of e-mail address being...
@new.labour.org.uk

will a change of leader lead to a new address if one of the Ed's win?
Possibly...

@pre.new.labour.electoralculdesac.org.uk

The campaign against William Hague on the Guido Fawkes blog is nothing short of reprehensible. The lies, smears and innuendo are pathetic. So Hague and his assistant shared a room during the election campaign. Wow, what a revelation. What he's effectively saying is that two people of the same sex can't share a room without having rampant sex. Well that maybe Guido's experience but it certainly ain't mine. Unfortunately.

Is this really a journalistic scoop? No. It's nothing of the sort, but it allows the papers to keep the story running for another day. Guido Fawkes is not a homophobe, but the way he is writing about this allows those who think he is homophobic to confirm their own prejudices.

The petty and spiteful vilification of William Hague by bloggers and newspapers who should know better should stop now, before it gets out of hand.

It's not exactly a sign of being a great leader, is it?

A real leader and statesman would have taken measures to ensure it could never happen. The fact that Blair didn't do that shows why he can never be regarded as a great Prime Minister.

If you think I am being a bit harsh, imagine if a company chief executive deliberately allowed a successor to taake over who he knew would bankrupt the company. It just wouldn't happen, would it? The chief executive would make sure the board of directors didn't make such a disastrous decision. He would speak out, wouldn't he/she?

Discuss.

Why? Well in an interview today he said he intends to marry her but hadn't "got around to it".

That must make her feel like a million dollars! A big bunch of flowers is called for, I think!

In his persistent efforts to tack left, he's also been making some very anti grammar school comments today. His whole campaign seems to be trying to alienate the middle classes, the very people who have Blair and New Labour three stonking election victories.

Andrew's family say he has never been in trouble before. But now he faces a
trial for murder on grounds which look painfully thin. Campaigners say his is
one of the most worrying examples of how the controversial "no-evidence-needed"
European Arrest Warrant can place British citizens at the mercy of unfair
foreign courts.

It all started on the Greek holiday island of Zakynthos, or Zante, at 1.30 on the morning of 20 July 2007. In a nightclub called Rescue, a young Welsh roller hockey player, Jonathan Hiles, remonstrated with someone for urinating on the floor. That person then punched him and he fell, suffering a fatal brain injury. Five of Jonathan's friends, with him in the club that night, gave initial statements to police saying the assailant was clean-shaven, with a blue shirt.

Andrew's parents say he was not in Rescue when the incident happened, and had no idea it had even taken place. He had a beard at the time, and was wearing a yellow shirt that night.

On July 22 and 23, the victim's five friends, in separate interviews, gave new statements to the police identifying Andrew, from a photo, as the killer. But there was something odd about the statements. Although supposedly taken at different times on different days, they all used precisely the same, rather stilted, words.

Mr Symeou also says that the photo shown to the five witnesses, of a group of people, had Andrew circled with the word "perpetrator" written on it in Greek.

On July 24, armed with the new statements, the police hauled in Charlie Klitou and Chris Kyriacou, two friends Andrew had been with on the night of the killing (Andrew himself had flown home at the end of his holiday by then).

They, too, signed statements implicating Andrew. But as soon as they emerged from police custody, they retracted them, saying the testimony had been dictated to, and beaten out of them.

The two boys told Andrew's British extradition hearing that they had been threatened, punched and slapped. Charlie Klitou said: "I told [the Greek police officer] that I didn't see Andrew Symeou get no one and he was saying 'Really?' three times, and then I said no again. I got hit by the big guy with a fist quite hard. The big guy left the room and came back with a black police bat and was tapping it in his hand. I couldn't think, I was just sitting there waiting to be hit."

Georgina Clay, a Club 18-30 holiday rep on Zante, testified to the same hearing that she had seen the two afterwards. One had a swollen face, she said, and they were
clearly terrified.

In statements to the Welsh inquest into Jonathan's death, the five original witnesses against Andrew also changed their stories. Four of them said they had not seen the punch being thrown at all, only the urination. And the descriptions all gave still did not match Andrew Symeou.

As Andrew's MP, Joan Ryan, put it: "Of the seven witness statements that
allegedly implicate him, two have since been withdrawn, four are contradicted by
statements made in the UK and the only witness statement in which a perpetrator
is actually identified describes an attacker who bears no resemblance to Andrew."

None of this, unfortunately, had any effect whatever on the extradition. The judge said what he had heard might seem "uncomfortable", and the fast-track process "may be a matter for legitimate debate and concern". But he could not intervene: "The abuse jurisdiction of [Britain] does not extend to considering misconduct or bad faith by the police of [Greece]."

The process was predicated on the assumption that the Greek system "must be regarded as capable of providing sufficient minimum safeguards for a fair trial in a
civilised country".

I really would urge you to read the full article HERE. Andrew Gilligan has written more widely about the European Arrest Warrant today HERE.

Theresa May has recently extended the powers of the EAW by signing up to the European Investigation Order. I hope she understood what she was doing.

I kick myself dor not instinctively recognising the dangers of the European Arrest Warrant. Andrew Gilligan has (not for the first time) done us all a public service by highlighting the case of Andrew Symeou.

And if Theresa May is the woman I think she is, she will pick up the phone to her Greek counterpart tomorrow morning and ask him to put right this apparent massive injustice.

Go on Theresa. You know you want to.

"You know, the 111 number was a part of Labour's manifesto. See HERE.

This isn't a new idea from the coalition. It's Labour's idea. So why are they campaigning against it? Ah, of course, because it's not them actually doing
it.

I hate party politics so damn much."

I suppose that given our hosts in Newcastle were the Workers Education Association I shouldn't have been surprised to get a hostile audience, but it comes to something when you're booed before you even sit down! And frankly, they didn't get any friendlier. By the end I reckoned I could have told the funniest joke in the history of joketelling and not got a laugh.

My fellow panellists were Deborah Mattinson (Brown's pollster), Matthew Taylor (Blair's head of policy) and Adrian Fawcett (CEO of the General Healthcare group).

The warm up question was asked by a lady who wanted to know if the coalition would still be in place by the time the Cameron baby starts nursery school. We all gave slightly formulaic answers and all agreed the coalition was probably there for the long term. At the end the questioner came up to and thanked me for my eye contact. She didn't like the fact that none of the others looked at her.

And at 8.02 Eddie Mair welcomed the Radio 4 audience and off we went. The first question (I think) was predictably about the IFS report. I made a lightly nervous start and I seem to remember being booed a couple of times when I defended the coalition's economic approach. But in the end I think the sparring got me into my stride.

Next came a question on health and how the system should be financed and structured. I thought this was probably my best answer and I seemed to make the audience think a little judging from their faces. I talked about how the NHS could never meet all the demands made on it and we had to get away from the 'public good, private bad' prevailing attitudes. I said it wasn't structures that were important, it was outcomes. I also questioned a system which spends £4 billion on gastric bands but can't provide muich needed cancer drugs. As I hadn't had a boo yet, I then suggested some people who wanted gastric bands ought to eat less. Cue the boos!

We then had a question about the cat woman and who or what we'd like to put in a wheelie boin. Deborah Mattinson stole my answer. She said she would put Mrs Bale in it. Bugger, I thought, what do I say now? I said that I'd put Mrs Bale in the Big Cat enclosure at Whipsnade Zoo for 15 hours as I am a believer in restorative justice. Not a titter. OK, not that great but any other audience might have at least pretended to laugh. Not this one.

There then followed three questions which none of us could have predicted - on paternity leave, adult education and library cuts. I don't think any of us gave particularly insightful answers, although I did have a brief spat with La Mattinson when she professed to be deeply suspicious of the Big Society, implying that volunteering was bad if it meant taking over the functions of the State. Matthew Taylor talked a great deal of sense on this and deprecated the left's knee jerk response to the Big Society.

We finished with a question about Twitter from someone who turned out to be one of my blogreaders. Bless you, sir!

So all on all, I'd call the whole thing a bit of a score draw, with the audience possibly winning on points for the level of booing. I certainly didn't enjoy it as much I did on my first appearance a year ago in Ottery St Mary, and I suspect the audience didn't either. Far too much agreement!

If you didn't hear it, the programme is repeated at 1.10pm on Saturday and is then available on iPlayer.

There, only four hours to go now. Time for the iPod and a zzzzz I think.

"Crispin Blunt wishes to make it known that he has separated from his wife
Victoria. He decided to come to terms with his homosexuality and explained the
position to his family. The consequence is this separation. There is no third
party involvement, but this is difficult for his immediate and wider family and
he hopes for understanding and support for them.

The family do not wish to make any further public comment and hope that their privacy will be respected as they deal with these difficult private issues."

... It's healthy to be open and completely transparent, and I am sure that
now David Laws has taken that massive step to 'out' himself, he will wonder why
he didn't do it years ago. But we need to understand why he didn't before we
rush to judge him. Intensely private people - and yes, some politicians are just
that - recoil from talking about their sexual proclivities. There are some
things you just don't do. We're not Americans. We don't like baring our souls.
And most of all we don't like hurting our families. I know. I have been there.

I have wanted to be an MP all my adult life. But the thing that stopped
me going for it was my own homosexuality. I grew up in a small village, among a
community with very conservative views. Despite attending a left wing university
in the early 1980s, I did nothing to act on my 'inner gay'. I went through most
of my twenties not acknowledging my own sexuality to anyone but myself, let
alone my own family.

In the mid 1990s I started a relationship with my now civil partner, John.
He would often visit my parents' home and they all got on like a house on fire.
To my family he was my 'friend'. Nothing more. But when I reached the age of 40
and decided I wanted a political career I knew I would have to be open. I
certainly didn't want anyone to 'have' anything on me. Everyone told me that my
parents would already know. But they didn't. It proved to be one of the most
difficult conversations of my life. I then told several long standing friends,
all of whom I felt I had let down by not having said anything before. No one who
hasn't been through that experience can comprehend the trauma I went through
through. The same trauma David Laws is going through this weekend.

So I understand David Laws wish to remain private and not have to tell his
family. But in this age of transparency, openness, blogs and Twitter it is
simply not possible to maintain that veil of secrecy over such an intensely
personal part of your life.

It's all very well for people to assert that times have changed and there
is a greater acceptance of different lifestyles in society. Of course that is
true, but it doesn't make it any easier for family members with devout religious
beliefs to accept a lifestyle they have been taught is both wrong and will
result in eternal damnation. And that's the same whether you're a gay
politician, gay welder or a gay chairman of a FTSE 500 company. Just saying that
'time have changed' is over simplistic and ignores personal realities.

This list is the result of more than 2,200 people who voted in the Total Politics Annual Blog Poll during the second half of July.

All these lists, together with articles from leading blog commentators, will be published in the TOTAL POLITICS GUIDE TO POLITICAL BLOGGING, which will be published in October at £14.99. You can preorder your copy HERE.

COMING NEXT: Top 25 Northern Irish Blogs

Have you met the Camerons' baby yet?

In June, Total Politics carried THIS on its blog...

"The Lib Dems did campaign against a VAT increase but economic support is in the
coalition's favour. James Brown from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)
tells Total Politics that these claims are inaccurate, VAT will hit the richest
worst. According to Brown, the Budget is regressive overall, in that it will hit the poorest the hardest, yet, its VAT increase is actually progressive. As poorer people tend to spend more money on 0-rated necessities [products without VAT], they will be largely unaffected by the VAT increase: It is the richest,
with the higher expenditure, who will actually be feeding the government's
coffers with a VAT increase."

How interesting the Guardian didn't mention the IFS view on the VAT rise. It clearly didn't suit their agenda.

UPDATE 10.45am: LibDem Voice has an excellent post by Iain Roberts on this.

The numbers taking French as a GCSE have halved over the last eight years, with German showing a simnilar decline. The last government removed the compulsion for 14-16 year olds to take a language several years ago and we are now seeing the long term effects. Many schools discourage kids from studying languages as they are considered "difficult" subjects in which pupils are less likely to attain 'A' grades.

We have never been great linguists in this country, and many take the attitude that we don't need to learn a language because everyone abroad speaks English. That's an incredibly 'Little Englanderish" attitude and one which hampers people who do business abroad. The ability to converse with people in their own language can open many doors.

Perhaps, however, we are also guilty of being too conservative in our teaching of languages. Maybe instead of sticking to trusty old French and German we should be encouraging schools to offer more courses in Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin and Russian.

I studied German at university because I had intended to become a German teacher. With such a declining demand for German teachers, I'm beginning to think it's lucky my career took a rather different turn!

I'm very proud of her.

Labour-run Knowsley Council is continuing to pump money in to the Labour Party's
coffers by exhibiting at the party's conference. The council pays to appear only
at the Labour Party's conferences, ignoring other parties, and is continuing to
do so even now that Labour is no longer in government.

Back in January 2007 Liberal Democrat Voice revealed Knowsley Council had spent £47,000 on exhibiting at the Labour conference over the previous four years. At the time the council said that, "Knowsley does not attend any other party political
conference, it attends the Labour Party Annual Conference as the party in power."

However, the council is exhibiting at this autumn's Labour conference even though the party is not in power. Moreover, it is not exhibiting at either the Conservative or Liberal Democrat conferences. Even if the conference presence had been booked well in advance (despite the knowledge that there would be a general election this year), there is still time to cancel plans as shown by the order that has gone out this month to other parts of the public sector not to spend money on stalls at the autumn conference.