Another new political blog....?

Well, not exactly. I won't be using this blog as a distinct alternative to the main Paul Linford blog which I have been running for a year or so now, and which has built up a small but very loyal readership, but rather as a sort of companion volume.

This blog's URL is linfordunlimited.blogspot.com and that pretty well sums it up really. Not all of my newspaper columns and other writings are displayed on the web, so this is a place where I will not just be linking to them, but reproducing them in full for the benefit of anyone out there who is sufficiently interested to read my views.

I've called this blog In the name of God, go! after a column I wrote in the Newcastle Journal, Lincolnshire Echo and Derby Evening Telegraph earlier this year in which I quoted Oliver Cromwell's dismissal of the Rump Parliament in relation to Tony Blair.

"You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

This desire to see the back of Blair has been the main theme of my political commentaries for the past three years. It seems to me self-evident that he should have gone in 2003, after the shameful death of Dr David Kelly for which his government was directly responsible.

Had he done so, I believe Gordon Brown would have led Labour to a much bigger victory in 2005, and would thereby have had the mandate to renew the party in office and lead the left in a new and less intellectually sterile direction.

But he hung on, and in so doing he has poisoned Brown's inheritance to the point that, if and when he does take over, he will be fighting a rearguard action against a resurgent Conservative Party which is seeking, with some success, to take politics into a new era based around the "happiness agenda."

If there is a change of Prime Minister, I might change the title of this blog. But until then....