No, that's not right

Meanwhile, the Guardian's Patrick Wintour has the bigger environmental story:

Hilary Benn, the environment secretary, lifted the lid yesterday on the Cabinet-level debate on the expansion of Heathrow, saying the government must not contemplate allowing itself to breach air pollution limits set by the European commission.

His intervention could potentially put a break on government expansion plans.

Air pollution around Heathrow already exceeds limits set by the commission and Britain is expected to seek a temporary abrogation from an air pollution directive agreed in June, but only on the basis that it will be able to meet the pollution requirements by 2015, the deadline set by the commission.

Britain will have to satisfy the commission that Heathrow's expansion will not undermine Britain's ability to meet its commitments by 2015.

Apart from a shocking spelling mistake, Wintour has it wrong and has probably been influenced by government spin. In order to get a derogation from the directive, Britain will have to satisfy the commission that Heathrow expansion will not undermine Britain's ability to meet its commitments before 2015. The commission is not going to give Britain a derogation to allow it to increase pollution in the meantime.

Wintour quotes something Geoff Hoon said in last month's commons debate, showing that he (Wintour) doesn't really get it:

In a Commons debate last month Hoon told MPs: "The problems are mainly to do with existing pollution from traffic in Greater London, including around Heathrow, and traffic in other major cities across the country. They are not to do with decisions about future capacity at Heathrow.

"Reports that we are seeking to abrogate from our responsibilities in this area solely in order to promote expansion at Heathrow are completely and utterly wrong."

The fact that Hoon had to add the qualification "solely" is an indirect admission that the derogation is partly related to Heathrow expansion, even if, as most people know, the government will be in trouble in 2010 anyway.

Hardly a good reason to wreck the planet

The Guardian reports that cabinet ministers are joining a revolt against expanding Heathrow, which was last week's story, except that it adds that the number of flights in and out of the airport will decline over the winter.

Jackie Ashley wades in with a suggestion that Gordon Brown will back the third runway to show that he is on the side of business during a recession.

Briefings over the past few days suggest that Gordon Brown and Geoff Hoon, the transport secretary, will ride roughshod over the critics. They want to push through approval of the new runway so that when the Tories come to power, it's too late to cancel. "We have to show that we are on the side of business," says one minister.

Ashley thinks Gordon Brown believes this is clever politics.

He thinks that in a recession, the party which seems most pro-business will gain. As deep fear grips the electorate over unemployment and bankruptcy, green arguments about the way we live, about pollution and climate change, will seem merely namby-pamby and irrelevant. If Labour commits itself to job-creating grand projects, and the Tories are forced to promise to try to halt them, then it is David Cameron who will suddenly look silly and old-fashioned.

This may be unfair but, after 42 days amongst other issues, it's a sad reflection on Brown that people still think he makes big decisions just to wrongfoot the tories.

Good PR, bad PR

The Guardian continues to assist Gordon Brown in his attempts to present a "£1 billion" package of energy measures:

A long-awaited £1bn energy package aimed at helping households cope with rising fuel bills, including improved cold weather payments of around £25 per head, will be unveiled today by Gordon Brown.

Meanwhile:

A senior E.ON executive was accused of insensitivity last night when he essayed a joke about high prices. Asked what expensive gas prices would mean this winter, Mark Owen-Lloyd said: "It will make more money for us."

Warming us up

In the Guardian today, Patrick Wintour tells us that:

Ministers and the country's leading electricity companies are expected today to finalise a £1bn plan to improve energy efficiency and help cut soaring fuel bills.

Last week, Wintour wrote of Gordon Brown's plans following his climbdown on fuel payments:

The prime minister still hopes to tout the programme as worth £1bn

And with your help, he has.

Miliband grows up

David Miliband has a piece in the Guardian today, in which he argues, according to Patrick Wintour, that Labour needs a "more mature relationship with the electorate". These words don't actually appear in Miliband's piece but they do encapsulate what he says here:

When people hear exaggerated claims, either about failure or success, they switch off. That is why politicians across all parties fail to connect. To get our message across, we must be more humble about our shortcomings but more compelling about our achievements.

There's no doubt that Wintour would like Miliband to take over:

Miliband cannot afford to be seen to be involved in any manoeuvring against Brown, but his willingness to write confidently about Labour's mistakes, and how he believes David Cameron, the Conservative leader, can be defeated, will be seen as a reminder to a demoralised party that there are figures in the cabinet capable of making a compelling analysis of Labour's political challenges.

The Times says Miliband is positioning himself for the leadership:

The Foreign Secretary fires the first salvo in a deliberate challenge to Mr Brown in a newspaper article that outlines a blueprint for defeating David Cameron without mentioning the Prime Minister once by name.

The Times somehow can't bring itself to mention the Guardian by name.

Pots, kettles, etc

It's not clear why Patrick Wintour in the Guardian has reheated yesterday's story about Tony Blair saying bad things to Lord Levy about Gordon Brown. Perhaps it's so he can promote Blairite favourite David Miliband to the front of the story.

It has to be said that Tony Blair calling anyone a liar takes some nerve...

In typical BBC style, the state broadcasting service presents the story from the government's point of view:

The prime minister has dismissed suggestions by Labour's former chief fundraiser, Lord Levy, that Tony Blair believes he cannot beat David Cameron.

Wintour spins for Brown

Patrick Wintour doesn't really care who he spins for, as long as they feed him stories. In the Guardian today he reports that:

Gordon Brown will call for an acceleration of nuclear power today in a speech to business leaders designed to show he is focused on the long term and will not buckle in the face of negative headlines.

Except that:

He was forced by the courts to hold a second, as yet incomplete, consultation on building nuclear stations so he will not make an announcement today in case he is accused again of pre-empting the outcome. But it is clear that he sees a new generation of stations as vital to Britain's energy security and emission targets.

So Brown won't actually call for an acceleration in nuclear power. But with Wintour to spin for him, he doesn't need to.

The Inside Story

The Observer is reporting that:

A chastened Gordon Brown has told key allies that he going to 'radically alter' the composition of his inner circle which has been criticised for being too small and excluding senior members of the Cabinet from major decision-making.

So behind the scenes someone is briefed that things are going to change behind the scenes. How's that for transparent politics?

An unattributed denial

Patrick Wintour shows what great contacts he still has with former members of the old regime. Reporting John Yates' claims that No 10 failed to co-operate with his cash for honours enquiry, Wintour tells us:

A senior No 10 political official at the time rebutted Mr Yates' comments last night saying: "This claim is preposterous. Throughout Number 10 civil servants, special advisers and Labour party staff cooperated at every stage of this inquiry. There are no grounds for Yates to make this statement."

That clears that up then. Wintour offers us an anonymous denial with no proof.

Out of a spin

As the inquest continues into the non-story that was the non-election, the Guardian's story from Patrick Wintour and others provides some fascinating insights into how people in the government would like to spin things.

For me, the most interesting bit of the story is that:

Some cabinet members privately regard Mr Brown's visit to Baghdad last week as a presentational disaster, which gave the impression the prime minister was playing politics with British troops.

I think it is quite legitimate to write about what ministers are saying "privately" if that is different from what the official line.

By contrast, it's not clear whose views are contained in this next bit,

Ed Balls, another member of the Brown inner circle, also shifted against a poll in the wake of evidence that the Tory promise to cut inheritance tax had, for the moment, made the Conservatives look like the party of aspiration and change.

Why is this qualified, "for the moment"? It does seem fairly clear that Labour wants to admit that the inheritance tax proposal went down well, believing that they can neutralise it, either by attacking its credibility or by doing something similar. But whose view is being set out here? It starts as an apparently factual statement that Balls changed his mind but then appears to mutate into something that sets out his spin on the short-term nature of the Tories' gains.

A tory story

In the Guardian, Patrick Wintour and Will Woodward show how to tell a Tory story from a Labour point of view. The headline is "Labour attacks Cameron on 'unaffordable' tax cuts", but most of the story is about the Tories and the possibility of an autumn election. Your have to read down to paragraph 14 (I think) to find anything to justify the headline and intro.

Wintour 4 Brown

The Guardian has an interesting story about Gordon Brown's spending promises since coming to the throne and the possible link with his increased popularity.

But this line, from Patrick Wintour, looks like it was written in Downing Street.

These spending levels do not imply that the Treasury is going to break the already announced commitment to increase public spending by only 1.9% a year through the three years of the spending review, but they do show the advantages of a coherent relationship between Treasury and No 10.