Why aren't there plots against Nick and Ed?

According to BBC lore, on April 18, 1930, a radio presenter announced: 'Good evening. Today is Good Friday. There is no news.'

They then played piano music for a couple of minutes until normal scheduling resumed.Alas we don't live in this leisured way now. There is news 24/7. In our hyper-connected world, it happens and is reported simultaneously.

This might be why the media is hyperventilating over plots against the Prime Minister, David Cameron. Because of a temporary shortage of interesting news.

Cameron's position as Tory leader is certainly delicate. But is he really, really, in trouble? Surely not

News involving issues is all very fine - some refined people prefer it - but what most of us want to read about is people. Especially famous, powerful people in trouble.

And Cameron's position as Tory leader is certainly delicate. But is he really, really, in trouble and about to be driven from office as leader before the 2015 election? Surely not.

The party still trails in the opinion polls. His determination to put gay marriage on a legal basis inflames large numbers of his Tory tribe.

  More... The £2,000 cost of being British: Families face huge cost of living premium compared to other countries thanks to energy and transport costs Anger as EU votes to hand hundreds of millions in subsidies to European tobacco farmers Diplomatic row breaks out over British plan to 'warn off migrants' as Bulgarian minister claims 'they'd rather go to Germany'

So does his HS2 rail plan, tearing up swathes of countryside over 20 years, at a cost north of £30 billion, for time savings that do not seem much of a bargain.

But neither issue is a killer for Cameron. Most of the Tory voters they annoy have nowhere else to go unless they support fringe candidates unlikely to win seats. It's not as if Labour or the Lib Dems are vowing not to legalise gay marriage, or come out against high speed rail.

Neither has a believable Tory alternative to Cameron emerged. Boris Johnson, Theresa May and Michael Gove all have fans. So do Defence Secretary Philip Hammond and Justice Secretary Chris Grayling. David Davis is still ambitious, but he lost to Cameron in the leadership battle and walked out of his shadow cabinet.

No alternative to Cameron has emerged: Boris Johnson, Theresa May and Michael Gove all have fans

Liam Fox is fancied by some, but he's rehabilitating himself after resigning as Defence Secretary following a row over access to his office enjoyed by his friend, defence consultant Adam Werritty. (Has anyone seen Werritty recently, by the way? Do let me know.)

But the near-certainty of several Tory MPs losing their seats, some to Ukip, and the fear of many others of the same fate, makes Conservatives restive. Some among this brooding band think replacing Cameron as leader before the 2015 election gives them another shake of the dice.

This excitement over Cameron being defenestrated is understandable, if silly. Why, in this miasma of plots and sub-plots, is Labour's Ed Miliband immune from dissent in his party?

Ed constantly polls less favourably than his party (Cameron does better than his party). Yesterday, the Observer - a Labour-supporting paper - said Ed was failing to appeal to Tory  voters in the way Tony Blair did.

The Fabian Society - also Labour-supporting - says Miliband's only hope is motivating 'no-show' supporters who couldn't be bothered to vote for the Gordon Brown-led party in 2010. This, they say, will take 'a huge organisational effort.'

Cameron has had to throttle back his pounding attacks on Ed for fear of being portrayed as a bully

Miliband can barely land a blow on Cameron at Westminster. Indeed, Cameron has had to throttle back his pounding attacks on Ed for fear of being portrayed as a bully. Do Labour MPs believe they have a winning leader? They certainly don't give that impression.

Of course, moods change. Ed might click with the country eventually. A recession lasting until 2015 might tip the election his way, even though he was working in Brown's engine room when Labour ran us onto the rocks in 2008.

But doesn't the party deserve a more exciting leader than Ed Miliband, who owes his position to the influence of his family in the Labour hierarchy and trades union machinations in the leadership election?

Of course it does. And so do the Liberal Democrats, who are saddled with Nick - and another party-destroying cohabitation deal - unless they rise against the Cleggster. Have they ever had a leader more injurious to the party's appeal?

I can't recall one so reviled by the Press, politicians and the public. Not even the disgraced 1970s Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe, who by comparison seems Lincolnesque. Why no plot against Clegg?

Injurious: The Liberal Democrats are saddled with Nick - and another party-destroying cohabitation deal

There are whispers from time to time, but they come to nothing. The party is far too absorbed with gazing at its navel to organise the ousting of a bad leader. Besides, it would be a far too obvious course of action to a party which enjoys tying itself in knots over obscure policy matters.

As for Labour, it's more sentimental than the Tories. Its schemers are  far more likely to tear down successful leaders, like Tony Blair, than  plot against obvious duds such as Gordon Brown, or likely ones like Ed Miliband. So it goes...

 

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling says he wants prisons to be ‘spartan but humane’. Why is he telling us this? Because he wants to be considered as future leadership material, I’d say. Will his reforms succeed, if they go through? Not if they cause riots. Like ratchets, reforms tend to be accepted only when they are making our lives easier, not more difficult.

  Jacqueline Bisset stars in BBC2's new five-part series, Dancing On The Edge, beginning tonight

Still gorgeous at 68, Jacqueline Bisset stars in BBC2's new five-part series, Dancing On The Edge, beginning tonight. Set in the London of the early Thirties, it's about black jazz musicians of the Louis Lester Band, and the scrapes they get into while finding fame among the upper classes.

Ms Bisset says she's glad to be working for the BBC, and would like to do more in Britain. Hollywood directors, she says, don't 'get' European women, but they got her all right. She's worked with the best of them.

Ms Bisset has never married, saying in an interview: 'Like many people who don't easily commit, I think I had a fear of being known. I was not sure there was anybody inside there.' Touching, if a little deep for me.

Cherie's debt to DerryWriting about her Mentoring Women In Business Programme, launched under the aegis of the Cherie Blair Foundation, the former chatelaine of No 10 says that she felt out of place and lacking in confidence when she started her career as a lawyer during the Seventies.

However, she adds: 'I was fortunate  to get some support early on from Derry Irvine, a senior barrister  who agreed to accept me as an apprentice.'

Would this be the same Derry Irvine who was later chosen by Tony Blair to become his first Lord Chancellor, and who subsequently retired as Lord Irvine of Lairg? Indeed so.

What a small world. Piccolo mondo, as the Italians say.

  Gove, the mystery guest...Writing in support of gay marriage, Education Secretary Michael Gove says: 'One of my proudest moments as a father was just over a year ago when my children acted as page and bridesmaid to two friends of ours who were making their own, lifelong commitment to each other.'

This is thought to be a reference to Planning  Minister Nick Boles, who entered into a civil partnership with a young Israeli man last year.

A guest at the party  afterwards tells me: 'How odd. I remember the Gove children and Mrs Gove being there but there was no sign of Michael, even though he was on the trip to Israel where Nick Boles met his future partner.'

No doubt there's a simple explanation.

  Hugh Grant is described as ‘our biggest film star' in a piece about his latest movie, Cloud Atlas, which opens here on February 22. Surely Daniel Day-Lewis, Colin Firth, Kate Winslet and Daniel Craig - to name but four - far exceed Hugh's star wattage.

But maybe there's no harm in giving the star of Love Actually and Four Weddings And A Funeral the benefit of the doubt. It might even moderate  his dislike of the Press.

Hugh Grant is described as ¿our biggest film star' in a piece about his latest movie, Cloud Atlas

  The inquiry into the lubricious behaviour of the late BBC TV star Sir Jimmy Savile is eclipsed by the Elm Guest House scandal, involving 'VIP paedophiles' in the 1970s and 1980s.

These mysterious figures are alleged to have put teenage boys into fairy costumes, lured them into cider and beer-drinking contests, and subjected them to 'vile sex acts'.

Like the Savile investigation, this is called a major police probe. Perhaps we need a Permanent Inquiry Into Vile Sex Acts, since these often take some time to come to light.

  The inaugural David Bellamy Lecture - named after the 80-year-old botanist - promises to be an interesting  affair.

It's being held next month at Buckingham Palace under the auspices of the Duke of Edinburgh.

Is it Prince Philip's way  of cocking a snook at the global warming lobby - and one of its adherents, the Prince of Wales?

Bellamy says he was banished from the  BBC, after making 400 broadcasts, for questioning the theory of man-made global warming.

Which - like staunch support for the EU, and knowing nothing of Jimmy Savile's louche behaviour   - seems to be an article  of faith at the Corporation.