Ha ha - it must have been hard being so enlightened, so young, Hugh - and in a spiritual wilderness! Has it occurred to you that the guy who made that remark to you may have been attempting to puncture your pomposity? :-) I had the same attitude to Bros as you did at the time. But I love them now. Progress!

Great piece. How refreshing to hear a politician concede that sometimes the other side has the odd good idea. It's time more politicians were grown-up as Gloria.

With respect, I just don't see it. If the most prominent examples of businesses with "purpose ideas" include lovely little businesses that never really went anywhere (St Lukes, Naked) and publicly-funded institutions (BBC) then that ought to alert us to its limitations as a model. It's certainly a stretch to assert that all "brilliant businesses" have purpose ideas. More fundamentally, I think PI's are nearly always post-rationalised by people like us - planners, consultants etc. They don't actually exist outside of our Powerpoint decks and blogs. When you talk to the people that actually run these businesses, you nearly always find they're driven by a confused and shifting mix of financial, personal and (occasionally) wider social/public motivations. Mostly, things just happen; one thing leads to another.

I don't *think* Mark was suggesting that Clarkson was borrowing from him particularly. What I don't understand, Mark, is what it means to have an idea "all by yourself", or indeed for an idea to come "from somebody"...? Surely, such talk is inimical to your model of human behaviour and thought?

I think the idea of "what I own" has been around a bit longer than a few decades, no?

I'm surprised by this. I admire The Times' courage in experimenting with a pay system and I hope it works. But I'd have thought that the Times blogs, including CC, should be kept free, so that the brand keeps a foot in the blogosphere. After all, excellent though it is, I'm not sure whether CC contains enough original content to justify a fee. But here's hoping I'm wrong.

I don't think it's right to say there's been little discussion of what businesses are for...there's no end of it! Eg http://bit.ly/aRPuWH The fundamental debate is over whether social responsibility is best pursued obliquely - via managing a profitable enterprise (and thus serving and employing people) or directly (devoting resources to good works, being accountable to communities, etc). Lots of shades of grey in between.

What a miserable contest. Can't we at least vote for the best as well?

How about a Mickey Mouse conservative?

Uh, the other way round ("a reasonably popular/credible LD leader")

Agreed. The one tangible outcome they did have was raising Clegg's profile, which although it didn't translate into votes has made it easier for Cameron to go into partnership with him (in fact you could make "An unpopular or less than credible Lib Dem leader" number 4 on your list, re earlier post).

Who would David Cameron least like to be facing across the despatch box in September (or whenever the next leader is in place)? Who would he be most comfortable with?

So in his first post, Phil says it definitely isn't a leadership bid and in his last he says, well, it kind of is... I'm confused. So would the electorate be if they were paying any attention to anything other than the debates.

Why does the phrase "polished turds" spring to mind?

Hmm, I don't think that would go down very well. It's too abstract, and sounds like waffle. What people want in these situations is to get a sense of where the politician's heart is. A supple communicator (eg Ken Clarke or latter day Mandelson) would be able to signal where they stood without actually saying the words that could get them into trouble. Perhaps something like "We all say things when speaking off the cuff that don't sound very clever the next day. Chris Grayling has said that his comments don't reflect our policy - and I wholeheartedly agree with him."

But where on earth did the presumption that Balls might take over come from? Ever since the last reshuffle it's been clear that Darling can't be moved unless he wants to be moved. Even if Labour avoids defeat, Darling's hand will be strengthened at least as much as Brown's.

I wholeheartedly agree. I thought it showed a real smallness of mind and lack of imagination on the part of the prog-makers to lump them all together. Morgan in particular could hardly have been more proper - kept referring her interlocutor to the code of conduct. Also. If people considering a career in politics are now faced pay and benefits in permanent real-terms decline, in a job where everyone assumes they're dishonest - and then they're told that when it's over, they'll be pretty much unemployable...what kind of candidates are we going to get?

Dear Typepad, Are you sure you're supposed to have "favourites"? It's like a parent having favourite children. If you say it out loud, some of us realise we're not favourites, and feel terribly sad...

Welcome back Hattie! It has quite literally been hell without you.

If you read Susie Mackenzie's explanation, you'll see that the poor woman struggled valiantly with her conscience before deciding that it was in her interest to break the implicit agreement she had with her source. SORRY, I meant "the public interest".

Matthew P and Phil C's suggestions seem to be more about looking clever than offering a practical suggestion to a good question. In fact Matthew even admits that when he read Animal Farm he thought it was about animals - so it certainly didn't get him into politics. I'd suggest reading Alan Clark's Diaries. Or even better: To Be President, by Ian Leslie, a gripping account of the 2008 presidential election. The author is very handsome in my opinion.

Surely the best interview of the year so far was Evan Davies ripping Chris Grayling to shreds over his dodgy crime stats.

And that's not the half of it. Even if you put the ethical and protectionist questions to one side, the question is why use up any of your money - and your audience's share of attention - on this crappy little ad, on a narrow issue that it isn't going to swing votes either way? Where is the strategic vision? Where's the brand? Where's Steve Hilton?!

Great post. I have one query. Guido's question... "Do you actually believe that, all things being equal, lower tax economies are higher growth economies?" ...sounds like an ideological test. In fact, it's an empirically demonstrable or falsifiable proposition (the ideological question would be a different one and not necessarily determined by the answer to this). Anyway - you say it's true. Is it? I genuinely don't know. SHOW ME THE DATA.