Michael Crick: Alan Johnson's campaign is effectively in place

The Alan Johnson campaign is effectively now in place. People round him are all ready to go once, and if, Gordon Brown steps down.

Mr Johnson has quietly been meeting figures expected to play key roles in his operation, though he is keen to stress to every team member that he is certainly not plotting to get rid of Mr Brown, and does not want to be known as a plotter. [...] let me assure you the Johnson campaign is now ready for someone to press the Go button.

Or so Crick writes in his blog - 'Behind closed doors the Johnson team prepares'

A few links

Robert Fisk discusses the semiotics of conflict reports - 'Civilians pay price of war from above', which gives Al Jazeera's report, 'US probe 'confirms' Afghan deaths', greater resonance. The use of language by US officials is spookily similar to that of the Israeli government’s justification of the Israel Defence Force's activities. The story itself is receiving little or no attention from mainstream British news organisations.

Dave’s Part assesses the perceived moving left of Labour under Brown -'SDP, the second time as farce'.

'Monbiot meets... Hazel Blears' is extraordinary. It might not sound that interesting but wait for Blear's reaction to Monbiot's question about Islam Karimov, the brutal dictator of Uzbekistan. At about 7:02 comes a moment of near David Brent proportions awkwardness.

An overlooked story from Michael Crick's Newsnight blog

If you are still hungry for interesting and informed reading matter, A Very Public Sociologist is a pretty good place to look. I recently discovered that they have linked The Polemical Report (it is listed in the ‘Counter-Hegemonies’ section), which I am pretty pleased about. Thank you if you are reading this A Very Public Sociologist team.