We can all agree on two things, I believe: Labour is going to lose the next election, and there will be a new leader of the Labour party at some point within a year.

So, who will it be? The hoary old list of candidates is beginning to look raggedly threadbare now. Alan Johnson has proved himself lacking in weight. David Miliband needs a very long time in the oven. Harriet Harman is the suicide-note candidate. Ed Balls should join a circus.

Ed Miliband is hopelessly wrong on the climate. James Purnell lacks bite and mastery. Jon Cruddas is the heir to Foot.

But, hold your donkeys. While the rest of the field has shrunk in stature, one man has gained authority hand over clunking fist.

I refer to Alistair Darling.

He was the man who declared the economic crisis as it was: “the worst in 60 years” while Brown was trying to soft-soap the nation with lies. Darling it was who stood up to Brown during the disastrous reshuffle and established himself as Chancellor of the Exchequer until the General Election.

After a shaky start in the job — probably the worst learning curve in politics — he has now emerged as the most confident minister in the Cabinet. On Saturday afternoon he commanded the respect of economic journalists from around the world with his performance at the G20 news conference.

One thing above all singles him out: he is prepared to speak the truth and engage in the nuanced debate most of us want to hear. Imagine Gordon Brown at the same occasion: PMQs writ large, a bellowing performance of self-praise and obfuscation.

For this diarist, Darling is now the most persuasive voice in the Labour party. Don’t rule him out as its next leader.

He won’t beat David Cameron. He may be yet another Scotsman, but that hardly matters when talent and honesty are the lodestones the country needs.

You heard it here first.

Last year, the American tech blogosphere was drowning in “fatblogging”.

It was started by Jason Calacanis, the man who sold a bunch of blogs to AOL for $30million and a seat on the board. It had its own website and anyone could participate by tagging their posts “fatblogging”. I am not proud to admit that I put up a few myself.

Now the British Tory blogosphere is descending into the same swamp of oleaginous twaddle.

Iain Dale (It’s worse than I thought) — who has looked more than chubby of late on Sky News — has declared himself 18 stone and rising, and desperately in need of motivation to pare down the pounds.

Tory Radio (Iain Dale is a big fat loser!) has reciprocated, claiming even greater avoir dupoisage in what is developing into an “I bet I’m fatter than you are” battle of the sumos. When Eric Pickles declares himself, I’ll be convinced this is going somewhere.

Weighing in at a toned 12 stone, I confess to a wish to lose 7lbs to get back to my best fighting weight. I have to say, 18 stone is one hell of a burden to carry around.

For example, the Sunday Times, at its bulkiest, peaks at 3lbs on the kitchen scales. The difference between 12 and 18 stone represents 28 copies of the ST.

Imagine carrying 14 under each arm. Not only would you need exceptionally long arms, but also the physique of Arnold Scwazziwatsit to bear the bundle home.

I merely point this out to bring some realism to the debate.

Nigel Farage, the exotic leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), has resigned his post and will fight the Squeaker Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, for the Parliamentary seat of Buckingham in the General Election.

This is important because?

Well, it’s one in the eye for the wretched Labour MPs who thought it deft to promote this little man as a raspberry to the Tories. Not deft, not even daft, just infantile.

When the nation needs leadership, Labour’s intellectual giants, including Brown, who must have signed this off, deliver sub-Big Brother type tactics.

Won’t we be glad to see the back of them! If Farage, whose basic EU thesis I agree with, can see off this minnow, he will have earned the nation’s gratitude.

I suspect, though, it will be seen as a stunt by the good people of Buckingham. “Better the devil you know” always plays well when the stakes are high.

Google Books is an online digitization programme for absorbing all the books in the world within the Google “cloud”. Is that good or bad?

It depends where you’re coming from.

If you have an out-of-print work that earns you nothing, you may be glad of some residual income, or a slew of new readers. On the other hand, if you have a new book coming soon, as I have, you may find the juggernaut a trifle overbearing.

There’s a huge battle going on right now over internet copyright. Whatever line you draw as an “originative intellectual worker” will inevitably be breached before long. Google is using its muscle to get a grip on a very unstable situation.

Frankly, I don’t know what the outcome will be. I’m a little bit appalled that my book may be sucked into someone else’s system without my consent, yet recognize the pressures for this to happen.

It’s both about money and not about money. Writers have to earn a living, but also need to be read.

Where do we draw the line?

Like the musicians, I suspect we don’t have a clue.

Quote of the week
Here’s an extract I like from H.G. Wells’s autobiography on “originative intellectual workers”.

“Most individual creatures since life began have been ‘up against it’ all the time, have been driven continually by fear and cravings, have had to respond to the unresting antagonisms of their surroundings, and they have found a sufficient and sustaining interest in the drama of immediate events provided for them by these demands. Essentially, their living was continuous adjustment to happenings. Good hap and ill hap filled it entirely. They hungered and ate and they desired and loved; they were amused and attracted, they pursued or escaped, they were overtaken and they died.

“But with the dawn of human foresight and with the appearance of a great surplus of energy in life such as the last century or so has revealed, there has been a progressive emancipation of the attention from everyday urgencies. What was once the whole of life, has become to an increasing extent, merely the background of life. People can ask now what would have been an extraordinary question five hundred years ago. They can say, ‘Yes, you earn a living, you support a family, you love and hate, but, ‘what do you do? . . .’

“In studies and studios and laboratories, administrative bureaus and exploring expeditions, a new world is germinated and develops. … We originative intellectual workers are reconditioning human life.”

Indeed.

John Evans

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