Political class

There's a good article by Steve Richards in the Independent about the way that our leading politicians have concluded that the state should intervene in other countries but stay out of domestic policy. And he rightly identifies this as part of the new consensus that unites Tony Blair and David Cameron and their followers.

Amongst those followers, he refers to a number of journalists: 'The writer Julian Glover gave up a column to work for Cameron. The former Blair adviser Philip Collins became a columnist. Daniel Finkelstein entered the world of commentary from the Conservative Party.' His point is that they all share much the same positions.

But there's another conclusion one might draw. One that would also find room to mention others who have moved between politics and journalism: the likes of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper, Daniel Hannan, Ed Vaizey... Or, behind the scenes, Steve Hilton (ex-Guardian) and Andy Coulson (ex-News of the World), who used to be so important to Cameron, or Tom Baldwin (ex-Times) and Bob Roberts (ex-Daily Mirror), who are key members of Ed Miliband's inner circle.

In all the media analysis of the political class, the growing covergence between Westminster and Fleet Street tends not to get mentioned as much as perhaps it should be.

Top Ten: European sleepwalkers

Ed Miliband is making a speech today to warn us against Britain 'sleepwalking' out of the European Union. What is about Europe that induces sleepwalking?

1. ‘Because we won’t debate it [the Maastricht Treaty] we’re going to sleepwalk our way into it and we will handicap ourselves as a party thereby.’ – Bryan Gould, 1992

2. ‘[A Labour government] would sleepwalk us into a federal union.’ – John Redwood, 1995

3. ‘There are those in the Labour Party and across Europe sleepwalking their way along the dreamy road to a European superstate.’ – Michael Portillo, 1995

4. ‘England must have the right to vote on things that will change the destiny of the nation. To insist that these changes can come about without debate, and without a vote, is madness. It is sleepwalking into an electric saw.’ – James Goldsmith, 1996

5. ‘[Euro-fanatics] were hoping we would sleepwalk into their brave new world.’ – Richard Littlejohn, 1998

6. ‘If battle is not joined, and we sleepwalk into a single currency and a federal Europe, we will be taking the biggest gamble of all.’ – Michael Gove, 1998

7. ‘The idea that we simply sleepwalk into something as important as this would be an outrage from any government.’ – Richard Marsh, 1998

8. ‘[Tony Blair] has to confront the newspapers, he cannot sleepwalk to victory.’ – Simon Buckby, director of Britain in Europe, 2004

9. ‘Brussels appears to be happy to sleepwalk into this nightmare.’ – John Cridland, deputy director-general of CBI, 2007

10. ‘We must not sleepwalk into another crisis.’ – Jose Manuel Barroso, president European Commission, 2009