Tom Richmond: We need an era of substance, not soundbites

Speaking in Leeds, the former Foreign Secretary said the new PM should resist the temptation to reshuffle his Cabinet at times of difficulty, only be seen in public when necessary – and realise that every problem does not require new laws.

Brown failed on all three counts. His Cabinet was in a perpetual state of upheaval, he allowed politics to become an extension of the light entertainment industry – and he encouraged the implementation of new rules and regulations.

It is candid advice that Lord Hurd of Westwell's successor as Witney

MP, one David Cameron, should now abide by as he becomes settled inside 10 Downing Street following the most bewildering week in British politics since Margaret Thatcher's political demise.

Now the Tories have entered into a formal coalition with the Lib Dems, with the latter having five Cabinet seats and a Minister in every department, reshuffles will be even more difficult. It won't be one party that Cameron will have to keep on board, but two.

Second, the public do not wish to see the Prime Minister, or Nick Clegg, on every TV chat show. They would actually prefer the pair of them to be quietly, and effectively, getting on with the job – namely a more efficient government.

And, finally, policy is going to have to be well-constructed at the outset to avoid the coalition partners falling out in public. This is important – it, hopefully, means that we will no longer face policy by soundbite.

I just hope, therefore, that the new PM has had the time to pick up the phone to Lord Hurd – and, unlike Brown, listens to such words of

wisdom. For they have never been more applicable.

A BY-PRODUCT of the Liberal Conservative coalition is the future of the TV leaders' debates, which catapulted Nick Clegg to national prominence during the election.

Next time around, will the new Deputy Prime Minister debate with Tory leader David Cameron who, as Prime Minister, is now Clegg's boss?

CAREFUL analysis of the election results reveals that the votes gained by Ukip candidates denied the Conservatives at least 20 seats – and David Cameron an outright majority.

Eurosceptics point out that Ed Balls, Labour's outgoing Schools Secretary, would have lost his Morley and Outwood seat if Ukip had not taken votes from the Tories.

I put the argument another way. Just how many more seats could the Tories have, potentially, won, if Ken Clarke or William Hague had spoken for the party on economic issues? But, realistically, the reason the Tories were denied an outright majority was because Labour, and Gordon Brown, were extremely effective in the final 48 hours of the election in getting the unions to galvanise the public sector vote.

IF the new Government wants advice on where to start the public spending cuts, might I suggest that they begin with the West Midlands health bosses who authorised a survey in which its 4,000 employees were asked to rate how "cool" Adolf Hitler was in a questionnaire.

Besides Hitler, the list included Gordon Brown, Richard Branson, Winston Churchill and Fabio Capello. A spokesman tried, and failed, to defend this profound waste of money by saying: "At the end of the day, Hitler galvanised a nation into doing something quite unusual. Dreadful atrocities took place off the back of that."

Haven't these people anything better to do – or are they secretly protected from the spending squeeze?

LEEDS-educated David Miliband's campaign for the Labour leadership has, by all accounts, made a faltering start.

The outgoing Foreign Secretary's promise to visit every marginal, where Labour was defeated last week creates the impression that he's not interested in issues facing the whole country. In short, this is a "core vote" strategy.

By acting so swiftly after Gordon Brown's political demise, Miliband wants to build up unstoppable momentum for his candidacy. For example, he's already backed by Hull's Alan Johnson and Don Valley MP Caroline Flint.

The reason is this. Miliband is not a popular figure with Labour's unions or grassroots supporters. And, with the leadership being decided by an electoral college involving MPs, unions and members, it's far more likely that his younger brother Ed – a Doncaster MP – will prevail in the long run.

The more pertinent question, from a public perspective, is whether Labour's next leader will have the courage to distance themselves from the destabilising influences of spin doctor Alastair Campbell and the Prince of Darkness – Peter "meddling" Mandelson?

I HAVE no sympathy for Alan Sugar after he expressed "frustration" at Andrew Lloyd-Webber appearing on television's latest non-talent show, Over the Rainbow, while his own show The Apprentice was delayed to avoid a General Election clash.

Sugar took up a seat in the Lords last year as the Labour Government's enterprise czar, raising concerns about possible impartiality risks.

Yet Tory peer Lloyd-Webber, whose hit BBC talent search Over the Rainbow is reaching the final stages, was then quoted in The Sun as saying the Conservatives "represent our only hope when times get rough".

This would not be an issue if the political elite stopped rewarding their friends with seats in the undemocratic House of Lords – and if the BBC's light entertainment department was more imaginative so that its schedules were not over-dependent on the publicity-seeking Sugar and Lloyd-Webber.