Politics, let’s face it, brings out the worst in people. It certainly brings out the worst in me. Watching the Labour Leadership contest unfold has had me rubbing my hands together in barely concealed glee muttering “mu ha ha ha!” I can be open minded and non-partisan about just about anything… except Labour.

I don’t, if I’m honest, wish them well. If its members were to find themselves accidentally eaten by marauding rabid gerbils, I would not shed a tear. So, at 4am this morning, Mike Smithson of Political Betting decided to announce that he’s calling it for Ed Miliband and I felt quite relaxed and happy about that.

Allow me to explain:

See, Progressivism is about selling fantastic dreams  - work less, earn more, play more, become more attractive, be more admired by your peers, end hunger, end poverty, create world peace, abolish cancer, save the whales, save the planet all by simply voting once every few years and telling people, hey, I voted for cool. Musicians, actors, comedians… all manner of people who depend on being ‘in’ and ‘hip’ to make a living align themselves with progressive politics. Cos it’s cool. It’s one giant circle-jerk of ‘cool’.

That is, of course, only when the Progressive movement is led by someone cool superstar politicians – Clinton, Blair, Obama – then the circle-jerk actually works.

However when the leader is someone lacking in cool – Gore (the less charismatic and distinctly more bonkers Gore), Kerry or Gordon Brown – then there is no circle of cool, the Progressive Party languishes in failure and defeat. It’s not that people vote for Centre Right parties instead – they clearly don’t, because, after all, if you’re voting for cool then you’re not going to get that from the Conservatives or the Republicans – but they do stay at home instead, preferring to spend polling day listening to the hottest new band with their latest single, “Rupert Murdoch gave me AIDS”.

Selling Progressive dreams is a job for expert salesmen and saleswomen and so, to the point of this post, Ed Miliband is no cool superstar politician and so fantastic news for those who wish Labour… ill. He’s got a sort of cuddly, bubblegum innocence about him with his strangely nasal voice and chinless, feminine face which doesn’t really inspire the sort of feelings of terror and loathing that a winning Progressive Leader should inspire in someone like me. I only fear the ones that have a realistic chance of actually running the country.

But then, none of the others seem to have the mysterious X factor either. There’s no British Obama here, and for David Miliband the apple has fallen a long, long, long way from Blair’s tree.  It’s all so ho-hum.

I suppose the question is, am I right? Is it impossible for a Progressive party to win power without a political superstar leader? I put this same argument when Gordon Brown first became leader, stressing my belief that Gordon should never be able to win an election no matter what he did or said because he’s the wrong kind of leader for Progressives, and I was told by various cool people how wrong I was, that politics can’t be reduced to a simple question of teeth and hair and smiles.

Maybe I’m just not cool enough to understand.

Going through Mandelson’s memoirs the BBC highlights that he claims Labour achieved 80% of its aims. I could agree with that, but only because it gives me an excuse to play funny buggers with the 80/20 ‘rule’ – that 20% of the effort will get 80% of the work done, and the last 20% of work will require 80% of the effort.

In other words, if Labour’s achieved 80% of its goals in 13 years, then to get that last stubborn 20% would take another 52 years – assuming the Pareto Principle holds true.

65 years of Labour. Yikes.

Of course, this assumes that all problems are a simple question of time and money and that there are never any new problems created by devoting said time and money, and that there’s never any unintended consequences arising from solving said problems.

Nope, I think even with another 100 years Labour wouldn’t get that last 20%. There’s no ‘with just a bit more time it would have all been perfect’ here. They had a super majority, unbelievable public support until the Iraq War, a boom and seemingly infinite money coming from tax revenues. If something went wrong, who can they really blame?

I still remember when I really liked Clegg. It seems like a long time ago now, but I have to admit that his latest speech – and his remit to deliver political reform – has moved him onto ground I can unambiguously support.

My housemate, not as political as I am, was completely stunned by this speech. She said, “This is real? We can really have this?” and I feel the same. The full text of the speech is on the BBC’s website and it’s well worth reading. Particular highlights include:

Landmark legislation, from politicians who refused to sit back and do nothing while huge swathes of the population remained helpless against vested interests, who stood up for the freedom of the many, not the privilege of the few.

and…

As long as money plays such a big part in our politics, we are never going to curtail the tyranny of vested interests.

“Tyranny”, along with “betrayal” is another one of those words that only politicians ever say, but I can’t quite help myself. “Tyranny of vested interest” is music to my ears.

So we still, for now, have the Human Rights Act. This secures, in law, certain ‘rights’ from the State which are:

• Right to Life
• Prohibition of Torture
• Prohibition of Slavery and Forced Labour
• Right to Liberty and Security
• Right to a Fair Trial
• No Punishment without law
• Right to respect for private and family life
• Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
• Freedom of expression
• Freedom of assembly and association
• Right to marry
• Prohibition of Discrimination

In many respects the Human Rights Act is a fundamentally depressing law – one that was felt necessary because it catalogues the list of abuses of State power that can and do happen, but in some places it goes too far and in others not far enough.

What seems to have specifically upset Conservatives (and others) about the Human Rights Act is that it prevents the deportation of certain individuals who are likely to be murdered and tortured – even when those individuals are terrorists and show no regard for the Human Rights Act in so far as it applies to other human beings. I suspect the Prohibition of Discrimination and the Right to Education aren’t very popular either.

But the real fault-line here is jurisdiction. The Human Rights Act applies to everyone, irrespective of their legal status in the UK. The Conservative Bill of Rights would likely apply to British (or perhaps EU) citizens only, not foreign nationals.

Foreign nationals – including illegal immigrants, asylum seekers and people on temporary visas would have no protection from our Government at all. Murder, torture, punishment without law, unfair trials – even preventing them getting married – all these options suddenly become available to the Government of the day.

I would argue that the Conservatives need to get their alternative, the “Bill of Rights”, drafted and scrutinised and let us judge which is preferable. Truth is we don’t really know what they intend to replace it with, so we’re playing a wait and see game.

The Human Rights Act isn’t perfect and certainly isn’t the last word in protecting citizens from the Government, and perhaps a Bill of Rights could be an improvement, at least for British nationals… but Lib Dem MPs are never going to vote in favour – or even abstain – on anything that will allow the British Government to commit acts that will result in torture or murder, no matter how reprehensible the individuals in question might be.

But if anything could break up this coalition, this could be it. This here is an example of an unreconcilable difference, one where there’s no reasonable compromise. You can’t have a ‘bit’ of torture, or a ‘bit’ or murder, as far as I know.

So, the good and the bad. I did promise, didn’t I? Well the section on Civil Liberties is better than any of us dared hope, thanks to the addition of a Freedom Bill/Great Repeal Bill which could cover anything not already cover. The list of things we know for a fact we’re getting includes:

ID Cards, Identity Register, Child Register and Next-Gen biometric passports? GONE

No Fingerprinting of Children without parental consent. SORTED

Extension of Freedom of Information Act. GOOD

A switch to Scottish model of DNA retention. AT LAST

Protection of right to trial by jury and right to non-violent protest. AWESOME

Reform of the libel laws to protect freedom of speech. SUPERB

And more. Seriously, there’s MORE. And this doesn’t include what might end up in the Great Repeal/Freedom Bill (HINT: Digital Economy Act three strikes, site blocking).

This is extremely promising and marks the first time our Government has done anything that I’ve gone, “Wow! Cool!” at for… well.. over ten years, I guess. I’m genuinely surprised and amazed and hope that this shows a willingness to be bold in this area.

The bad for me is the section on the ‘Green’ economy stuff, which represents quite an ambitious program of economic planning (irrespective of the perceived need to do so.) Will be interested to see if this gets the same focus and attention.

Back to good we have the end of child detention in immigration centres. On the bad side we appear to have merged the Lib Dem and the Tory policy on dealing with illegal immigrants. If you’ll recall, the Lib Dems intended to find some of the illegal immigrants and give them an amnesty to stay. The Tories wanted to deport them but can’t actually find them. The new policy is find them and deport them. Compromise, eh? Wonderful.

More on this as it sinks in and the actual behaviour of the Government becomes apparent… but put it this way: I’m a bit worried about the odds of getting pieces onto Liberal Central at the Guardian if the Coalition carries on like this. My career as a semi-professional writer may be killed off before it’s started.

Damn.