Snowmail: The whiff of burning rubber

Last Modified: 23 Apr 2008
By: Jon Snow

On tonight's show...

Well, it has happened. The most painfully rubber-burning, screeching U-turn of recent times. Gordon Brown has agreed a raft of measures to compensate for the abolition of the 10p tax rate.

Only last Tuesday the prime minister told me that there wasn't a problem and that we should concentrate instead on the many millions of other people who would prosper from the cut and from the decision to lower the basic rate of income tax from now on from 22p to 20p.

Prime minister's question time was about as raucous as you ever hear it. A fair degree of neo-schoolyard criticism of the prime minister, and from Mr Brown an at times barely audible defence, wielding laundry lists of statistics of the welfare reforms that have been achieved in the last decade. Gary Gibbon is on the case.

ZUMA THE STATESMAN We have tonight a major interview with Jacob Zuma, the controversial president of the ANC and effectively president in waiting of South Africa. If you'd asked me a year ago (not having met Mr Zuma), one would have been tempted to say that for him to become the country's president might be a very dubious development.

But he has had an extraordinary transmogrification of late, largely driven by his robust criticisms of what is happening in Zimbabwe.

In the interview he spells out the need to expand South Africa's mediation (Thabo Mbeki) to embrace all 13 Sadec (Southern African Development Community) leaders, who should all go to Zimbabwe and work towards a dialogue between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangerai.

When I pointed out that Mr Tsvangerai was severely beaten by Mr Mugabe's thugs and lives in fear of his life, Zuma (who knows both men well) said it has to happen.

His comments coincide with a call in the Herald newspaper (a government voicepiece) to consider the possibility of a government of national unity led by Mr Mugabe.

The interview, which runs to 18 minutes, is available in full on our website. A shortened version will be going out on our programme tonight. It incidentally touches upon the "shower" incident, his trial for corruption, his views on the nature of the South African presidency, and how he intends to tackle Aids and HIV.

I have to confess, he is a charming, intelligent, humorous man - a more indigenous figure than the man he would replace.

POKER AT GRANGEMOUTH There is clearly a developing problem at the Grangemouth refinery, bought from BP by Ineos. The company wants to close the final salary scheme, the workers are against it, and the refinery is being shut down. There is talk of panic buying. But Andy Davies, who is up there, has not found a lot of evidence of it. Nevertheless, it seems to be a serious game of industrial poker.

Talking of strikes, Roz Upton is with teachers today. The NUT intends to take 30 per cent of schools out of action, just as pupils prepare for their SATs, and their GCSEs and A-levels.

Today has seen the publication of the worst mortgage figures for many years. Katie Razzall is on the case.

YOUR BABY IS WHAT YOU EAT It's official. It seems that women who eat well have boy babies. High-calorie diets are the issue. So, as I'm the father of girls, I guess I must have been eating junk food all my life. And yet I don't think I've eaten a Big Mac since 1985!

AND ON MORE4 NEWS WITH KYLIE MORRIS The inside of Gordon Brown's brain is what's interesting us most. We'll have the PM's biographer Francis Beckett and Spectator political editor Fraser Nelson on the show to tease out what they think this latest episode of 10p wrangling tells us about the way the prime minister thinks and acts.

Also - as the mayoral race in London hots up, why is it just the capital that gets such spills, thrills and rubber balls as a contest to elect directly a mayor? Why is it the most exciting thing in politics here is denied those who live in other British cities?

And this St George's Day, we ask people who've fought against Britain what they like and dislike about the English.

Thrills and spills, multiplied - at eight.