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Robin Oakley's week in politics
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By BBC political editor Robin Oakley
As the Queen's Speech debate grinds remorselessly on at Westminster few will be concentrating on the government's detailed programme for the session ahead. The repercussions of Labour's decision to allow Ken Livingstone on the party's shortlist for mayor and Lord Archer's forced defection as the Tory candidate will keep tongues wagging in the Westminster village. Once again Tony Blair has turned out to be a lucky politician.
Otherwise the week offers the prime minister's speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet on Monday, the almost certain return to Parliament of Michael Portillo in Thursday's Kensington and Chelsea by-election and what is likely to be a somewhat strained British-French summit.
The Archer affair
Lord Archer has been a Conservative conference hero, a darling of the grassroots and a major fund-raiser for the Tories but he is now out in the cold.
The sharp comments from shadow chancellor Francis Maude about "stinking fish" and Lord Archer having "thrown himself on the scrap heap" are clear evidence that the Tory hierarchy has lost patience with the Tory peer and that he will never hold office in the party again.
But the damage he has done to his own ambition of at last proving himself a serious politician are as nothing to the damage he has done to his party. Labour was in deep trouble with its writhings over the mayoral selection, with Tony Blair forced to let on to the shortlist a man whom he regards as destructive of all that he stands and yet whom he could have to support (as he has pledged to do so) if emerges from the party selection process as the chosen candidate.
At one bound, and with some help from Cherie Blair's conveniently-timed pregnancy, attention has switched to the Tories shambles. The Conservatives have lost the advantage of having had the earliest candidate in the mayoral field. They have been forced to go back to square one in the search for a replacement.
And with the papers already full of the Neil Hamilton versus Mohamed al-Fayed case they have had another raking over of the events which helped to establish them in the public mind as the party of sleaze. They may even succeed in losing the obvious stand-in candidate as well.
The party hierarchy at first favoured slotting in Steve Norris, the former transport minister, as mayoral candidate since he had been runner-up to Lord Archer in the original selection process. But second thoughts then prevailed.
They had made so much of their one-person, one-vote electoral process being more democratic than Labour's that they could scarcely revert to an old-fashioned party fix by the leadership to slide in the man of their choice. Mr Norris had been beaten by 71-29% by Lord Archer, so he was hardly a close runner-up. And as party chairman Michael Ancram admitted, he would have been derided as second best if he had not been elected in his own right.
The problem with re-opening the contest is that it has clearly miffed Mr Norris, a man whom Labour's campaigners respect, and he is by no means certain to re-submit himself for election, particularly if the Tories' scratching around to find other possible heavyweight entries succeeds in dredging up any other big names.
The one consolation for the Tories is that the Archer debacle has happened now rather than in mid-campaign next year when it could have damaged them irreparably. As Ken Livingstone has pointed out, the disappearance of Jeffrey Archer from the field will bring on board for the Tories some of those who saw him as a chancer and were not prepared to vote for him and it will also probably bring The Evening Standard, London's main paper which had campaigned vigorously against Lord Archer's candidacy, behind the new Tory choice.
There are also continuing repercussions both for William Hague, who described Lord Archer as a "man of probity and integrity" and for party chairman Michael Ancram. Their failure to refer Lord Archer's candidacy to the new ethics and integrity committee, set up to keep the Tories free from the taint of sleaze, is being widely criticised because there were senior figures who had urged them to do so.
Many with 20-20 hindsight are now saying that Lord Archer was always an accident waiting to happen and that the party figures who are happy to attend his parties and make use of his fund-raising efforts lulled themselves into a false sense of security about a man whose controversial lifestyle and tendency to romance had twice before led to him resigning office in the party.
Before the Archer debacle William Hague had just had one of his best weeks as Tory leader. Labour's much-publicised difficulties with Ken Livingstone had wrong-footed Tony Blair and Mr Hague had shone in the Queen's Speech with a series of genuinely funny and politically-barbed jokes. No wonder that the first quality Napoleon looked for in his generals was luck.
The British-French summit
With the French ban on British beef still running this is likely to be a somewhat strained affair. Both Tony Blair and Lionel Jospin will be keen to keep the accent on defence rather than on food but le boeuf is bound to intrude.(We don't yet know the menu for Thursday's lunch) .
There will be discussions about the rapid reaction defence force in which Britain and France would provide the key elements, but ministers are at pains to stress that they are not supporting the concept of a European standing army.
Portillo's return
The former defence minister and the Tory leader have been keen to be photographed together to indicate that Mr Hague is all for Michael Portillo coming back into Parliament. But it will add to the discomfort of the Tory leader to have a potential leader-in-waiting on the benches behind him.
There is though an upside too for Mr Hague. So many of his shadow ministers have proved a disappointment that he can do with the personal clout and charisma of Mr Portillo to help win attention for his party's message.
Mr Portillo himself knows that any display of disunity between now and the next election would not easily be forgiven by some in the party when it does come to the next leadership contest.
The question is how long Mr Hague will wait for Mr Portillo to regain his sea legs at Westminster before elevating him to the Front Bench. He will not want to do so with indecent haste but if he waits too long he will be accused of handicapping the party's effort by holding back a potential rival.
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