Jon Sopel Presenter The Politics Show

Hello again,

On this week's Politics Show...

Tuesday 06 November will see the Queen processing to Parliament with all the usual flummery - coaches, the imperial crown - and men in strange costumes with even stranger titles.

Leave the Beefeaters until after lunch...

We already know quite a bit about what will be in the legislative programme that she will unveil because Gordon Brown gave us a preview in July.

Even in the past 10 days he's given speeches on the constitution and education - both subjects dear to his heart.

That's his answer to those muttering 'where's the beef, where's the vision'?

Harman on Brown - how are things for the party..?

But the past 10 days have also seen hints of a U-turn on Capital Gains Tax, chaos over immigration figures, ministers apologising for this and that, and poll figures heading south.

As faith in Mr Brown has wobbled after the election that never was, people are starting to whisper whether the great conviction politician might be lacking a clear route map.

I'll be speaking to his deputy as leader of the Labour Party, Harriet Harman.

Hearts and minds

Admiral Sir Alan West - taken up the poisoned chalice

Has the government changed the way it fights terrorism since Tony Blair departed?

The public may not have noticed, but you don't hear the phrase 'war on terror' any more, and in private, ministers and advisers are putting much more emphasis on winning hearts and minds.

In June, one of the surprise non-Labour Party figures appointed to a government job was Admiral Sir Alan West, who became Lord West, a Home Office Minister with responsibility for dealing with the terrorist threat.

Under his watch, things are changing. He'll be with us in the studio.

Trouble at mill...

How great is Britain's great industrial heritage?

Would you mind a mine near you..?

Coal hewn from the Welsh valleys, the shipbuilding industry of the Tyne or Sheffield steel - would anyone want to turn the clock back?

Ask any true Cornishman whether their county - once the world capital of tin production - should start mining again, you'd expect it to be pretty popular.

In the last few years, world tin prices have quadrupled, and the owners of South Crofty, a tin mine which closed in the 1990s, now want to reopen it.

Good news, right? Wrong - according to the local council, the regional development agency, and some local politicians.

In his Autumn Political Cartoon Gallery, Gary Barker gives his own personal take on the politics of the week... In pictures

They all say Cornwall has left that part of its industrial heritage behind - for the better.

Can it really be true that we're better off without the heavy industry whose loss was so keenly felt?

Max Cotton has been to Cornwall to find out.

...there may be those mutterings of 'where's the beef...' but let it wait until after the programme.

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