Politics

Ezra Klein asks why the Democratic party doesn’t treat “unreliable” Democrats quite as badly* as the GOP hunts down “Republicans in Name Only” such as Arlen Specter.  There are few consequences to being a Blue Dog Democrat. Labor doesn’t come into your district and fund a challenger who attacks your votes to cut entitlement spending. Business interests are more likely to donate to your campaign. You have a badge of independence from party which is useful both when dealing with the media and when dealing with voters. Your vote matters more because it’s less reliable. And the Democratic Party infrastructure itself is fundamentally sympathetic to your plight: Democrats from marginal

Here’s today’s nominee for Most Deluded Man in Britain (Non-Government Division): Wigan head coach Brian Noble believes Super League clubs should be buying up rugby union’s big stars. The former GB coach is advocating the scheme in order to bring more British and Irish talent into the sport. “Every club should be given a remit to sign one union home nations player,” Noble told The Super League Show. “Just imagine the national headlines our game would generate for bringing the likes of a Jonny Wilkinson or a Brian O’Driscoll across.” Just imagine! Well that’s all you can do, isn’t it? I can’t think of a single reason why any leading

George Monbiot raises a complaint one has seen several times lately: Had Heathrow’s third runway been debated only by English MPs, the proposal would have been resoundingly defeated; it was approved by 19 votes, after 67 MPs from the other nations were induced to support the government. They can support such measures without any electoral risk, as their constituents are not directly affected. Except that, in this instance at least, a so-called English issue is actually a British issue. Heathrow’s capacity – indeed the capacity of all the London airports – is a matter of interest north of the border. After all, Heathrow is Scotland’s most important air connection to

Brother Bright gives some of his reasons for hoping that Labour will prevail at the next election here. As a good man of the left, one would expect no less from him. And he’s right, I think, to suppose that we’d be facing many of the same problems had David Cameron and Georgie Osbourne been running the country these past five years. In that sense, you can undertsand the frustration some of the Prime Minister’s supporters must feel. Not all of this is the PM’s fault, but he’s the only fellow the public can kick. But for those of us who aren’t automatically attached to any party the calculation is

Writing in the FT yesterday Martin Wolf observed: It is extraordinary that a popular new president, confronting a once-in-80-years’ economic crisis, has let Congress shape the outcome. Commenter IanC agrees with Wolf, as does Porkbelly who writes: Obama could easily have used his electoral mandate to impose his will upon the House Democrats when the bill was crafted; instead he let them cobble together a malodorous mess of every left-liberal pet project and constituency gimme. Now there’s something to this. The bill is indeed larded with goodies the Democrats have long-desired. And it may well, as I say, have adverse long-term consequences while also failing to solve short-term problems. But,