Politics

Nothing is going right for John Howard at the moment. Following a slight improvement in the polls last week came a poor showing against Kevin Rudd in the only debate of the Australian election campaign.  Now a devastating poll has Labor with a crushing lead of 58-42%.  Most worrying for the government must be the news that Rudd has made big strides on the issues of economic management and national security. These are supposed to be Howard’s strong suits and suggest that having made up their minds to vote for Rudd, voters are now telling themselves that he can be trusted with these issues.  Howard opened his campaign with a

On the Today programme this morning David Miliband contended that there was no need for the referendum that Labour promised in its 2005 manifesto as “the constitution is dead, last night marked the end of the constitution”. This argument is flawed on two levels. First, this treaty is–as pretty much every European leader other than Gordon Brown has conceded–the same document as the constitution. Second, as this week’s leader argues, Tony Blair promised a vote not because he believed that the constitution represented a fundamental change in the relationship between Britain and the European Union but to nail the ‘myths’ peddled by Euro-sceptics. It is hard not to agree with

As the New Hampshire primary and the Iowa caucuses grow ever closer, the 2008 nominating contests are heating up. Today, word came that Sam Brownback—a standard bearer for religious conservatives—is to quit the Republican race. Brownback’s campaign has never caught on as many pundits thought it would and he simply doesn’t have the money or the name recognition to be a serious contender any more. Brownback’s withdrawal is good news for former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee who has been competing for the same Christian conservative voters. Indeed with Brownback out, Huckabee has a real chance of sneaking a shock win in Iowa which would deal a huge blow to the

Glutton for punishment that I am, I watched all of the Commons European Scrutiny Committee’s cross-examination of David Miliband on Tuesday (you can share my pain by going to the committee’s website). Most of the press coverage has focused on the angry exchanges between the Foreign Secretary and the MPs, and particularly his justified fury at the invocation by the chairman, Michael Connarty, of the Munich agreement and Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler. This was a deplorable allusion, and Mr Miliband had a duty as well as a right to express the strongest possible objections. That aside, the hearings were also a fascinating – if often impenetrable – exploration of the

Via Marc Ambinder, here’s what the new Politics of Hope* has to say for itself: *Of course Hillary Clinton really is the candidate favoured by much of the Democratic establishment. But that’s at least partly because, for better or worse, she’s something of a known quantity. Beyond platitudes and an apparently limitless belief in the transformational power of his personality (something that might concern some people) it remains hard to say exactly what Barack Obama is for. He’s a great symbol and he might well prove a better President than Clinton (not necessarily such a high bar to clear, granted), but… Also, isn’t it usually the case that the candidate