World

Dramatis personae: Joe Citizen                    (a citizen) Jack and Jill Jones        (Joe’s neighbours) Mr Whatam-Ibid            (a surveyor) Mr Ballpark-Estimate    (a valuer) Ms Dreamhomes            (an estate agent) Mr Moneybags                (a small banker) Mr Dollarsacks                (a global fund manager) Mr Brown                        (a prime minister) (voices off)                    (depositors; taxpayers) Stage props:                 two bricks: one large, one small The stage is empty against the backdrop of a blue sky and scudding clouds. ENTER: Joe Citizen carrying a small brick, and Jack and Jill Jones carrying a large

Will Wilkinson has some fun with Naomi Klein’s latest nonsense. Naomi Klein says [the financial crisis discredits neoliberalism]. Or she wants it to. She thinks it discredits Milton Friedman in particular, because for Klein not a sparrow falls without Friedman’s having somehow strangled it. Hers is a tiny intellectual universe containing, on the one hand, the things she likes and, on the other, the baleful influence of Milton Friedman. Did you know, for instance, that Paul Bremer was a Friedmanite agent of mass destruction in Iraq? Apparently so!

Shockingly Tom Brokaw has rejected Bill Kristol’s internet-submitted question. Typical MSM bias. Fair play to the plucky folks at Fox however, they’re doing their best to best to suggest that Obama is less-American than a flesh-eating Muslim eskimo. Or something like that. Fred Barnes, a shit who aspires to being something more anatomical than that, suggests McCain needs to “do a Sarah Palin”… God help us all. Anyway kids, here we go again… Final Verdict: I’ve been a little harsh on Obama. He won this debate. When even Karl Rove can’t make a great case for McCain then you know the game is over. And, again, Obama looked and came

The statistics were flying like circling jumbos at the Intelligence Squared debate on Heathrow’s proposed expansion. The News 24 anchorman Nik Gowing introduced a panel of experts led by Tom Kelly, once spin doctor to Tony Blair and now BAA’s head of communications. Heathrow’s problems boil down to capacity, he said. Already it works at 100 percent while its main rivals – Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt – operate at 75 percent. This makes them less susceptible to weather disruption and open to new growth. Cramped and crowded Heathrow has just lost the new Air India headquarters to Brussels. And even now, Kelly warned, Dubai is building a spanking new terminal with

“In your heart, you know he’s right…” was a slogan that more or less conceded defeat. Also: the America of riots, swindles and general moral depravity, looks a lot more exciting than anything dear old Barry Goldwater offers in this 1964 ad:

A rather interesting development in Kabul. The French satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaînė (France’s Private Eye) claims that the British Ambassador to Afghanistan, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, has told the French that the war is lost. According to Le Canard: The British ambassador and his deputy have in turn contacted me to pass on their analysis of the situation before the Franco-British meeting on Afghanistan. These were their main points: — The current situation is bad. The security situation is getting worse. So is corruption and the government has lost all trust. Our public statements should not delude us over the fact that the insurrection, while incapable of winning a military

I wish they still made ads like this one for Gerald Ford in 1976. Check out the jaunty music and the fab 70s kitsch of it all. Not a bad message either.

The contrast between this jaunty, jolly ad and what we know of Richard Nixon’s character and temperament is quite striking. “Nixon Now”, from 1972, is mesmerising. Amazing stuff.

No-one ever accused LBJ of being a soft touch. This ad, “Confessions of a Republican” from 1964 is brutal. And brilliant. Four hideous minutes for Barry Goldwater. Yet it still seems almost quanit, viewed from the perspective of 2008. Of course, it also assumes the voters have an attention span of more than 12 seconds. I love the cigarette at the end too…

So, yeah, keeping Sarah Palin away from the press isn’t too stupid a strategy. The second half of her interview with Katie Couric airs tonight. Alas, it’s on foreign policy and it’s not, I think, likely to be pretty. Here, for instance, is Palin talking about Afghanistan: Katie Couric: Why is it much more challenging there? Can you explain that? Sarah Palin: The logistics that we are already suggesting here, not having enough troops in the area right now. The… things like the terrain even in Afghanistan and that border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where, you know, we believe that– Bin Laden is– is hiding out right now and… and

Whatever one might say about Sarah Palin, this photograph is disturbing on many, many levels… And, for the people who pay attention to these things, it’s a blunder too. Because, you know, seeing Sarah Palin perched on a sofa chattering away with Henry Kissinger emphasises rather than reduces the validity of concerns about her experience and knowledge. Daft. [Plundered shamelessly from Mike Crowley]