Society

Wednesday

Matthew Dancona

The fight for Obama’s friendship

No man on Earth has more new best friends that a President-elect – especially the first black Commander-in-Chief, a walking charisma machine, swept to victory by a nation longing for change and hope. Nick Robinson’s fisk of some of the remarks made by British politicians in the past twelve hours is unimprovable. Brown sees Obama as a  prospective centre-Left ally in his Plan to Save the World; Cameron salutes the new Novice-in-Chief on his way to the White House as a comrade in the battle for change. Which British party leader will do a better job of claiming to be Barack’s spiritual brother? I have no idea. But it is

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Initial thoughts

Some early thoughts on the American election results: 1) What Bradley effect? Obama won white men 57-41– that’s five points higher than Bush managed in 04. So much for the idea that this election would expose America’s racist underbelly. I wonder if those who have been banging on about it for the last few weeks will now ask if Obama’s “improbable journey” would have been possible in any European democracy? 2) No conservative wipeout. McCain looks like ending up on 47% of the national vote – a huge figure, given this has perhaps been the Republicans’ worst year for a generation. So we have almost half of America voting conservative

Peter Hoskin

Westminster responds

For the record, here are Gordon Brown’s and David Cameron’s reponses to the Obama election victory: Gordon Brown “I have just sent my warmest congratulations to Senator Obama, on his election as President of the United States of America. And I have also sent my best wishes to Michelle, and his family. This is a moment that will live in history, as long as history books are written. I’ve talked to Senator Obama on many occasions and I know he is a true friend of Britain. And I know that the values we share in common, the policies on which we can work together, will enable us as two countries to come through

Peter Hoskin

Riding into a storm

If I had to pick one word to describe the culmination of the US Presidential race it would be “electric”. From the 240,000 who gathered to hear Obama’s address in Grant Park, to the parties that are still going on in Washington, New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Wherever, there is – and has been – an electricity about this campaign that current British politics can only dream of replicating. As Fraser and James have noted, that America has elected its first black President is a point for celebration.  But tomorrow – tomorrow America needs to concentrate on the challenges facing the 44th President. I’m reminded of the final shot of John Ford’s

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The Right joins the celebration – for now

Rather than stay up very late, I got up very early and have been watching the American networks. Any leftie tuning in to Fox looking for a dose of schadenfreude will be sorely disappointed. There is no sense of the anger that the left had when George W Bush won. Bill O’Reilly describes Obama as “brilliant and personable”. The commentators on the right are saluting Obama’s campaign, and sharing a sense of patriotic pride that America is so capable of renewal that it has elected a black man to be president. Here are a few quotes that have jumped out at me. “He fought a brilliant campaign, beginning with his total befuddlement

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Obama’s achievement

Over the weekend all the talk was about how McCain had to win pretty much every battleground state that was still in play and how that would be nigh-on-impossible. But Obama has pretty much done that tonight. He has won Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, New Hampshire and Indiana and is looking good in North Carolina. This string of victories shows just how good the Obama campaign and its ground organisation are. Of course, talking about ground games right now seems inadequate to the moment. We have just seen America elect its first black president. A nation that has been tainted since its founding by racism has just elevated the

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Why I’ll never be Warren Buffett

I ought to be a natural Warren Buffett. I’ve never had any difficulty doing the opposite of what everyone else is doing. If there ever was anyone capable of being ‘fearful when everyone else is greedy and greedy when everyone else is fearful’, it’s me. Why, then, is Warren Buffett worth tens of billions and I’m scratching to break even after years of investing? It isn’t that I haven’t been on the lookout for what Buffett calls ‘moments of maximum pessimism’. I have. I’ve been buying into them strongly. It’s just that there have been so many moments of maximum pessimism that I’ve used up all the cash I put

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

As Orwell warned, children now spy on adults

Brendan O’Neill says that New Labour is deploying Maoist tactics to use children’s ‘pester power’ to crack down on the ‘eco-crimes’ and alleged anti-social behaviour of their parents When I was a child, ‘pester power’ meant stamping one’s feet in a shop. It involved little more than begging one’s mum in an irritating voice for the latest He-Man action figure or for one of those unusually thick pink milkshakes from a place called ‘McDonald’s’. It was a feeble force, this alleged power of the pest, easily squished by a clip around the lughole or by that most ominous threat issued by mums-in-distress: ‘Just you wait until your dad gets home…’

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

In Which Your Humble Blogger Hazards a Reckless Prediction

You will see that I’m sticking my neck out and suggesting Barack Hussein Obama could be the next President of the United States. I thought about honouring Missouri’s reputation as a bell-weather and putting that in his column. Or, to put it another way, I think Obama will win at least one of Missouri, Indiana and North Carolina. Of those, I’m obviously more confident about taking a punt on NC. What do you guys think?

Alex Massie Alex Massie

A View From Britain

My friend Fraser Nelson waits until the last-minute before hopping aboard the Obama express and does so largely because he thinks Obama is likely to do some good in terms of how America is perceived around the world and, let’s be honest, because Obama’s election might make the sanctimonious left rethink, at least for a moment, some of their prejudices about the United States. Still, I also enjoyed his payoff: Finally, my Republican friends have been gushing about Tony Blair for years now – they didn’t have to live with his policies. I won’t have to live with Obama’s. So it’s time for some light revenge.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Election Open Thread

So, readers, how has your election day been so far? What are you seeing out there? Cool stuff? Depressing revelations? Reassuring experiences? You can email me here. Also, I’m pondering a marathon live-blog tonight. Good idea or not?

Alex Massie Alex Massie

As Goes Guam, So Goes the Nation

The results from Guam are in and seem to indicate good times for two parties. That’s to say the Democrats have turned things around in the Pacific, winning nearly 62% of the vote (did Howard Dean’s 50 State Strategy also include Guam?). More importantly, as Dave Weigel reveals, Bob Barr’s 97 votes constitute a “mini-surge” in support for the Libertarian Party. For the GOP, good news is harder to find. Even on Guam.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Live-blog and chat

So this is where it all ends campers. That being the case it’s only seemly to see out this marathon campaign with another live blog and chat extravaganza. That being so, everything will kick off here around 6.30EST/11.30GMT. It will, hopefully, be, like fun. There’s history to be made, folks!

Matthew Dancona

Cocktails & apprehension

At the CNN party in Marylebone, Andrew Marr, James Purnell, Dame Sue Tinson, sundry BBC chieftains, Whitehall officials and Labour apparatchiks galore down cocktails, watch the huge screen, and dig in for a long night. The sense among centre-Left guests is one of superstitious apprehension. ‘It all looked safe in 2000,’ says one Blairite. ‘And then it all went wrong the next morning and we ended up with eight years of Bush.’ For the McCainites – a small band of brothers huddling in a corner – Palin looks like being the Fall Gal. But that won’t quite do. Conservatism in America has conspicuously failed to rise to the challenge of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Final thoughts

This election has been a privilege to cover. A country where 90 percent of people think things are on the wrong track could have turned away from politics, lost faith in itself and its system of governance. But instead America has taken its democratic duty more seriously than ever this year. The latest predictions I’m hearing for turnout is 64 percent. This would exceed the 63 percent turnout in the 1960 Kennedy v. Nixon race and be the highest since 1908; this in a year where already a record number of people have donated to the candidates and where more people watched the convention speeches than ever before. Whatever the

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Varley’s rationale

The below is the memo sent to Barclays staff yesterday from John Varley, chief executive, explaining why he didn’t go for a taxpayer bailout. Remember, Barclays badly need British shareholders to approve this deal – so it will have been written with that in mind. This email is itself a comment on the times we are living – should a CEO of Barclays really need to explain why he preferred a private refinancing to part-nationalisation? It is evidently a response to the kicking he took mainly in the weekend press. We at Coffee House are right behind him. P.S. I love the understatement: “our ability to do what our shareholders

Andrew Lansley

The dangers of a two-tier NHS

As an alternative to my earlier blog post, here’s Andrew Lansley’s take on Alan Johnson’s top-up announcement today – Pete Hoskin In his announcement today Alan Johnson sought to put right the awful spectre of patients being denied NHS care because they have accessed private treatment.  It is a situation that was morally repugnant and needed to change months ago. But in so doing Labour have jumped out of that particular frying pan, and into the fire of forcing patients to pay for their care and creating a two-tier NHS.  At the Labour Party conference Gordon Brown pledged to stop cancer patients from having to pay £7.10 for a prescription;

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The beauty of democracy

I’ve just been to a polling place here in DC to watch people cast their ballots. The lines are more manageable now than they were early in the morning when people were queuing for an hour-and-a-half to vote, despite the fact that Obama will win the District with 90 percent plus of the vote. There is something inspiring about watching people vote. One woman said to me, about the lines she faced this morning, that it was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen. Not to sound all gooey, but we take for granted that every adult has a right to vote and that power will transfer peacefully. It