Society

Saturday

27 Sep 2008

McCain vs Obama in Mississippi

Well, here we go again campers. And this time it might even matter, though without the presence of Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Dennis Kucinich, John Edwards and Joe Biden it’s not likely to be as much fun – ie, witless – as the primary debate season. Competence kills these things. So too, sanity. Anyway, the expectations game is almost over; now there’s just the debate itself to endure. Yes, for the first time John McCain and Barack Obama are debating a live, non-certifiable member of the opposite party. The debate is notionally about foreign policy, but John McCain will be given time to explain his behaviour

Alex Massie

Who Won?

So who won? And does it matter? Only up to a point. John Kerry won the first of his debates with George W Bush and won it handsomely. That is to say, he won in conventional terms, demonstrating a keener grasp of the issues and, indeed, the complexities of being President. But in another, perhaps more important, sense Kerry lost. Not because he didn’t know what he was talking about but because he failed to project an air of authority or, for that matter, personality that seemed Presidential. He lacked the necessary aura. I don’t know if Obama quite has it yet. That is to say, at its best his

James Forsyth

Indiscipline should worry the Tories as much as complacency

There has been a lot of talk about how the Tories must avoid becoming complacent. Indeed, one-half expects to find that champagne is only available under the counter in Birmingham. But just as great a danger is posed by indiscipline. Take today’s papers. Dominic Grieve, the shadow Home Secretary, has stepped on the Tory economic message by giving an interview to The Guardian in which he criticises multiculturalism and bemoans that “We’ve actually done something terrible to ourselves in Britain”. The issue here is not what Grieve said but when he said it. His predecessor, David Davis, has talked to the Telegraph about his new role on the backbenches. He

James Forsyth

A draw was a good result for the front-runner

Having watched last night’s debate properly and read the press coverage of it, it seems pretty clear that it was a draw. There was no ‘global test’ moment for either candidate and neither of them managed to put the other on the canvas. Obama should be a lot happier with this result than McCain. First of all he is ahead so a debate that doesn’t change the dynamics of the race suits him. Secondly this was a debate on foreign policy and national security—admittedly, the first third of it was taken up with the financial crisis—which is McCain’s strongest suit. If Obama was going to have a moment where he

James Forsyth

Cameron, policy and personality

There are couple of very revealing interviews with David Cameron in the papers today. Talking to James Chapman and Peter Oborne of the Mail, Cameron expounds on the Tory policy response to the financial crisis. Here’s the key passage: At a time when some economists are projecting that Government borrowing is set to crash through the £100 billion barrier, he says an incoming Tory government will take away key powers to oversee tax and spending from the Treasury. So a crucial supervisory role will be handed to an outside body which will be given independent powers to monitor spending and borrowing levels. Cameron will explain next week how this body

James Forsyth

Debate watch

You can watch last night’s debate and read a transcript of it here. The insta-polls give the debate to Obama by a relatively comfortable margin. Time’s Mark Halperin also scores it to Obama while the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza suggests that McCain might have edged it. More later.

Roger Alton

Spectator Sport | 27 September 2008

Crying games So what was Nick Faldo blubbing about a week ago when he was talking to the media about his European Ryder Cup team’s meeting with Muhammad Ali on the Valhalla course at Louisville, Kentucky? He doesn’t strike one as the weeping kind, though he has form. I seem to remember him reaching for the man-size after tapping in to win the Open at Muirfield in 1992. And we’re used to sportsmen cracking up during the event (remember Darren Clarke red-eyed and tender at the K Club two years ago, only a few weeks after his wife had died). But before, a whole day before? All very peculiar, especially

James Young

Competition | 27 September 2008

In Competition No 2563 you were invited to write a poem or a piece of prose whose lines or sentences end with twelve given words in any order. This is my last week minding the Comp Shop while Lucy Vickery has been on maternity leave. It has been a pleasure and a privilege doing business with you all and witnessing your wit and wisdom. Special thanks to Bill Greenwell, Basil Ransome-Davies, Alan Millard and a few other early-bird entrants; if a comp passes the B and B test, the setter knows that it won’t be a total turkey. No less valuable are the later arrivals, like the doughty Scots duo

Simon Nixon

A catalogue of credit-crunch cant

We live in frightening times. Markets are in freefall; economies are in turmoil; the financial system is on the brink. People want simple explanations and easy answers. They want to know who to blame for the mess and what can be done to clear it up. Just as well, then, that there is no shortage of politicians ready to fulfil this need. The dictionary defines ‘cant’ as insincere, pious or moralistic talk. If cant was a commodity, it would be the first big bubble of the post-credit-crunch world. Already debate over the credit crunch is being reduced in some quarters to a series of simplistic narratives in which all bankers

Paul Johnson

And Another Thing | 27 September 2008

Stop throwing bricks! You might hit a bishop’s niece ‘Damn! Another bishop dead!’ said Lord Melbourne in 1834, adding, ‘I think they do it to vex me.’ The departure of one bishop meant he had to make a new one, and that involved writing (in his own hand, for security reasons) disagreeable letters on matters in which he took little interest. In his time, however, there were only 26 bishops, and no more than two died, on average, in any one year. Today there are 114 bishops, and when one dies, or half a dozen for that matter, it is, to use Talleyrand’s distinction, a news-item, not an event. The

Rowan Williams

Face it: Marx was partly right about capitalism

Readers of Anthony Trollope will remember how thoughtless and greedy young men in the Victorian professions can be lured into ruin by accepting ‘accommodation bills’ from their shifty acquaintances. They make themselves liable for the debts of others; and only too late do they discover that they are trapped in a web of financial mechanics that forces them to pay hugely inflated sums for obligations or services they have had nothing to do with. Their own individual credit-worthiness, their own circumstances, even their own personal choices are all irrelevant: the debt has acquired a life of its own, quite independent of any real transaction they are involved in. A prescient

Andrew Tyrie

How Dave and George can avoid a terrible rift

The Treasury will be the engine room of David Cameron’s government. It will have to be, given the ghastly economic inheritance. But the economy will be only one of the incoming Chancellor’s headaches — his department will be in no fit state to do the leading. The Treasury — once the citadel of high-quality policy advice and the driving force behind the economic and financial reforms which revived Britain in the 1980s — now lies prostrate. It is a casualty of Gordon Brown’s personality, ten years of trench warfare between him and Tony Blair and the appointment of a new Chancellor, broken backed on arrival. This financial crisis has brutally

Anthony King

The Tory lead is more solid than you might think

The Conservatives last won a general election in 1992. That was also the year when the opinion polls met their Waterloo. The results of 50 nationwide surveys were published during that campaign. All but six showed Labour ahead, and they all suggested that the outcome of the election would be a hung Parliament, with Labour probably the largest party. They were all wrong. The largest Tory lead reported by any poll during the campaign was only a single percentage point. In the event, the Conservatives’ lead over Labour approached eight points. To this day, no one knows why the polls came a cropper in 1992. Indeed, no one knows for

Deborah Ross

A cliché too far

Taken 15, Nationwide Taken is the latest film from the French film-maker Luc Besson and is about American, ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) who turns Paris upside down — ‘I’ll tear down the Eiffel Tower if I have to!’ — in his search for his abducted, 17-year-old daughter, Kim, although, personally, I wouldn’t have bothered. Kim is so irritating. Kim is so excitable and such a pampered flouncer to boot. ‘Bryan,’ I’d have said to him if I could, ‘you’re better off without her; so excitable and such a pampered flouncer to boot. Now, let’s go eat.’ But doting dads are doting dads, I guess, and there is just

Friday

26 Sep 2008

Alex Massie

Karl Marx: Blogger

Norm has the details, of course: Why do you blog? > To lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society. (1) What has been your best blogging experience? > Have just finished correcting the last sheet (49th) of the book [Volume I of Capital]… So, this volume is finished. I owe it to you alone [Engels] that it was possible! Without your self-sacrifice for me I could not possibly have managed the immense labour demanded by the 3 volumes. I embrace you, full of thanks! (2) What has been your worst blogging experience? > Constant labour of one uniform kind disturbs the intensity and flow of a man’s

Alex Massie

Bailout Politics

So, no deal in Washington. NYT account here; WaPo here. Politico’s story contains this detail that, unsurprisingly, has been making waves: According to one GOP lawmaker, some House Republicans are saying privately that they’d rather “let the markets crash” than sign on to a massive bailout. “For the sake of the altar of the free market system, do you accept a Great Depression?” the member asked. Well. I hadn’t realised that was the choice. House Republicans are obviously being blamed for the impasse, but I rther think there are plenty of Democrats who will be content enough with the current state of play. They don’t like this either. Certainly they

James Forsyth

McCain must win tonight’s debate to get his campaign back on track

John McCain will attend tonight’s debate despite there not yet being a deal on the bailout. Realistically, McCain couldn’t afford to miss it. Obama’s biggest weakness is still the Commander in Chief test: McCain has to ram home the point that he is significantly better qualified for this role than Obama if he is to have a real chance of winning the election. McCain also has to better Obama tonight to regain momentum. The last week of presidential campaign coverage has been dominated by a string of stories that hurt McCain. First, there was the row over McCain’s campaign manager’s alleged ties to Freddie Mac. Second, there was the Sarah

James Forsyth

McNulty for Chief Whip?

The Sun reports today that Tony McNulty is the new favourite to replace Geoff Hoon as Chief Whip. George Pascoe-Watson reveals that Brown was told by a Minister that if he appointed Nick Brown to the job, “All hell would break. It would destroy any Cabinet unity and people would feel very uncomfortable.” McNulty would be a savvy choice by Brown. As he showed during the 42 days debate he knows how to persuade Labour MPs to stay on side. He is a friendly and engaging presence on TV and is long overdue promotion to the Cabinet. Brown’s reshuffle dilemma is that he needs to be bold to show that

James Forsyth

Crashed Ferraris

A great stat about the financial crisis from the Daily Mail: “There were 734 second-hand Ferraris placed on the market last week.” Hat Tip: The Week

Peter Hoskin

One for the Presidential Debate junkies

It’s still doubtful whether Presidential Debate junkies will get their fix tonight. But here’s something to tide them over: footage of the very first televised Presidential Debate – between Kennedy and Nixon – which took place 48 years ago today. It lacks the two candidates’ opening and closing statements (for a full transcript, click here), but there’s still plenty to savour – from Nixon glowering to the Mad Men stylings. Classic politics, and classic TV: