At last, McCain begins to seriously distance himself from Bush
McCain should have done this months ago.
James Forsyth
James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
Thursday
Brown ignored the warning signals
Some are saying that you can’t hold Brown in anyway responsible for the current situation because no one saw it coming. But as Martin Bright points out in the New Statesman this week, this simply isn’t true: “Brown’s assiduous biographer, Simon Lee of Hull University, noticed the warning signals contained in the report. He wrote
Too little, too late?
Last night, John McCain turned in his best performance of the debate season. He clearly distanced himself from President Bush, he drew contrasts with Obama on taxes and he appeared confident in his answers. In short, he did tonight what he needed to do in the first debate. (However, it should be noted that the
Wednesday
If Brown can’t learn to feel the electorate’s pain, it will be him who suffers
Fraser in his politics column, available online tomorrow, argues that in the current climate Brown’s lack of emotional intelligence will be less of a problem for him. This is one of those rare instances where I disagree with Fraser. It is one of Brown’s great faults that he doesn’t do empathy or apologies. I think
Someone didn’t get the memo about avoiding premature triumphalism
Gerri Peev’s story in The Scotsman today has a quote in it from Nigel Griffiths which takes the biscuit: Nigel Griffiths, the Edinburgh Labour MP who is close to Mr Brown, said: “I can describe his response to the financial crisis in one word – Guinness. Pure genius.” Mr Griffiths, who has been campaigning in
What should McCain do tonight?
Tonight is the last McCain-Obama debate and McCain goes into it needing a game-changer; three polls out today have him down by 14, nine and 10 respectively. To compound McCain’s problem, the economic news is so bad that it is virtually impossible for a message on any subject other than the economy to cut through.
The Canadian experience
Tim Montgomerie, who spent a lot of time with the Canadian Conservatives during the campaign, has a good piece up on yesterday’s election in Canada which saw the Conservatives maintain their status as the largest party but fail to win an overall majority. The one issue I would take with Tim on is green taxes,
Will there be a manifesto commitment to privatise the banks?
Events have moved so fast this week that there are a whole string of questions that we have not really thought about. For instance, when will the government sell off its stakes in Royal Bank of Scotland and the bank to be created by the TSB-Lloyds HBOS merger? Obviously, the government would be foolish to
Will Brown be busted?
Daniel Finkelstein lays out the most eloquent case I have seen yet for why the current financial crisis will ultimately do for Brown: “Our view of the Brown decade is like the turkey’s view of mankind, utterly destroyed by what has now happened. The stability was a trick of the light, the lengthy period of
Tuesday
How Labour should behave
Sunder Katwala at Next Left, the Fabian Society’s excellent blog, has laid down some rules for how Labour supporters should act during the current crisis: “1. Behave sensibly. At all costs, avoid triumphalism about an economic crisis, however well the Prime Minister handles it. 2. In particular, could anybody banging on about the Falklands please stop
McCain has put country first by not raising Rev. Wright
The civility cops have been giving John McCain a hard time for the tone of his campaign. But they are ignoring the fact that McCain has held back from using a political line of attack that could be highly effective because of what it could do to the country. Obama’s connection to Rev. Wright are,
Whither the euro
The financial crisis has partially revived the euro debate. Eurosceptics think that it might bring the whole thing down while those who favour British entry believe that they have found a new argument for it. To date, it has been the usual suspects making the case on either side. But today Simon Tilford and Philip
If the financial crisis came from America, one of its main instigators was Gordon’s friend and adviser
A crucial part of Gordon Brown’s plan for getting away from the financial crisis with his reputation enhanced is to treat it as something nasty that blew in off the Atlantic. Brown is desperately hoping that the public will be persuaded by this line and that this will allow him to dodge questions about his
Glenrothes will either inflate the Brown bubble or deflate it for good
Guido has the scoop that Brown has written to Labour MPs telling them that he and Sarah will campaign in Glenrothes ahead of the by-election there “global financial situation permitting”. This is a sign of renewed confidence in the Brown bunker and if Labour does hold the seat after Brown has campaigned there the media
Sats for 14 year olds to be abolished
Ed Balls is making a statement to the House at 3.30 today in which it is expected that he will announce the abolition of Key Stage Three tests, those that are sat by 14 year olds. This is actually quite a canny move even if it does come in response to the whole Sats debacle
How the Tories plan to respond
Tim Montgomerie has an absolute must-read up on what the Tories are thinking about the current economic crisis and its impact on the political situation. Tim reports that the Tories believe that Brown’s weakness is that while he might have rescued the banks he has not rescued the real economy. The Tories are confident that
A good day for Gordon but the reckoning is coming
I suspect Gordon Brown let out a roar of delight on hearing that the US government has reversed course and is going to take an equity stake in nine of the banks that it is bailing out. This deviation from the Paulson plan brings the US response to the financial crisis more closely into line
Monday
The Dow posts its largest ever single day points increase
The Dow closed up 936 points, a 11 percent uptick. This smashed the previous record for a single day points increase of 499, posted on March 16, 2000. But what remains to be seen is if the credit markets unlock over the coming days.
42 days fails in the Lords, government to drop measure from counter-terrorism bill
It is a sign of the extent to which the financial crisis is dominating the news that the Lords voting down 42 days by a huge margin, 309 to 188, is not a headline-grabbing story. Jacqui Smith will, The Guardian reports, make a statement at 8.30pm in the Commons. It is expected that she will
McCain’s near-impossible task
John McCain faces an almost impossible task over the next three weeks. He has to claw back at least a six point deficit, the new Washington Post poll has the gap at 10 points, as the candidate of the incumbent party in an environment where 90 percent of registered voters think that the country has