Newly-elected senator Scott Brown has not abandoned the “folksy” charm that won over Massachusetts voters. Even though he works in the Capitol now, he still drives his pick-up truck around town. Paul Bedard has got a picture of it:
He has so far declined to drive anything more ’senatorial’. Apparently, when he needs to take his staff to meetings across town, he shoves them all in the backseat. I’m probably being naive, but I really hope that he just likes driving his truck, and isn’t doing this as a Sarah Palin-style affectation to appear more grass rootsy.
The bumper stickers are great. He’s got his own campaign stickers, and one for the National Guard, in which he serves as head defence attorney for New England.
Between this and his voting with the Democrats on the jobs bill (an action which Steve at No More Mister Nice Blog reckons has cost him hundreds of thousands in book sales) I find myself sort of warming to him… A bit.
Matthew d’Ancona in The Sunday Telegraph deals with the big story of the weekend: now that Labour are only two points behind in the polls, can David Cameron turn the fortunes of his party around? D’Ancona argues that this is election is all about the personalities, rather than the policies, and that it’s going to get bloody before it’s over.
Nick Cohen in The Observer wonders what Obama’s so-far neutral attitude to the escalating Falklands situation will mean for his presidency, claiming that it “is fuelling the already widespread suspicion that Obama’s America has more respect for its enemies than its friends.”
Joan Smith in The Independent on Sunday looks back to the first women’s liberation conference, which was held forty years ago this weekend. She examines the barriers she faced at school and as a young journalist because she was a woman, and says that while huge advances have been made, “feminism is an unfinished revolution.”
Dominic Lawson in The Sunday Times takes a look at “the chilling manifesto” of the pro-euthanasia lobby in the UK, arguing that campaigners such as Discworld novelist Sir Terry Pratchett are so caught up in the fanaticism of their cause that they cannot recognise that those against assisted suicide “might be as “enlightened” as they are.”
Piers Morgan in The Mail on Sunday condemns John Terry and his infidelties in no uncertain terms, and has very little patience with those who seek to defend him. He says: “one newspaper friend of mine almost welled up at a drinks party last week as he told how kind Terry had been to his young daughter,” but Morgan concludes that Terry doesn’t deserve any sympathy.
Alastair Campbell has an interesting blog this morning about the media’s attitude to the London Olympic Games. He rages about “the UK media’s refusal to accept that good news can be news at all,” which he blames for the lack of reports that all is going well with the preparations for the Games. He’s very angry about it.
Cartoon-wise, I enjoyed this one today:
Chris Riddell in The Observer
A slightly more international version of my Sunday Selection is now also available at The Periscope Post.
Image via official EIA catalogue
Missed this earlier in the week, but it’s still amusing. Something light for Saturday morning, to leven all the heavy stuff coming out of the Tories’ Spring Forum.
The European Information Association (EIA) is selling a 40-page comic, featuring the adventures of Zana and Max, bureaucrats from the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid Department.
Zana is portrayed as “a feisty, attractive aid worker” sent to a fictional area affected by an earthquate by “bearded and besuited bureaucrats.”
300,000 copies have been produced in five languages, at a cost of £200,000, and are being distributed to schools across the EU.
It also contains the immortal line: “We must inform the Commissioner! She’s briefing the European Parliament on the earthquake tomorrow.”
My immediate reaction is to think about what an outrageous use of money it is, etc, etc. But according to The Telegraph’s report, demand for it has been high, and since its publication last week, over 30,000 copies have been shipped. Its print run of 311,000, by the way, is comparable to that of the first Harry Potter book.
It might seem silly (and it does, very), but if it acts as a useful learning aid and helps produce a generation who are better informed about all things European, that can’t be a bad thing.
This week’s Bagehot column in the Economist assesses the Gordon Brown bullying row, and comes up with the idea that it is unfair to judge the character of the prime minister by the same standards as ordinary people because the stresses and pressures of the job are such that it is difficult to tell which aspects of his behaviour actually stem from his own personality and which from the job.
Apparently “There have been other irascible ones, boozers (Churchill was both), womanisers (Lloyd George) and tyrants (even if Margaret Thatcher was kind to secretaries and drivers). There is a view among some psychologists that aspiring to lead is itself a sort of personality disorder; it is not surprising that those afflicted by it display other symptoms too.”
Comparisons with these prime ministers are false because they governed in a time of a completely different politics. Anyway, I fiercely disagree with this as an excuse for bullying behaviour. Many other statesmen around the world, as well as people in other high-stress professions, discharge their duties without throwing phones at people. Tony Blair (as far we know), governed under similar political conditions but, by Bagehot’s own admission, did not bully his staff. Yes, he might have been personally “unappealing” in other ways, but the ability to keep his temper is one positive quality he possessed.
The part of this article that most interests me comes towards the end, where Bagehot states the following:
A prime minister must discharge these responsibilities from the endearing but hopelessly amateurish surroundings of an adapted terraced house; like other prime ministers, Mr Brown has fiddled with the seating plan, but no one has yet created the modern and efficient executive that the role demands. It is enough to make anyone chuck the odd Nokia.
This is intriguing, for while I don’t agree that our slightly quaint version of democracy could have caused or excuses Brown’s behaviour, it does open up a new aspect of the debate surrounding the increasingly presidential role of our prime minister. As Jonathan Freedland has recently pointed out, our prime minister has more centralised domestic power than the American president, which he wields from a converted terraced house in central London.
by Serendigity on Flickr
Our system of government has evolved over such a long period, and I think that the pace of change, coupled with our healthy British disdain for our elected leaders assuming any kind of pomp, has led to the current, slightly bizarre, state of affairs. The role of the prime minister either needs to be more rationally defined, or they need to operate from a base which reflects the far-reaching powers this one individual now wields.
Obviously, as we draw closer to the general election, comment writers and bloggers in the UK are going to be concerned with little else. I’ll try and keep the blog balanced, but I can only comment on what they are writing about!
To make it easier to isolate this coverage from anything else, I’ve added a new ‘UK Election’ category that you can access in the top navigation bar.
Ever since we heard of Barack Obama in the UK, politicians have been vying to seem like they are his best friend, in the hope that some of his magic electability will rub off on them.
For instance, the UK media got very excited when it seemed like Gordon Brown had been ’snubbed’ by Obama, having been rejected five times on requests for a private meeting at the Pittsburgh G20 summit.
Now that the election race is closer than ever, both major parties have made a big deal of the fact that they have called in former Obama campaign staffers to help in these final weeks. First Brown employed strategist Joel Benenson to help him prep for the TV debates, and now the Tories have announced today that they have signed up the services of Squier, Knapp, Dunn Communications—a Washington-based Democrat-leaning political consultancy to help Cameron prepare for the debartes. Iain Martin had it first, and has full details of the Obama campaign personnel who will now be working on Cameron’s behalf.
ConservativeHome are trailing their announcement on their front page with a picture of Obama meeting with Cameron. The picture just screams: “Look! I’ve met Obama, and now he’s basically helping me get elected!” Check it out:
via ConservativeHome
We’ll have to wait and see which leader exploits the Obama effect more successfully, and who is prepped more effectively for the forthcoming debates.
by Liam Murray
As Liam has pointed out, there is a serious point to be made here. Are political posters no longer an effective form of campaining? Does the world now just move too fast for a static image, easily parodied, to have an impact? Will such influential posters as this Conservative one from 1979 ever be equalled?
Image via LeftOutside blog
The answer is complicated, and can’t be fully answered until we know the outcome of the election, I feel. Alastair Campbell has had a go at offering a theory, and makes a good point, I think, about the electorate becoming more resistant to what he calls ‘heavy messaging’. In the meantime, we can definitely say that the message of such posters is being instantly drowned out by more dynamic mediums, like twitter, facebook, and so forth. The instantaneous spoofs dilute the original message, and make the commissioners of the posters seem weak and as if they are losing their grip on their own message.
The ‘top-down’ didacticism of the political poster is being replaced by a more individualist means of consuming political messages, where friends and followers on social networking sites pass on ideas and images. This is where money can be more usefully spent. I don’t necessarily think this is the ‘internet election’ – I think this is the ‘word-of-mouth election’, and the party that exploits this fastest and most effectively is going to run the most successful campaign.
Hey, it’s Thursday, but you could have already read it over at the Periscope Post, where I’m now also blogging occasionally. The official City University blogs have been down (causing some controversy between my fellow City students and our online teachers) but I’m back and rearing to go.
The best opinion writing from Sunday’s papers, all in one place.
The most eagerly-awaited piece of the week is from Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. Extracts from his forthcoming book, The End of the Party, are published in the paper, and Rawnsley here defends his decision to reveal all about the supposedly vicious character of Gordon Brown. He argues that Brown himself “has made an issue of his character” and claims that the timing of the book was intended to allow voters to may make a fully informed decision about the prime minister.
Matthew d’Ancona in The Sunday Telegraph examines Gordon Brown’s first election speech yesterday, and finds it wanting. He says that Brown’s decision to take the fight to the Tories, rather than focus on his own party, was the right decision, since “Labour is doomed if the election is simply a referendum on the Government.” However, d’Ancona explains, unless Brown can be seen to have the policy initiative, his party is doomed.
Michael Portillo in The Sunday Times says that the Conservatives have “come off the boil” (confirmed by the latest YouGov poll, which has them at a 14-month low). He argues that external economic factors are going to be the decisive force; if another economic catastrophe hits before May, we could see a majority victory; if the economy continues in the current vein, a hung parliament is highly likely. Either way, in a few months, “we will look back with nostalgia on the election campaign.”
Across the pond, David S. Broder in The Washington Post asks why it is that at state level, changes in fiscal government have already begun, while Washington “dithers and delays.” As the governors meet in Washington for their annual winter meeting, they have already made the hard decisions about selling assets and streamlining their offices. According to Broder, the federal government is yet to follow suit with such practical action.
In The New York Times, four different writers work together to provide a snapshot of the state of America’s finances. Writing from Iowa City, Detroit, New York City and Atlanta, these contributors give the debate about fiscal stimulus a human dimension, as in the case of the “emergency assistance lottery” in Iowa City, where people queue for hours in the snow for the chance win $100 towards bills they are unable to pay.
No need to go out into the greyness and buy all the Sunday papers. The best bits are right here:
Christopher Booker in The Sunday Telegraph has a very interesting piece about the mysteries of financing climate projects. Great bit of investigative journalism, but I’m slightly worried by the phrase “the Government’s… religious belief in “climate change.” I hope he’s joking with those inverted commas, I really do.
John Rentoul in The Independent on Sunday looks at the way Cameron has gone from hero to zero this week, and argues that nothing has really changed as regards his electoral propects apart from the media narrative.
Rupert Cornwell, also in The Independent on Sunday, tells the fascinating story of Henrietta Lacks, a black woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951, but whose cells are still used in a myriad of research projects today. They helped develop the polio vaccine, have advanced cancer research and have been sent into space, among other things. But was the use of her body ethical?
Henry Porter in The Observer gives an author’s perspective on the upheaval taking place in publishing. He feels that ebook readers and Amazon in particular seem “bent on reducing publishers to an archipelago of editorial sweatshops and the writer to the little guy stitching trainers in an airless room.” Not sure I agree entirely, but he does turn a beautiful phrase.
Erica Wagner in The Sunday Times takes a look at the Lost Man Booker Prize, and the issue of posthumous literary reputation in general. She writes that “some writers survive their own deaths better than others.” On this subject, you may also like to read Robert McCrum in The Observer putting forward the case for Moby-Dick.
And the week’s best cartoon, from Adams in The Sunday Telegraph:
The Sunday Selection #9
William Rees-Mogg in The Mail on Sunday looks at the historic television debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960, and asks whether David Cameron, through his performance in the UK’s first televised election debate, can find the crucial turning point for his campaign in the way that Kennedy did. However, it may not be so simple, because he believes that “each of the three candidates in this election has an image problem.”
This leader in The Sunday Times looks at Gordon Brown’s performance at the Chilcot Inquiry on Friday, and concludes that while Brown himself may feel satisfied with the compromise he achieved in his testimony, in fact he highlighted his own role in problematic military funding while he was Chancellor. According to a YouGov poll released today, “only 16% think he has been a good war leader, although expectations of Mr Cameron are scarcely any higher.”
Janet Daley in The Sunday Telegraph mourns the death of Michael Foot and looks for “a return to real political disputation rather than playground insult, real beliefs rather than focus-group-tested formulae, real convictions rather than platitudinous slogans.” She looks at the fervour of the American Tea Party movement, and wonders why Britain has lost such a grass roots passion for politics.
The Independent on Sunday has a really though-provoking leader on the question of the public’s right to know in connection with the case of Tony Venables, who murdered James Bulger. It attempts to walk the line between accountability and rehabilitation, and while I’m not sure it comes to any conclusion, this particular part is worth quoting in full: “We should be sure of one thing: any official action that compromises the new identity of Venables would be a betrayal, not only of the individual in question, but of our values as a civilised society.”
Will Hutton in The Observer looks at the difficulties faced by Baroness Ashton, the EU’s new chief of foreign policy. She was appointed “by default” after other candidates withdrew, and approved by heads of state in spite of her limited experience because “they aimed to manipulate an innocent.” But, in spite of the bullying and difficulties, Hutton feels that she has a “unique chance to hold Europe together.”
And finally, you might enjoy Melanie Bayley in The New York Times, who has an absolutely fantastic piece about how Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ is in fact a complex critique of 19th century mathematics. Apparently, the Cheshire Cat is “the voice of traditional geometric logic while his infamous grin “parodies the principle of continuity, a bizarre concept from projective geometry.” Bizarre, but I’m not really in a position to argue.
And today’s cartoon:
From Garland & Adams in The Sunday Telegraph
Also available at the Periscope Post.