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.

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.
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.

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?
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.