American politicians insult the intelligence of their nation

It has been rumoured over the weekend that Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin may play a vital part in restoring the flagging campaign of Republican John McCain by....advancing the wedding of her pregnant teenage daughter Bristol to ice hockey playing Levi Johnston to November 4th. It is confidently expected by Republican insiders that this will restore 'bounce' to the Republican campaign among the American electorate who, apparently, will be so agog with goo-goo salivating over such a cuddly happening that they will all rush out and vote Republican on election day.




The Republican campaign team clearly believes they understand the American national psyche in order to promote this stunt. Are these people serious? They are voting for the most powerful office on earth and they believe voters can be swung by the TV coverage of a pregnant teenager marrying a self-described 'fucking redneck' not much older and clearly twice as stupid. If they are right then the American mentality clearly is as dumb as many Europeans have long suspected.




I hope they are wrong. Mainly because I want an Obama victory but also because I don't want my dearly valued friends in the United States to be stuck with the label of mindless TV besotted idiots whose political choices hinge on the glamour of a teenage wedding, like something out of the worst of soap operas.

Reactions to this 'news' in Britain's 'The Times' have been predictable.

"American stupidity never ceases to amaze - it's quite perplexing to think someone would actually choose to vote for a candidate based on a teenage wedding. I'm very happy though - McCain has chosen a caricature as his VP. I look forward to Obama restoring sanity in Washington." was the reaction of a gentleman from Roskilde, Denmark, while someone local to me in Sutton Coldfield said 'America has become a huge car crash from a particularly dreadful B-Movie'

I hope they're wrong. I hope there are sufficient intelligent, well-balanced American voters who understand the seriousness of the choices they are making in November to vote sensibly, regardless of their choice, but on the policies of the candidates.

But a nagging voice keeps telling me that these party strategists would not come up with such ideas if they didn't believe they could work. And I am also reminded of an observation made many years ago and played up by Sarah Palin. 'America is a nation of small towns', the implication here being that the REAL America values good ol' boys, the family, sentiment and cares not a whit for the views of outsiders or for the machinations of big government. And it's that kind of mentality on which Palin and her backers are playing with this corny idea. She clearly believes it will galvanise 'small town America' behind 'ordinary folks'

Well of course, for a politician aspiring to national office that is a frightening and dangerous card to play. If those parochial values are still deeply rooted in the American psyche and, in fact, dominate it, it makes the nation into a big, cuddly giant which wants to be loved but is painfully ill equipped for the amount of power and responsibility it carries for the future of the world. And that is terrifying for the rest of us.

I desperately hope she is wrong. I desperately hope the American electorate is more mature and sophisticated than that. But there is a nervous tic in my stomach nevertheless!!

Not just disingenuous but nauseating

There are times when those who base their entire philosophy on religious conviction irritate me no end. There are other times, particularly when those convictions potentially put lives at risk unnecessarily, that they make me sick.

Just such an example occurred yesterday when the enlightened Governors of the Roman Catholic School St Monica's in Prestwich, Cheshire, refused to allow girls at the school to receive the new vaccination against the papillomavirus which is known to cause the most common form of cervical cancer. The governor who appears to have been behind this , one Monsignor Allen, claimed that the grounds for refusal were nothing to do with morality and all to do with genuine concerns for the health of the pupils with an untried vaccine.



What hogwash! Monsignor Allen has previously been on record suggesting that the vaccine would promote sexual promiscuity and immoral behaviour, but of course, he is sharp enough to spot that, were he to give that as a reason, he would be pilloried by the liberal press for suggesting that he would rather hang the risk of a painful death from cancer over the heads of young girls than do anything which might encourage them to have sex before marriage.

So he invents, on behalf of the governors, a saleable story...but who is going to believe it? They make me sick these people who haven't even got the guts to publicly defend their own ludicrous position and instead invent a cover story. How can an organisation stick its head in the sand and deny young girls the opportunity of a life free of a painful terminal illness simply because of the message they think it might send out. They are not only playing priests...they are playing God and it shows an incredible degree of stupidity. A woman can get cervical cancer as a result of sexual activity at any time, even within the sanctity of marriage so who are these people to legislate on the fate of young children?

It is as stupid and as cruel as to suggest that AIDS is a punishment from God for homosexuality. We have a human obligation to medically protect our children as best we can ..and this innoculation is a marvellous breakthrough.

OK so the girls can go to an NHS clinic and be vaccinated - nothing the school can do about that - but it's likely to have less of a take up than if the school is visited by the doctors. Meanwhile these holier than thou clerics go about their business with sanctimonious smugness convinced that they have deferred another sinful descent into the flesh pots of evil.

Its another bloody good reason for ensuring that every school in the country comes under the ultimate sanction of the Dept of Education and another bloody good reason for scrapping faith schools altogether.

Sugar and spice and ain't I nice?

Well I have just seen our beleagured Prime Minister giving the 'speech of his life' - or so some of the Labour faithful in the conference hall defined it - and I am left singularly unimpressed. It is almost impossible to see the man who appeared such a lion in the Commons when dealing with financial detail as Chancellor as the same guy who stands there on the podium spouting platitudes and grinning at every obligatory round of applause like a kid begging for approval on speech day.





I was hoping for a gritty speech which would open the eyes of doubters and show us a Gordon Brown who realised the image he had to dispel, and who would give us solid reasons to believe he was the man to lead Britain for another six years, dispatching his Tory and Labour critics alike.

Instead we got a mixture of schmaltz - which as done by Brown is excruciating - and appeals to our national loyalties - 'putting Britain first', 'I love MY country', 'I am proud to serve...' .....yeah yeah Gordon but you are in a hole. How are you going to dig yourself out?

Well in truth he didn't have a clue. In fact Brown has no Plan B. he can only deliver one type of speech and the only difference is the degree of passion he can summon to deliver it. There was a paucity of detail and a lot of sound bytes - something he said he scorned. There was some policy of a sort - but more the sort of scraps you throw to the dog. He promised that all cancer patients would now have free prescriptions. Well great but, although cancer is an emotive topic, there are other patients with long term illnesses who will feel slighted, not to mention that Scotland and Wales in this 'United Kingdom' of which Brown boasted so proudly, get free prescriptions anyway.

He talked of going to America and re-planning the global financial system - rather a grandiose claim which I fear he will not be able to live up to and which his critics will seize upon.

He attacked the Tories for not having policies to suit the current grave financial situation while never being able to shed the responsibility for being the steward of that situation in Britain for the last eleven years. It seems ridiculous to continue talking of being the architect of change when your government has been in power since 1997.

Basically he made, in my opinion, a fundamental mistake. He talked, in a mock modest style, of the situation being about 'you, the party and not me' Wrong Gordon. It was all about you. The Labour Party has been in power since 1997. We know what its priorities are. We know, for good or bad, how much dogma it has sacrificed and what it now believes in. What we needed was some clear sign that the man at the helm of that party could not only steer the country through the immediate troubled waters but had enough going for him to destroy his critics in the country and win the next General Election.

I was simply not convinced one iota by what I heard. It wasn't a bad Gordon Brown speech but then it hadn't a great deal to live up to. I think the Tories will be sharpened by the fact that he at least gave some areas of policy on which he believes Labour has the answers, old chestnuts though they were. But it seems that Gordon cannot rise to peaks. He has a plateau as a speaker and he has reached it. He is a doer. Nothing wrong with that but right now he needs to be a motivator and he simply is not.

I don't expect Labour fortunes to change much as a result of this keynote speech and, although it will give Gordon some breathing space, I think the gremlins will soon be back to haunt him.

I'll be prepared to wager now that someone else will be leading the Labour Party come the next General Election in 2010. Maybe Labour has another 12 months to decide whether to ditch their leader or not in order for a newcomer to get some mileage out of the job before facing the electorate. But I'll be very surprised if it's Brown's face shining down from those election posters come 2010.

The truth that dare not speak its name

On Saturday, in London, there was a march to demonstrate against the increase in knife crime and our Labour Government, ever on the ball, announced a new package of measures to deal with the gang culture behind the knife violence....some arbitrary sum of money to be spent on - wait for it - mentoring young people and providing youth activities. I'm surprised they didn't announce another anti-poverty fund - for poverty is the usual excuse, the gloss thrown over the government's hapless inability to stop the rising tide of knife crime.



Tony Blair put his finger on it in his last few weeks of office when he was no longer frightened of adverse publicity. He said: 'British society is not falling apart...what is happening is that a significant minority is becoming enmeshed in gangsta culture and we have to take steps to root that out.'

Initiatives to stop poverty, provide more youth clubs, provide mentors..all these things are so much cosmetic crap and do nothing to stop the problem.

What IS needed is for the police to be able to do their job free of worries about offending cultural sensitivities. We have a serious problem in some areas of the country but we have the means to solve it if we allow the police to do their job. And that means allowing them to concentrate on the areas of greatest risk. I don't want to offend anyone here but in areas where knife crime is highest the police should be allowed the right to stop and search..and that means anybody. Yes I realise there will be howls from the civil liberties people but I think this is too serious for personal or cultural sensitivities.

I have no doubt that there is racism in the police force, just as there is everywhere else. I also have no doubt, because it is proven by statistics that you have to rip out of the throats of authorities under the Freedom of Information Act that almost half the violent crime in the UK ..with gun or knife...is being committed by members of the black or asian population, who make up not quite 6% of the UK between them. This is not a statistic those in government want you to know and I can quite understand that if you have no means of solving the problem then simply to highlight it plays into the hands of those with right wing political aspirations.

But it is clear that we have a problem here with some black and asian youth and mentoring, counselling, anti poverty schemes which don't add up to a hill of beans...all these things are useless. There is clearly peer pressure in some inner city areas to join a gang and prove your worth with a weapon.

There needs to be action on several fronts. Sure there needs to be a social element of trying to rescue youngsters from a bad environment by various initiatives. But there needs to be solid and harsh practical action to get to grips with this problem too. I believe the police should have the right of stop and search, anywhere in the country, and anyone found with an offensive weapon of any sort should face an extremely severe penalty

The problem with knife crime is rife across inner cities, though London clearly has the biggest problem. The nation has had 38,000 reported knife crimes last year and five people a week are being stabbed to death in Britain.

We are not going to get to grips with this problem if we keep pussy-footing around, worrying about hurting cultural sensitivities. Even Trevor Phillips, head of the country's Race Relations Board, agreed with that. It is doing no one in Britain any good to continue to avoid the proverbial 'elephant in the room' and to continue pretending that knife crime is a general sign of Britain breaking down. It isn't. It's a symptom of a minority who don't believe that the social order of civilised behaviour is relevant to them and its a minority whose reputation is becoming disproportionate to its influence, thanks in part to hysterical press reporting.

But we do have a serious lethal problem and it is centred within certain communities. The police know this and MUST be given the freedom to act effectively to reduce these hideous statistics which are a blot on our reputation as a law abiding, relatively safe, place to live.

What makes politicians such nauseating hypocrites?

If there is one thing blindingly clear to everyone in British politics, it's that Gordon Brown is doing a lousy job as our Prime Minister, and has all the charismatic leadership skills of an amoeba. It is equally clear that his few colleagues who have called for a leadership challenge are merely the tip of the iceberg.

Senior members of the Labour Party are quite clearly anxious about retaining their seats at the next General Election if Labour's stock continues to fall at the current alarming rate, but there seems to be a cynical pattern of protocol about expressing such things. One can quite see why. A senior politician is rather like a bank manager. Express too clearly your discontent with the performance of your institution and investor confidence drains away overnight.

This partly explains the performance of Britain's Foreign Secretary, David Milliband, who quite clearly feels that Brown is not doing a good job and that Labour is headed for disaster at the next election. He wrote an article in 'The Guardian' newspaper which very skilfully pointed out the deficiencies of the Party under Brown's leadership and how we MUST do better (he didn't actually say that was more likely under his own leadership but many people inferred as much). What he didn't do was express any criticism of his leader. He left us to read between the lines.



Now that the issue of the leadership has reasserted itself, and some back-bench MPs have attempted to table a leadership challenge, Milliband has very swiftly announced that his article had no lines to read between. He was always loyal to Gordon, always felt that Gordon was the man to lead us into the next election, and that he would never be so disloyal as to...etc etc.

Well I'm sure he wouldn't. The way these things work is that favourites for the post take soundings. Then they discuss with political advisors the strength of those soundings. They try and decide whether the top gun really has a chance of being toppled. Then hints are dropped out at fringe political meetings or at dinner parties, not necessarily by said hopeful. No, he remains aloof while campaign friends drop out that 'If it looks bad for Gordon....and damn it, we all hope he can pull it round...well, you know, whatever he might say I'm sure David would feel obliged to tender his name..in the party's interest, you understand..to maintain stability..." while of course, David remains ever steadfast, having dropped out one risky article, he will then appear to be the government's most steadfast loyal servant..until...he gets the nod from insider friends who tell him that Gordon really is in a rocky state.

Then its time for another article in 'The Guardian' which will come across as a loyal desperate plea for action, a confirmation of faith in the Prime Minister BUT this time containing a clear set of actions which he, David Milliband, would initiate if he were PM...though of course he will regularly remind us that he doesn't want the job. Few will be fooled but he will be covering his arse. It will be a veiled manifesto. But if Gordon's position really does get this bad - and many think it's already beyond that - Milliband will not be alone. For by now other senior 'loyalists' - the Harriet Harmans, Jack Straws, Alan Johnsons will all be writing similarly pained and hurt articles in the newspapers proclaiming how much they support Gordon ..'but here's what I'd do in his place.'

It is so transparent as to be nauseating. But in a sense it's also inevitable. No senior member of the government is going to compromise him or herself by blatantly confronting the Prime Minister until it's clear that he is too powerless and so bereft of authority that he cannot even sack them. To do so would be to terminate a very lucrative job while, at the same time, risking the accusation that he/she was responsible for undermining the Prime Minister's authority and presenting the next election to the Opposition on a plate.

So they say nothing until they have to. Instead this charade of veiled challenge but public support, this garnering of stalking horses to test the political waters while not sullying their own hands, continues.

It's sad but somehow understandable given the way the system works. Meanwhile, every time a politician says 'trust me' on the goggle box, hollow laughter rings around every TV set in the land.

A day that will live in infamy

Yes, I know President Roosevelt said it about Pearl Harbor, but I am, of course, referring to September 11th 2001 when a gang of Islamic thugs was prepared to kill 3000 innocent men, women and children in the pursuit of a cause, the exact purpose of which is still slightly hazy and certainly not negotiable.

As chance would have it, I happened to be in New York City on that fateful day, about a mile from where the World Trade Center once stood. I had gone to see some dear friends in New Jersey and I had arrived at Newark airport at about 4pm the previous afternoon. Chillingly, I probably walked through the Newark concourse at about the same time as some of the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93 who apparently flew in at around the same time.

I remember going straight to the home of my friends, not far from Newark, just glad to be on US soil after a long flight from England, and later that night, after a splendid restaurant meal, they drove me back to my New York hotel. I know this sounds like romantic hindsight but I swear it's not. As we reached the river, just about to enter the Holland Tunnel, I looked up at the aircraft warning lights on the top of the World Trade Center and thought what an impressive sight it was. This must have been about 1am on the morning of September 11th, 2001. Never, of course, thinking in a million light years that this would be the last time I - or almost anyone else for that matter - would see those towers in all their splendour.



The next morning I got up and left my hotel in Chelsea, and wandered over to the deli on the corner. As I was queuing for a sandwich, a guy came in and said 'Hey a plane just hit the World Trade Center!' No shock, no outrage, just bewilderment because we all thought it must be a single engined private plane and wondered how the pilot could have made such a tragic mistake. Soon of course, when I returned to the TV in my hotel room, the truth became frighteningly clear and I spent the rest of the day in a New York which looked like something after a nuclear war, devoid of traffic, with deserted streets and just the National Guard patrolling the city and stopping any of the morbidly curious heading off towards the scene of devastation.

Of course those hijackers, along with 3000 (give or take) innocent people are dead. So they will never know the carnage they created. But one man does know and that is Osama Bin Laden who planned the whole thing. He is still alive. And of course, indirectly, he is responsible for even more deaths, quite apart from the Al Queda atrocities all over the globe.

Because he is responsible for the mood which 911 prompted in the United States. He is responsible for the mind set among the Bush Administration which thirsted for revenge at all costs and didn't care where they took it. For first the heavy handed blast everything in sight retaliation in Afghanistan which still did not turn up Bin Laden. And of course, responsible for the mind set which allowed the criminal invasion of Iraq in which I believe America lost its political brains. No one would have sanctioned such a foolhardy and criminal act were it not for the blood lust which still tore at the United States in its anger and grief over 911.

And over those seven years since that dreadful day, arguments have raged over what kind of a building should replace the giant towers and what kind of a memorial should it be. At last, it seems there is some kind of concensus on what form that should take. At last the survivors and relatives of the dead can begin to move on.

The bigger question is ...can America move on? In eight weeks time, the United States elects a new President and, whoever it is, Obama or McCain, left or right, I desperately hope the new President decides it is time to turn over a new page. Time for America to step out of this militaristic nightmare where they have lost friends by the million in these last few nightmare Bush years. Time to start looking at the middle east and other world issues from a diplomatic perspective at which the Americans have proved immensely capable in the past.

The United States is not going to beat Al Queda, or get revenge for 911, by invading Iran or Syria or North Korea or anyone else who obstructs America's view of the perfect world. They have lost soldiers and friends in the last few years abortive attempts to bring Iraq under the American military heel. You do not get western democracy by forcing it on people. You have to listen and learn. I hope the new incumbent of the White House realises this and maybe this will be a new dawn and America's friends in Europe will actually begin to have faith in the United States and its leadership once again

Unmarried moms - a tale of two cultures

While most of America's media is trying to make a moral responsibility issue out of Sarah Palin's daughter being pregnant 'out of wedlock' (to coin a quaint old phrase), the French, as ever, view these things so differently.

Rachida Dati, the French Justice Minister - a protegee of Nicolas Sarkozy, and probably the third ranking Minister in the French cabinet, announced yesterday after weeks of speculation in the French press that yes, she was pregnant, no she was not married, and, no, she would not say who the father was and the press could mind its own business! As you can see, she was hardly in a position to deny the facts!



While the French press is eager to know details, there is no suggestion that Mademoiselle Dati's high profile job in the French government is at risk and, indeed, rather than the high-and-mighty moral gripes in the press, suggesting that she was unfit for office and sending out the wrong message, which would doubtless be her fate in the US and Britain, The French, as is their romantic wont, seem to be more excited by the 'cherchez l'amant' aspect of the affair.

They seem to be viewing it all as an exciting mystery, offering names of possible lovers with whom Mme Dati has been known to be friendly. This, of course, is another side of the gallic nature which would not play well among the politics-watchers of America and the UK. Mme Dati has, quite publicly, over the last 12 months, had relationships with Jose Aznar, the former Prime Minister of Spain, Henri Proglio, millionaire boss of an entertainment empire, Dominique Desseine, Head of the Barriere Casino and Hotel chain, and a TV chat show host. She considers such matters to be her own business and nothing to do with her role in government. Unsurprisingly for France, her government colleagues and the people of France seem to agree.

Can you imagine a similar tolerance in either Britain or the US? Politicians have to do such things in secret and that's why they always appear so squalid when caught. The French seem to regard sex as a necessary life force just like eating and drinking and don't allow such matters to mar their judgment of how a politician does his or her job.

There is one outsider in all these calculations, and that is President Sarkozy himself. Before he married Carla Bruni, Mme Dati was his constant companion to official functions and she has described herself as 'devoted to him'

So the list of suspects buzzes around Paris. But at least it's all in the cause of l'amour and not judgment. Mme Dati can continue dispensing justice from her official residence secure in the knowledge that her revelation will damage her standing not one whit.

There are many politicians here and in Washington who must look across the Channel in envy.

The Flaming of the Shrew

I watched Sarah Palin's much anticipated speech to the Republican Convention this morning and, without doubt, she showed confidence and bezazz afther the mauling she has received in the press over the last week or so ...but I've rarely seen so graphic an example of an empty vessel making the most noise.

Oh she was hot on sneering at Obama and his principles, hot on emphasising how she would support America's 'victory' in Iraq, how 'our boys' deserved to be supported in times of war...in fact all the right wing, jingoistic bullshit one would anticipate from a robot who was told to hit key soundbytes for a right wing audience...but I didn't hear a single word that told me she had any ideas of her own, let alone the remotest qualifications to be a heartbeat from the Presidency.

She was waspish, shrewlike, vindictive and unpleasant - while occasionally pausing to stare at us with that fixed Colgate smile beneath the weird 1960's 'Bobbie-Jean' hair-do.



There seem to be other revelations coming out now about Palin. Rumours of an affair with her husbands boss, rumours that she joined an Alaskan breakaway party in the early 90s. Well, frankly, I hope it comes out that she screwed half the Alaskan national guard and that she's got five other kids by indeterminate fathers because to let this woman anywhere near the heartbeat of government is a frightening prospect.

She has been described in today's British newpapers as sounding like an American Margaret Thatcher - and I can see some similarity, but much though I hated the old bitch from Grantham, at least her ideas were her own. You never saw the strident and very convinced Margaret Thatcher resorting to a cue card. This rather empty American model could barely takes its eyes off the teleprompter, so robotic were her Rove-style responses.

I sincerely hope this Convention is her zenith, her Andy Warhol fifteen minutes of fame, then she can go back to Alaska and carry on balancing the state books, which I'm sure she does with enthusiastic and ruthless zeal.

Vice President of the United States? God help us!!!!!

Only four months left -and still Dastardly and Muttley are stirring it!

It was yesterday announced that Vice President Dick Dastardly would visit Azerbaijan, Georgia and the Ukraine to 'rally America's friends' after the Russian intervention in South Ossetia. Another masterstroke from the Sultans of Screw-Up adding to their foreign policy successes all around the globe. And now President Muttley has endorsed McCain as the next President. That must have chilled the old fella's blood.






The Americans have failed, thank goodness, to persuade the EC to impose sanctions on Russia - what a mad idea that was - but now insist on sabre rattling on Russia's borders. Can you imagine what would happen should the Russians once more do the same in Cuba or in any of their friendly Latin American states? The aim, it seems is to 'protect' western energy sources, currently pipelined through the pro western former Soviet Union states.

Does this stumbling, bumbling Republican Administration really believe that such actions are going to either protect energy supplies or reassure the countries around Russia that their independence is safe while America postures and NATO exercises are launched on Russia's borders?

This really is foolhardy politics. The Americans should be getting together with their Russian counterparts and really trying to understand the background to the problems of South Ossetia and Abkhazia instead of simply lining up behind convenient alliances and causing more trouble. I do believe that the Russian intervention in South Ossetia was a humanitarian one and I believe the cynical politics was conducted by Georgia when Saakashvili ordered Georgian troops to retake South Ossetia on the day the Olympics opened, hoping to distract the world from what they were doing.

OK I accept that Russia gratefully accepted the opportunity presented to it to teach Georgia a lesson and to say, loud and clear, 'don't think we are a spent force' but does the US seriously believe that an overt American political show of strength in the former Soviet states will either seriously safeguard energy supplies or do anything for stability in the region? There needs to be a new 'real-politik' between the US and Russia where the problems of indigenous ethnic populations in each of these troubled regions is clearly and intelligently discussed and some kind of joint approach agreed on the political diplomacy to be employed to untangle the mess created by the arbitrary borders imposed by the Soviet Union back in 1923

What the US seems to fail to understand is that, for the South Ossetians, the situation is somewhat akin to a lot of American settlers, in what might have been south Texas, English speaking with appropriate cultural habits, being politically incorporated into Mexico and trying for years and years to get out of it and into the US which they felt to be their natural home. What would the US have done in similar circumstances - especially if the Mexican army had raided the region to bring them to heel?

January cannot come too soon for me when , at least, this hideous American administration will be gone. As I have said in other posts, my hope is that Obama becomes President and that maybe..just maybe...America might begin to look intellectually at world politics and make some attempt to understand the complex situation in eastern Europe and, particularly, in the former Soviet Union. The obsession with military might and loud posturing which has earmarked this Administration has done nothing for peace in the world and certainly nothing for America's international reputation.