PARTHURBLOG

The three ring circus has left town (at least for this week), the pollsters have polled, the pundits have pontificated and Mr Clegg has become the new Steve Brookstein.

Despite a tide of cynicism rising inside us, at least the “truly historic occasion” (source: ITV press release) attracted 9.9 million viewers and started a national conversation. Shame that none of it was about policy.

I GUESS IT DOESN’T META ANY MORE

We live in a meta age; the post-modernists have won the day, and content is no longer the point of interest. Policy has been re-classified onto the obscure shelf – the focus du jour is the format of three men standing in a TV studio. To whit:

- what can we interpret from the candidates’ body language?

- who looked into camera more; who made the better jokes?

- why three coloured worms moving up and down a video screen tell us all we need to know

The morning after, pollster Frank Luntz observed that while Brown had ‘the most substance’ the audience found him old and tired. The implication being that it doesn’t matter if you play fast and loose with statistics, so long as you look like you’ve just left prep school you’ll be alright with the British electorate.

The leaders of the three parties may as well have been discussing England’s chances in the World Cup or when to plant their hanging baskets. All that mattered is how we felt about it.

SPINNING SPINNERS

Of course, the real reason for the debate wasn’t to examine issues; it was to give the media something to cover. Ad nauseum. A 90-minute debate on a single channel is just the stone that starts rolling down a 48-hour mountain, collecting snow as it goes.

- here’s the immediate response to the debate.

- here’s the analysis of the debate, and the response to the response to the debate.

- here’s the analysis of the response to the debate, and the response to the analysis to the response to the debate.

- and here’s a profile of the man running the focus group that’s giving its response to the analysis of the response to the analysis of what all this really means.

It’s as if we can’t trusted to make up our own minds or to share an opinion with a friend or colleague. The meaning of it all has to be spelt out. All this – even three blue / red / yellow lines shimmying up and down a graph – is all rather complicated, so who better to do so than people with vested interests in the outcome?

That’s the second reason for the avalanche of comment and opinion; the parties themselves want to massage the collective memory, like a bent policeman persuading a witness that the attacker really was driving a red car rather than riding a green bicycle.

I suppose we should expect the usual mouthpieces-on-sticks to say just how wonderfully well their respective bosses had performed. It’s part of the game and partly human nature. But it’s the more subtle, more invidious re-interpretations that stick in the craw.

Editors of some parts of the national press must have lit a candle to Great Mother Earth when she chose debate day to throw Icelandic ash into the sky and so ground the nation’s air passengers. The Sun devoted pages 1,2,3,4 & 5 to this affront to civil liberties – which, given that they had paid the said Mr Luntz to run the focus group that got the star billing on R4’s Today Programme, must have really irritated Ms Wade and her acolytes.

When that august journal of record did present the results of the Wapping wormery, did it proclaim Nick Clegg’s victory? Err, not exactly: Clegg didn’t win; Brown lost. Indeed, Clegg’s name didn’t appear in a single headline of The Sun that day. I wonder why?

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

As you’ve probably gathered, events of the past 48 hours have rather stirred me, but it’s only as I write this blog post that I realise why. We were sold a pup, and none of the wall-to-wall coverage of the past two days has called it as such.

Whatever happened on Thursday evening – however it’s interpreted and re-presented – one thing is irrefutably true.

We did not witness a debate.

A debate sets out a proposition, presents a case, makes point and counterpoint. A debate engages, stirs passions, sheds insight, prompts thought. A debate has structure, life, interaction and drama.

There was no debate the other night; there was facilitated Q&A. No case or rationale was presented, with a beginning, middle and end. Heaven forbid that any of the leaders strung together three cogent thoughts leading to a conclusion. Or that any of them took an assertion from the other and proved it to be false.

But who can blame them? Apparently, it’s not what we want.

According to Luntz, the reason Clegg won on the night was not due to his power of oration, his structuring of inspiring argument or his rapier-like assault on the false claims of his opponents. It was because his sound-bites resonated most with the worm-fiddlers;  “greedy bankers”, “let teachers teach”, “immigration in chaos” – that’s all it takes to become the nation’s favourite.

In light of this finding, the editorial team at Parthurblog has reached a radical decision. From now on – to ensure that the site is in tune with the population and the times – its blog postings will be no more than three words long. If it can get you elected to Downing Street, it must be able to increase the readership of a blog.

So let’s end this posting as we mean to go on: “God help us.”

Popularity: 21% [?]

A rather youthful Willie Bain has just won Glasgow North East for Labour.

Is there more to his Party roots than officials are letting on?

I think we should be told.

Popularity: 59% [?]

We get the politicians we deserve.

Top of the agenda for the weberati and other media folk over the weekend has been Gordon Brown’s choice of confection. More particularly, the fact that he failed to name a favourite biscuit while taking part on a Mumsnet webcast.

Apparently, not to have a favourite biscuit now has all the psychological and statistical validity of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test: It says a lot about your capability to run a country; if avoided it  ‘proves’ that you’re a ditherer.

Put yourself in Brown’s shoes. You’re on the spot and,  without prior warning of the subject matter,  you’ve just answered questions about every area of public policy imaginable.  You’re feeling pretty pleased with yourself. Then  someone asks you about biscuits:

Well - you think - it’s Digestive or Rich Tea. But that’s boring. If I say that, I can see the headlines now: Boring Brown Biscuit Bombshell;

No no no. Don’t want that. How about something with chocolate on? No – they’ll be after me with health scare stories;

Actually - you have aProustian moment, going back to childhood days – I was always very partial to Auntie Moira’s tartan shortbreads, but they’ll bloody crucify me if I pick something Scottish. It’ll make Alex Salmond’s day;

HobNobs. No - Mandelson spends enough time with them already;

Garibaldi! Too ideological.

Penguin? No. They’ll superimpose my face on the Batman villain.

At this stage, the pressure’s mounting, and you know that ANY answer will make you a hostage to fortune.

The political class is caught between a rock and a hard place. We want them to be more ‘human’ but every sign of humanity is easily turned to either a weakness or a subject of scorn.

It’s the personal foibles that are picked up on, amplified, exaggerated and exploited. Does the PM’s biscuit choice have ANY bearing on his ability to lead and govern at all?

There are far more serious doubt about his ability and his policy, but rather than concentrating on that, we generate and consume savannahs of media on the trivial and the pointless.

I really don’t care whether it’s a Gingernut or a Jammy Dodger. Nor, for that matter, do I think it matters that in a particular moment, he didn’t have an answer.

I’m more concerned about behaviour of all sides of the House last Wednesday, 14 October, at Prime Minister’s Questions.

At the first PMQs after the summer break, it is customary to read the names service personnel who have lost their lives. Last week, Mr Brown had to read the names of 37 people killed in Afghanistan. It made for a very sombre mood indeed.

Immediately after PMQs, Brown was scheduled to read a statement about the Government’s intention to deploy further troops. So what did members of the House do?

A significant number leapt up to go to lunch.

(Listen to the roll call at the start of this BBC video, then scroll right to the end, and see what happens in the very last second.)

You are a member of a Parliament that has committed thousands of your citizens to go to war, you are about to hear about the continuation of that commitment, you have just heard about the lives that are being lost – and you can’t be  bothered to listen.

THAT’S behaviour which speaks volumes about ethics and values, and which demands to be examined and called to account.

Meanwhile, the blogosphere wonders ‘Custard or Coconut Cream’?

We get the politicians we deserve.

Popularity: 23% [?]

I am not an economist and despite multiple attempts to grasp the UK economic model, I still can’t get much beyond the balance sheet of my business.

But as an active member of the blogosphere, that doesn’t stop me having an opinion, and trying to deconstruct the messages being given by our leaders.

Watching Alastair Darling and Mervyn King slug each other with handbags at the Mansion House dinner, it’s obvious that the words they use, what they say and what they mean are three different things.

At the most obvious level, there’s a power play going on between the two institutions. The previous Chancellor (wee Gordon) made the BoE independent, and now Merv wants some more rope, please. Ally (or Blackbrow to his friends) wants to rein things in a little. Indeed, he seems to be developing a penchant for prudence, and is already irritating the hell out of the Brown-Balls-Burnham triangle by refusing to talk up spending, just at the time when they want to promise more of the earth as a sweetener for Election 2010. (Brown balls? Burnham! – there’s a joke in there somewhere.)

My, how wee Gordon must be irritated at not being able to cull Blackbrow in the reshuffle.

The latter’s caution also seems at odds with the Governor’s view on the regulation of banks. Merv wants to break them up (at least to separate retail from investment, and so limit their size). Blackbrow thinks this is all too simple, and wants to take a softer approach to regulation.

(Interesting that Merv wants everyone else under stronger regulation, but wants more scope for the BoE. A case of financial NIMBYism, perhaps?)

Watching him from my armchair, Blackbrow looks caught between a rock and a hard place. Deregulation and light-touch governance led us to a world of incomprehensible instruments and systemic implosion. But it also gave the UK 8% of its GDP and a world-leading position in financial services, just behind the US.

While tighter regulation may not ‘force’ all megarich dealers or hedgies to flee the country, it will certainly impact the financial sector’s ability to compete. Especially if no-one else signs up.

So Merv sends a message that we should get tougher, and Blackbrow is publicly cautious about caution.

Looked at in this light, I wonder if the handbags were little more than show, and in fact this is a well-rehearsed double act, sending messages out to the global market (especially the US) to test the water.

‘We know that we’ve got to get the banks under more control. You know that you’ve got to get the banks under more control. We know that you know, and you know that we know. Now we’ve let the banks know that we both know. So we want you to know that if you play the game, we will play the game. But play fair, or we won’t play at all.’

The one thing that everyone knows is that for all of wee Gordon’s global leadership at the G20, it would be economic suicide to be the first mover in the Regulation Game. It’s like being in a roomful of foxes that have all voted to become geese.

No-one wants to be the first goose.

Of course, all of the above is based upon an idealistic axiom: that not all Members of Parliament or Bank officials are purely in it for themselves, and that at least some of them are genuinely motivated to improve things for the greater good. After events of the past couple of months, I need to believe that now: I need to restore a little personal faith in the system.

But that doesn’t stop a little voice whispering in my ear that Blackbrow knows he’ll be looking for another job in the next 12 months, so it would be unwise to make too many banking enemies in the near future.

CODA

Update on this one from The Guardian, 8 July 2009

Popularity: 5% [?]

It’s a hell of a recipe; troughsful of deception, gallons of ‘oversight’, lashings of open-mouthed incredulity, all simmered until angry, then topped with lashings of Whitehall farce.

Still, the expenses scandal has given the nation a common thread for the week, in the same way Diana’s death – or at least the response to Diana’s death – gave us a unifying theme and made us feel connected.

Perhaps we owe the dishonourable members a psychological vote of thanks? It’s been a long time since I have heard so many spontaneous conversations between strangers.

Of course, if we’re honest with ourselves – when we’re not exchanging moat, dry-rot or lightbulb anecdotes – we may detect a hint of collective responsibility underpinning our indignation. When our active participation in the political process can be summed up as tutting at newspaper headlines on the train and shouting at the TV during “Question Time” (mea culpa), perhaps we now have an inkling that it was always going to come to this.

We are like the parents who have left their off-spring home alone for the weekend: on our return, we are outraged what the flashmob has done with the sofa, the flatscreen TV, the kitchen appliances, the carpets and the garden. But in truth, we know that we are at least partially responsible.

People – especially in groups – will always push boundaries as far as they can until they hit the wall that defines the limits of the acceptable.

“GO TO YOUR ROOM”

Nevertheless, the miscreants do bear the lion’s share of the blame, and like the children who have been grounded indefinitely, they’re desperately trying to work out how to get back into our good books.

Here are my suggestions for them, if they want to come downstairs again:

Reinstate Elizabeth Filkin: as Commissioner for Standards, she shone a light into the affairs of Keith Vaz, John Reid, Geoffrey Robinson and Peter Mandelson. Indeed, she was so thorough that The Guardian and The Daily Mail managed to agree that she was hounded out in 2002 for (in the words of Martin Bell) “doing her job too well.”

Bring her back. If the House of Commons could swallow THAT pill, then we might start to think it was serious about cleaning up its act.

Pass the Hat Round: have you ever given thought to the implications of the phrase ‘there have been calls for an Public Inquiry’? Simply, it means costs to the public purse – whether it’s lawyers or civil servants or commercial auditors, there are fees to be paid. Very, very large fees to be paid.

If there is to be an Independent Inquiry into a mess that Members created by defining their own rules, then they might want to consider personally paying for the clean up. Divide the total bill between the 646 of them; better still, pro-rata the individual payments in direct proportion to the claims made over the past five years.

Use Public Property: stop playing the popular parlour game of “I currently live…

…with my sister
…with my parents
…with my partner-in-our-Southampton-hideaway
…with my MP spouse in my/her/his/our 1st/2nd residence
…in my family home
…in my London flat (11 minutes from my family home)
…in my CGT-free 2nd/3rd/4th home ”

As an alternative to the current ‘get-rich-using-other-people’s-money’ set-up, MPs should be provided with accommodation near the House of Commons, owned by the Crown.

There’s a very nice development coming on the market in a couple of years which would just fit the bill: The Olympic Village. It’s now being funded by the public purse, so we might as well get use of it.

And as for security concerns – well, it might encourage residents of the Westminster village to spend more time with their constituents.

Popularity: 9% [?]

‘In The Loop’ – satire of spin

Why do we visit the movies? Why do grown people sit in a dark room, watching flickering images dance on a screen?

For me it’s usually one of three reasons; to escape, to gain insight or to understand. Really good films provide two of the three; classics deliver on all fronts. I wrote recently to a couple of friends about ‘Chinatown’, and realised that Polanski’s masterpiece creates a noir world in which I have frequently been lost, gives me a deep look into the heart of darkness each time I watch it, and provides a clear history lesson on the foundation of Los Angeles.

Three out of three.

I hadn’t really given this a lot of thought until I emerged from seeing Armando Ianucci’s  “In The Loop”, and found that its 90 minutes left me feeling so much better. Certainly it’s funny, and instructive. But there is another quality which took me a large coffee to fully appreciate. It’s cathartic.

WHERE’D ALL THE GOOD PEOPLE GO?

Anyone paying only scant attention to the UK Parliamentary expenses farrago – and the ensuing Cabinet fall-out – has experienced a contour map of emotion. Incredulity at the porn. Laughter at the duck house and the moat. Disbelief at the flipping. Anger at the capital gains tax (avoidance). Bewilderment at the stupidity.

Then, just as the curtain was coming down on the final act, and The Telegraph coverage was running out of steam, they came back into the spotlight for an encore: How can I throw myself on my sword more dramatically than my colleagues? How can I ’send a message’ to win back public trust before I get fired?

And so James resigned to show that he loves ‘the Party’. Jacqui  went because she has been ‘hurt’. Beverley ‘wants to spend more time at home’ (if she can decide which one).  Hazel – the Communities Minister – pulled stumps on the morning of the local elections, while wearing a hilarious badge she’d found in her breakfast cereal, and couldn’t work out why it had caused such a fuss. Caroline swore undying allegiance to the PM, then got dropped from the first team, so told everyone that she was tired of being used a window dressing (while finding time to be photographed for a Chris de Burgh album cover.)

Just when you thought the dust had settled, the Foreign Secretary chose to tell the world that he was fully behind the leader (despite the fact that he had considered resigning around the same time as his best friend James, who he had now left high and dry.)

Which brings us to the final bump on the emotional Richter scale: disappointment. Sheer, bloody disappointment that Ministers of the Realm can be so totally, utterly average. That the leadership of a country can end up in the collective hands of a managerial cadaver that is so extraordinarily ordinary.

Don’t you have the overwhelming desire to see them grabbed by the lapels, shaken to their senses, and given  the Alex Fergusson hairdryer treatment?

Enter Malcolm Tucker.

TAKEN NO PRISONERS

Tucker is the lynchpin of  Ianucci’s political world in both ‘In the Loop’ and ‘The Thick of It’ , the BBC TV predecessor. Wiry, aggressive, machiavellian, manipulative, devious, completely without scruple or conscience, Tucker (as great a creation as Basil Fawlty and superbly played by Peter Capaldi) is the man who holds government together through fear, intimidation and emotional blackmail.

Actually, it’s mostly just fear.

He is surrounded by incompetents – hapless, bed-wetting, spineless apparatchiks who entered politics straight  from university and whose experience of life is limited to their gap year. Tucker, by contrast, is a street fighter. If he wasn’t running communications for the PM, he’d be doing the same for a drugs cartel or an international arms dealer. He thrives on conflict, control and being at the heart of power.

Rake thin, foul mouthed, running on Alpha male adrenalin, Tucker only has to flair his nostrils – and Capaldi has the best comedy nostrils since Kenneth Williams – to intimidate his prey and invite his audience to snort with derision.

Some say that both character and portrayal are based on Alistair Campbell, erstwhile spin doctor to the Blair project. Campbell says that there’s nothing here that he recognises, and that he found the film boring. Whatever its relation to reality (and Campbell certainly knows how to bend that to suit his purposes)  the film and TV series raise important questions about the role of unelected officials, the development of Policy ‘on the hoof’, the marginalisation of Parliament, and the way that an insatiable 24-hour media shapes political behaviour.

But for all its worthiness (and to be fair, it doesn’t preach in the slightest), the greatest enjoyment it delivers is the vicarious thrill of seeing over-promoted members of the political classes being tongue-lashed by a master of the game.

It’s why in our house, when an incompetent minister publicly lets a cat out of a bag, we say:

“It wouldn’t happen in Tucker’s time.”

Popularity: 43% [?]

According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, the word ‘campaign’ means: an organised course of action for a particular purpose.

I raise that because all the press coverage I read today about Emily Benn says that she first campaigned with her grandfather Tony when she was two.

This was obviously a display way beyond her years: about the only particular purpose that any of my children showed at two involved cereal packets, free action figures, and screaming on the floor of Sainsbury’s. None of which could be described as an organised course.

Then again, none of my children are fifth generation politicians.

THE FAMILY WAY

Ms Benn’s father is chief of political affairs at the Royal Society of Chemistry (sic); her uncle Hilary is Secretary of State for the Environment; grandfather Tony was an MP for 50 years, and is still one of the great draws on the speaking circuit; great-grandfather William was a Liberal, then a Labour MP; both great-great-grandfathers, John and David, were Liberal MPs. The family presence in Westminster goes back to 1889.

"It's about policies, not personalities"

No doubt there is great hope that this 120-year lineage has rubbed off on Emily. Why else would the members of the East Worthing and Shoreham Labour Party have chosen a 17 year-old as their Parliamentary Candidate?

Perhaps it was the quality of her application. According to the BBC, she had found out about the Worthing vacancy and sent the local party her CV “to see what would happen”.

It’s easy to imagine the letter: “Dear Jim. Please fix it for me to become an MP.”

To be fair, that was two years ago (I’m a bit behind on this one), and she will be 20 by the time the General Election is called. I worry for her: she might then be past it.

She says that she has done “many weeks of work experience in the prime minister’s political office in Downing Street, giving me the chance to see how policy is developed first-hand.” Presumably, this was a placement she gained through the careers office at Hogwarts.

POLITICS V LIFE

Want to know what’s wrong with UK politics? At surface level, it appears to be dodgy expenses claims, second homes and an affair or two with your staff. But these are just symptoms, not the root cause.

The real canker at the heart of Westminster is personified by Emily Benn: how on earth can you represent a constituency, participate in debate, and take considered decisions on issues that effect the daily lives of millions when you’re worrying about your A-levels?

From childhood to chamber, with no life in between.

Of course, Ms Benn is an extreme case. East Worthing is a very safe Conservative seat, and the majority is unlikely to swing towards Labour at the next election. She has been given the opportunity as a testing ground, and as preparation for future elections. But you can almost guarantee that she’ll be in Parliament by the time she’s in her mid-20s.

And what will she know of life by then?

She isn’t alone. The nature of the political system means that you have to enter early to play the game long enough to get noticed. That’s how you get your seat. And so the vast majority of MPs have spent much of their early careers as researchers or as advisors to Quangos and other edge-of-government bodies.

So it’s hardly surprising that twenty years later they lose their sense of normalcy, and start making expense claims for garden features and flat-screen TVs.  When you’ve been  swimming in the system all your adult life, that is normal.

The PM and The Chancellor

LIFE LEDGER

Therefore, I have a proposal to put forward to all political parties to help with the selection of candidates. It’s independent of race, gender, creed or party, so could be used across the House.

As you interview your would-be MPs, look for 3 out of the following items on the ledger of life:

1 Has the candidate held a job? A real job. A job with working hours, measurable targets and a salary. A job with a boss and regular performance reviews.

2 Has the candidate ever run a business? Experience of profit and loss, having to make the payroll, and understanding the relationship with a customer would seem to be useful.

3 Has the candidate ever served in the Armed Forces? We Westerners have been very lucky to have lived in a time of peace, but our politicians still have a penchant for sending troops into war in other parts of the world.

4 Is the candidate a parent? Has s/he been through the ups-and-downs of mid-night feeds, grazed knees, lost teeth, broken limbs, broken hearts, forgotten lines, lost homework, left-off veg, tantrums, tears, negotiated TV/PC/Wii time.

5 Has the candidate lost a loved one? I don’t wish this on anyone, but the death of a family member – parent, sibling, partner, offspring – is one of life’s staging posts that changes you forever. Deal with this, and you can deal with anything.

6 Has the candidate ever been fired / made redundant / ‘let go’? It’s going to happen to most of their constituents at least once, so wouldn’t it be useful to have the insight into the fear / lack of self esteem / financial worries that usually accompany it?

7 Can the candidate live on a salary of £63,291? After all, it is only three times the National average.

This isn’t a definitive: it’s just a place to start. I’m sure you’ll have better criteria with which you’d like to vet our potential leaders. Drop me a line. Maybe we can start a quiet revolution?

Popularity: 11% [?]

This week, I participated in an international conference.

Some 200 executives and managers from one of the world’s major IT companies met in London to agree their strategy and tactics for the coming year.

They all travelled on Sunday – taking personal / family time. Some arrived early that morning, for a day’s preparatory discussions. The rest were at the hotel for a modest dinner that evening, then up for an 8 o’clock start on Monday. The same happened Tuesday.

Long days, away from the family, doing their jobs. And, having lived that life for the best part of a decade, I can honestly say that not a single person there would ever expect to be accompanied by their wife / husband / partner.

So what on earth is the G20 First Lady circus about?

Putting aside the costs of shipping another body to the event (I don’t suppose Mrs Obama actually has to buy a ticket to get on Air Force One), the thing I can’t fathom is what it’s for?

Surely it can’t be that they came specifically to hear J K Rowling give a reading from her new book? Or to have dinner with Naomi Campbell?

(The seating plan for the spouse dinner must have been the subject of intense deliberation:

“Who shall we sit on the same table as the First Ladies of the US, Korea, Mexico and Russia?

“How about Marjorie Scardino, CEO of Pearson and the first woman to run a FTSE 100 company? Carolyn McCall, CEO of Guardian Media Group and Chair of Opportunity Now? Dame Nancy Rothwell, director of the Science Committee at AstraZeneca?

“No. Better make it Emma Freud.”)

It all smacks of ‘Oh hell: I have 19 house guests coming. I’d better find something for them to do. Does anyone know where we put the Masquerade?’

How about telling them not to come. At least Carla Bruni had the good grace not to show up.

Sceptics among you will no doubt be thinking that she didn’t want to share the spotlight with anyone else, so waited at home for Mr and Mrs O to come to her place.

My guess is that if the French President was thinking of walking out as fast as his little Cuban heels could carry him, he wouldn’t want to wait around for Carla to pack her guitar. Allegedly, the official reason is that she only does State visits. I don’t know which is worse.

I am aware that, as a chap, I’m on dangerous ground pouring scorn on this silly sideshow. But before I get the wrath of my female friends, let me be clear: I’m on your side. Treating the wives like clothes horses and ladies who lunch sets the equality cause back some 50 years.

The whole affair is completely anachronistic. Professional, qualified, high-achieving women (like Therese Rein, who founded one of Australia’s leading employment groups, and is worth AUD 60m), subsuming their identity to become no more than a photographic appendage to a husband who’s ‘doing important work’.

Try Googling ‘G20 Wives’ and the hectares of coverage reveal a fixation with Michelle Obama’s dress sense / how much hugging she did / whether ‘high fiving’ school girls is appropriate behaviour?

Is that what we want / need from our vicarious relationship with our leaders? It certainly doesn’t feature in the workplace, so why is it necessary in public office?

More to the point, who on earth is responsible for making it happen at all? Is there a protocol for such things; will we put the financial future of the planet in jeopardy if the wife of the Japanese Prime Minister doesn’t get to meet Ruth Jones from Gavin & Stacey? (Well, we should be OK, because she did.)

Somewhere, in the Spin Doctors Handbook, there must be a chapter on the positive impact of having a wife willing to stand in an identity line-up on the stage of the Royal Opera House.

It’s time to re-write the book.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Two comments about the US election.

K, my 10 year-old daughter, is watching the TV news. The graphics department has generated some folding, whirling, spinning monstrosity that shows Obama won 52% of the popular vote, McCain 46%.

“He didn’t win by much, did he?” says K. “I thought he was really popular.”

And with that, the college electoral system is dismantled and America is revealed as a land divided. What value Wolf Blitzer and David Dimbleby?

Next evening, I’m in the office late, and J the cleaner appears in her sage green apron and translucent plastic gloves.

“Did you see the election the other night?” she asks.

See it? Did I see it??

“I kept waking up, so when I did I turned on the TV to see what was happening. The first time Obama had something like 3 and McCain had twenty-something, and I though ‘oh, here we go, they’re going to get in again.’ But the next time I turned on, Obama was well ahead, I thought he was going to be alright. The third time, he was just being declared the winner. Seemed like a good time to get up.”

Her eyes sparkled with wonder, as she looked somewhere mid-distance.

“It’s such a shame.”

What is, J?

“Well, everyone loves him at the moment, apart from the people who don’t want a black man in the White House. And he needs to look out for them.

“Not that it matters that he’s black. He seems like a very intelligent chap, which is what really counts. But he’ll never be able to deliver all the expectations that everyone has of him. They never do.”

I’m going to cancel my newspaper and magazine subscriptions. K & J tell it like it is.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Shaping the Way the US Sees the World is a powerful 5 minute presentation from TED.com. It holds a mirror up to the way US news sources report on world events.

Watch it and weep – and think about Sarah Palin’s ‘foreign policy’ experience being based on the fact that Alaska is quite close to Russia.

Despite McCain’s age, despite the meltdown in financial markets, despite the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite 8 years of Bush, despite all these things, I don’t think that Obama is a shoo-in.

Why? Because a large slice of America thinks that Obama is too smart and Palin is alright.

Oh sure, folk can keep digging for dirt on her, but it’ll fall on deaf ears. Because “she’s one of us”: she believes in God and she shoots things.

Ultimately, that’s what C21st elections are about: do I like the candidate?

And when you consider the diet of infotainment that the US feeds itself everyday – beautifully illustrated here by Alice Miller – what more can we expect?

Popularity: 5% [?]