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Year: 2008

Is Obama thinking of choosing Wes Clark?

Is Obama thinking of choosing Wes Clark?

There’s speculation on the US site, VP Watch, this evening that Barack Obama might be considering the former general and 2004 contender for the presidential nomination – Wes Clarke – for the VP slot. This is the report: “Gen. Wes Clark’s slogan — “Securing America’s Future” — is the theme for the night Barack Obama’s running mate is scheduled to speak at the Democratic National Convention. Clark’s political action committee is called WESPAC — Securing America’s Future. It could just…

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Can Gord get to be like this again?

Can Gord get to be like this again?

His final PMQs before the 2007 recess and the election U-turn If you’ve got a few minutes just click on the picture above to watch Brown take the last PMQs of July 2007 when everything was going so right for him. Watching his body language, listening to a very different intonation in his voice, looking at how he dealt with Cameron and it is as though you are in a different era. He’s relaxed, confident, and delivered very effectively the…

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Can Labour ignore Johnson’s awful 2006 focus groups?

Can Labour ignore Johnson’s awful 2006 focus groups?

How can they select someone who could make matters worse? The only point for Labour to go through the pain of changing the leader again is to improve the party’s chances at the next election. In June 2007, as I keep on reminding people, Labour MPs ignored the overwhelming polling evidence, that has since been proved correct, that Gordon would be an electoral disaster. So how are we to assess the reports that a union-backed joint Johnson-Cruddas ticket is being…

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Will this be the foreign policy trump-card?

Will this be the foreign policy trump-card?

Is McCain’s plan for a ‘League of Democracies’ the answer? On May Day of last year, John McCain addressed the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California. As the Republican primary candidate with the most foreign policy experience, his remarks received a significant amount of attention. The key idea in the speech was that, if elected President, McCain would call a summit of the Democratically-elected world leaders, and discuss with them how global problems might be solved. He described the…

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Could Miliband be Labour’s Nick Clegg?

Could Miliband be Labour’s Nick Clegg?

Has he really got what it takes to undermine Cameron? Now there’s a headline, I know, designed to provoke a largish slice of the PB audience but it could be correct. For every Labour person I’ve spoken to over the past forty-eight hours, and for various reasons that has been quite a few, has told how under Gordon they are heading for oblivion but that David Miliband is “the one” who can turn the party’s fortunes round. They believe passionately…

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Overview of the Sunday Papers

Overview of the Sunday Papers

The conflict in Georgia dominates the front pages The Sunday Newspapers are focussing heavily on the conflict that has erupted between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia. The US and UK are affirming Georgia’s territorial rights and calling for a cessation of hostilities. Around 1,000 Georgian troops have been withdrawn from Iraq, as Russia demands that Georgia withdraws to its undisputed territory. The region of Abkhazia has now joined the conflict, according to the Observer. In other news, the Sunday…

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The Tory YouGov lead drops to 20%

The Tory YouGov lead drops to 20%

Revised But more ammunition for those who want Gord out The News of the World has a poll from YouGov, giving David Cameron’s Conservatives yet another healthy over Gordon Brown’s Labour government – 20 percentage points although it is down a couple of notches from the last survey from the firm nine days ago. Amongst the non-voting intention questions nearly half of those who took part said Brown should quit and and 49% say they would prefer Tony Blair as…

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What will be the impact of South Ossetia?

What will be the impact of South Ossetia?

What are the significant implications for US and UK foreign policy? You could be forgiven for not being immediately familiar with the small mountain region of South Ossetia, and its capital Tskhinvali. Few people last week could have correctly identified it as (legally, at least) a province of Georgia, and fewer still would have known that its comparitively-peaceable sister region North Ossetia remained a part of the Russian Federation. The two provinces consider themselves to be a single ethnolinguistic entity,…

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