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Top Stories and Blog Review – 27th Sept

Candidates Clash on Economy and Iraq

Watch the debate
CNN videos of debate – Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

More Analysis
Grading the First Presidential Debate
Temperature of Debate? Lukewarm.
The Mac is back
Who Won The Debate? Reviews Go To Obama
McCain Takes It

DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Aaron Heath

Daily Kos – Did McCain’s constant trashing of Obama’s experience and judgement lower voter expectation, to the Democrat’s advantage?

RCP – Tom Bevan is confident that McCain won, but does it really matter?

TPM – Why didn’t McCain make eye contact with Obama? Was it embarrassment, contempt, anger or maybe fear?

Oliver Willis – It’s an easy decision really: the cool cucumber or the furious tomato.

Michael Tomasky/CiF – The actual debate is over. Now let’s see how the campaigns spin it.

Paul Linford – Back to UK politics for the final couple of links, as Paul reflects on Brown’s speech and the huge amount of work ahead of him.

Sadie’s Tavern – When did Fraser Nelson become such a slimy Cameron acolyte?

Cameron: more than Maggie masquerading as Morrissey

Now the spotlight shifts to The Novice; with some recent opinion polls putting support for the Tories at 50%-plus, David Cameron is presumably in a buoyant mood as he gears up for the Conservative Party conference that starts in Birmingham next week.

In a set piece interview with Sky – extracts here – he deftly counters the Great Clunking Fist’s accusations that he’s still wet behind the ears, pointing out that for all his experience, Gordon Brown has made rather a hash of things over the last year. There’s even the by now de rigeur sideswipe at New Labour from the left:

I just make this argument: who in the last year has thumped the poor and the working poor with abolishing the 10-pence tax rate? That was an appalling decision taken by a Labour prime minister.

Quite. Welcome to the world of Cameron’s Conservatives; environmentally friendly, socially liberal and completely at ease with multiculturalism. Not the Nasty Party anymore. continue reading… »

Why Labour Voters Ought to Think Again

Yeah, I figured that headline would get the attention of some of you. Cory Doctorow has posted what it’s like to be on the sharp end of Labour’s current policies. Because I know that some of you won’t be arsed to click the link, I’m going to copy and paste.

Earlier this year, I married my British fiancée and switched my visa status from “Highly Skilled Migrant” to “Spouse.” This wasn’t optional: Jacqui Smith, the British Home Secretary, had unilaterally (and on 24 hours’ notice) changed the rules for Highly Skilled Migrants to require a university degree, sending hundreds of long-term, productive residents of the UK away (my immigration lawyers had a client who employed over 100 Britons, had fathered two British children, and was nonetheless forced to leave the country, leaving the 100 jobless). Smith took this decision over howls of protests from the House of Lords and Parliament, who repeatedly sued her to change the rule back, winning victory after victory, but Smith kept on appealing (at tax-payer expense) until the High Court finally ordered her to relent (too late for me, alas). continue reading… »

England Expects in silence

Via Mr Eugenides, I see that a blog, England Expects, written by a press officer, Gawain Towler, for the European Parliament Independence and Democracy Group, which includes UKIP, has been effectively shut down.

While it appears he may have been in a technical breach of the rules, I would submit that the rules appear to be over strict and that their application in this case – to someone representing a political grouping – is inappropriate.

As it happens, I disagree with the sentiment expressed with Gawain Towler in the original post that caused him trouble. However,

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
~Evelyn Beatrice Hall summarising Voltaire’s attitude towards Helvétius.

Bevan or Thatcher: who’s relevant?

At the end of Greg Dyke’s programme on Nye Bevan, Michael Heseltine says Bevan is “irrelevant today.” I can only hope that remark was made some time ago, because from where I’m sat, it’s gibber. Bevan is a highly relevant figure.

continue reading… »

Washington Mutual runs out of money

From Yahoo! Finance ::

As the debate over a $700 billion bank bailout rages on in Washington, one of the nation’s largest banks — Washington Mutual Inc. — has collapsed under the weight of its enormous bad bets on the mortgage market.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized WaMu on Thursday, and then sold the thrift’s banking assets to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $1.9 billion.

Seattle-based WaMu, which was founded in 1889, is the largest bank to fail by far in the country’s history. Its $307 billion in assets eclipse the $40 billion of Continental Illinois National Bank, which failed in 1984, and the $32 billion of IndyMac, which the government seized in July.

Politicising a crisis

HuffPo has a report on yesterday’s White House meet between Bush and leading congressional and senate members to reach an agreement on the $700bn bailout of Wall Street.

You’ll remember this is the meeting that Sen. John McCain “suspended” his campaign over. McCain climbed up on his high horse, threw off his partisan hat, and threw his talents behind the American people. Yeah right.

Anyone who has been watching the McCain campaign closely, will not be surprised to find that this was yet another McCain stunt. McCain, in stark contrast to the animated and informed discussion around him, remained quiet and was unable at any point to offer any specifics or give his support to any agreement. continue reading… »

Talk-Radio meltdown

You’re going to love this…

continue reading… »

Top Stories and Blog Review – 26th Sept

Congress fails to reach agreement

Elsewhere
Tempers flare as $700bn bailout stalls
Brown to meet Bush at White House
Tonight’s debate will make or break candidates
Israel asked US for green light to bomb Iran
Cabinet split on Kingsnorth power station

DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Sarah Ismail

Rahila Gupta/CIF – My favourite human rights campaigner raising awareness of an organisation that promotes diversity in the theatre.

Sonia Afroz – Examining Pickled Politics, the second-best blog on the net (after this one.)

1820 – What does John McCain have in common with Homer Simpson?

Angela Saini – If Palm Oil takes off as source of energy, it could be catastropic for the environment.

Bartholomew’s Notes – On the ‘Jihad Prevention Act.’

Bloggerheads – On the second-boldest liar in the blogosphere, our friend Naddine.

Blood and Treasure – A 300 year old ban has been lifted…

Obsolete – …Catholic heathens can now be king (or queen!).

tygerland – ID Cards are destined for disaster. Why doesn’t the government see it?

Saving women’s lives with Sarah Palin

There are some thing that just stick in your craw and, for me, this is one of them…

Sarahs unite for health campaign

Gordon Brown’s wife Sarah has met US vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin at a dinner to promote better support for childbirth in developing countries.

The two, who met in New York, have turned in political show-stopping performances in recent days…

Blah, Blah, Blah…

Let’s get this ‘unites’ crap out of the way for starters because all it means is that Palin’s PR people scored her an invitation to a gig she wouldn’t have got within 100 yards of a few weeks ago, back when she was Sarah Who?, the moose-hunting governor of Alaska, but that’s not the issue here… continue reading… »