It is Brown & co that sleepwalked into UK energy crisis

'No nation can be allowed to exert an energy stranglehold over Europe,' says Gordon Brown in today's Observer. Urgent action is promised to prevent Britain 'sleepwalking into an energy dependence on less stable or reliable partners'.

I'm not sure where Gordon's been for the last 11 years but in case he hadn't noticed, his Government has presided over the development of exactly the situation he is now promising to prevent. Where has he been? For years now the Government has been warned that the rapid decline in North Sea oil production would leave the UK dangerously exposed to the vagaries of the international energy market. The North Sea currently produces sufficient oil and gas to supply two-thirds of the UK's needs but this output will decline so rapidly that by only 2010 this proportion will have declined to roughly half.

Worse, UK energy supply is controlled ultimately by French and German-owned entities (E.on, Npower, EDF) whose resistance to liberalising their own markets is likely lead to them hoarding energy supplies to protect their own countries from the impact of a cold winter. You may recall that when this last happened, in 2005, energy prices spiked and the UK shivered.

France and Germany have been steadfast in their following of their own national interests when it comes to energy. The aforementioned energy companies control both the supply and distribution in their own countries, limiting competition and keeping prices ultimately higher than they need be.

Moreover, France and Germany have merrily undermined their EU partners by striking bilateral deals with Russia to try and secure their own energy supply. Too late they may have realised post-Georgia that by acceding to Russia's divide and conquer tactics they have decreased their long term prospects for energy security. Love or hate the EU, it can hardly be denied that the UK and its European partners stand a better chance of negotiating successfully with Russia (and other suppliers) if they stand together.

So Gordon Brown can shake his fist at Russia all he wants. He might serve the UK's interests a little better if he were to turn his ire on Sarkozy and Merkel. Our present situation also makes the Government's dragging of feet over the issue of new nuclear power stations all the more inexcusable. Its no good promising to prevent us sleepwalking into energy dependence...its already happened.

How well should a Presidential candidate know his VP?

Everyone has been shocked at John McCain's pick for VP. Call it a cynical move if you want (because it is) but it shows the Republican candidate still deserves his reputation as a maverick.

On the plus side, Palin's conservative credentials will go down well with Republican voters and go some way to shore up McCain's perceived lukewarm anti-abortion stance. Her plucky backstory of mother of five's meteoric rise to the top may attract some voters who otherwise would have gone for Hilary Clinton. On the downside, her inexperience and the tokenism of her selection may repel as many swing voters as it does attract.

The most amazing revelation to me though is that McCain has only met his running mate once, and that six months ago. Does it matter that he hardly knows her? I suppose his team will have briefed him but that cannot make up for getting to know a potential candidate personally. Palin's selection is truly a gamble but does at least keeps the Democrats guessing and hence on their toes.

Would you microchip your child if you could?

If you could have your child implanted with a tracking device no bigger than a grain of rice, would you? With violence and kidnappings in Mexico rising to endemic levels, an enterprising company called Xega has launched a tracking device "no bigger than a kernel of rice", according to its marketing, that can be injected into the arm and forgotten about.

They are being a little disingenuous because, the technology still being limited, the user also has to carry a slightly larger GPS transmitter on their person. As a parent of young child myself, I have (with the Maddie Mcann case fresh in our minds) frequently wondered whether it would be ethical and/or sensible to use a microchip implant to try and prevent a calamity if the worse should happen.

Its all very well to sit and tut at the invasion of the child's privacy, the unwarranted worrying of the parents and the loss of trust in people that such a course of action implies. But I will bet that every single parent of a taken child would have turned back the clock and utilised one of these devices if they had the option. I think, on balance, were the technology discrete enough and suitably practicable, I would opt to use it.

Given this, maybe I shouldn't complain so much at the ever increasing surveillance and monitoring of our daily lives by the state, given a further boost today by the revelation that local councils have started to advertise for 'Environment Volunteers' to report on "waste, fly-tipping, graffiti, dog fouling and abandoned vehicles". Its OK when I'm the one doing the watching, I guess, rather than the one being watched.

How can the NHS have a £1.75 billion surplus?

The NHS is a monster. It has so many moving parts that I defy you to find anyone who truly understand how it all works. As a test, see if you can square these three data points:

1. Despite 11 years of Labour pumping money into the NHS, we now have the largest gap in life expectancy between rich and poor since Victorian times, comparing unfavourably with some parts of the developing world.

2. NICE are making allocation decisions about the finite pot of NHS money and, as a result, are not sanctioning the prescription of some new drugs on the grounds that they do not meet their cost effectiveness test for each additional 'quality adjusted life year' for patients.

3. The NHS is this year forecast to make a £1.75 billion surplus in the current financial year, i.e. it will not spend all the money allocated to it.

Common sense tells you that if we have such intractable public health issues and only a certain amount of money, we should not be left with vast unspent sums, equivalent this year to 2% of the total NHS budget. Why is David Flory, director general of NHS finance, performance and operations, saying:

"This is an excellent start to the year for the NHS. A strong financial position backed by good progress on delivery will continue to ensure high quality services for patients."

How it is "excellent" that money that should be spent on patient care is not being spent? Is it too much to ask that each Primary Care Trust be given its budget at the start of each year and instructed to spend it? There should be a system of checks and balances to ensure that they do not overspend and run out of money before the year is out and any underspend should be recycled to areas of the country where it is needed.

Maybe I am being naive, I don't know. But whilst there is plenty of micropolicy coming from the politicians on the detail of healthcare, I cannot see anyone saying how they will deal with what seems to be such a fundamental flaw in the system.

The Tories can't nudge obesity crisis away

Where should the line be drawn between state management of our lives and personal responsibility? This is the question I am asking myself this morning after digesting the news that the Conservatives have signalled they are against further legislation on tackling obesity and alcohol problems in favour of a voluntary code drawn up in partnership with industry.

Broadly speaking, I am in favour of reducing red tape and government interference in individual's lives. New Labour has been far too quick to enact legislation to tackle perceived problems. Viewed individually, some or indeed many of these restrictions and obligations make sense but when taken together they add up to an intolerable burden on our daily existence. A lighter touch is required and it is hoped and expected that a Conservative government would provide it.

On the face of it then, we should welcome what the Tories are saying on tackling food and drink problems. However, a light touch does not always make sense. There are some problems that are so pressing that the 'right' course of action cannot be left to dawn gradually on individuals and the Government simply has to take action. Climate change is certainly one of these. I would also argue that the future problems of obesity and care for the elderly also fall into this category.

The Conservatives are telling us that the obesity issue is an area ripe for being solved by 'nudging' people in the right direction and that they don't want to nanny people by telling them what they should and shouldn't eat. But stopping food manufacturers putting addictive levels of salt or sugar into their foods or advertising unhealthy foods to children or exercising undue influence over government decisions has nothing to do with nannying individuals. It is about stopping corporations exploiting people by knowingly selling them addictive products that directly lead them to having poor health.

It is the poorest people in society who have the least choice about what they eat and they deserve greater protection from the predatory behaviour of food manufacturers now that we understand the link between unhealthy foods and poor health. We should start with heavily restricting advertising targeted at children and banning unhealthy food and drink from schools as once the food companies have their hooks into the kids, it is extremely hard for them to break free and get into healthier habits later on.

Nudging people towards taking better decisions about their lives has a place. This is just not one of them. It is very rare that I find myself agreeing with the Government but when Ann Keen, the health minister, said "The Tories are using individual responsibility as an excuse for their lack of effective policies in this area.", I think she is right.

Treading the line between state action and individual responsibility is a difficult balancing act. The Conservatives have been bending over backwards to persuade people they are serious about tackling social problems but they will fail if they persist with pushing the line that these things can be 'nudged' out of existence. People will simply start to perceive this as an excuse for leaving business free to do what they want and that the Tories remain their old lupine selves wrapped in sheep's clothing. They need to have a re-think.

Windfall tax - the ends don't justify the means

Its pretty easy to poke holes in the argument for a windfall tax on energy companies. It doesn't sound logical to react to a problem of low supply of and high demand for energy by disincentivising the companies that dig the stuff out of the ground and get it to where we need it. If the oil and gas companies are lucky enough to be in a market where demand for their product has pushed its price to record levels then that is great for them. Theory tells us we should leave them to enjoy it as, eventually, new entrants to the market, attracted by the excess profits, will arrive to bump up the supply and push prices back down again. Right?

Wrong. What we are dealing with here is a cartel. In any normal competitive market, a spiralling supply price should have lead to a price war between distributors, each of whom would have fought to stop passing on price rises to their customers to the point where their margins would be eroded to the bone. Some distributors would merge and some would go out of business, leaving the remainder with increased purchasing power to reduce the margins of the suppliers. What we have here is not a price war between distributors but, rather, record profit margins. This implies they have passed on all the supply price rises to the consumer and then some.

Why have they been able to do this? Because the suppliers and distributors are one and the same company. The European Commission has long argued that the two parts of the industry should be unbundled so that transparent pricing can be achieved but this has so far been resisted by the companies (obviously) and also by the French and German governments who - surprise surprise - play host to EdF and Eon, two of Europe's biggest power companies.

A windfall tax, then, is economically illiterate and will provide a short term fillip to those blighted by fuel poverty at the cost of a longer term solution to the supply/demand imbalance. It will also, incidentally, undermine the Government's green credentials by hampering the drive towards renewables through the artificial lowering of the cost of oil and gas. What campaigners should really be focusing their ire on is the lack of progress to energy unbundling and the naked self-interest shown by our European cousins when it suits them. If the energy companies are found to have colluded on pricing at the expense of consumers then they should face massive fines and the proceeds passed back to consumers. Just don't call it a windfall tax.

Russia crisis - someone should put a leash on Miliband

What is going on at the Foreign Office? The Government seems to be getting its response to the Georgian crisis (rapidly becoming the Russian crisis) all wrong. Initially, the UK was invisible, allowing the publicity hungry Sarkozy to make the running for an EU diplomatic initiative. Our main contribution was a meaningless meeting between a holidaying David Cameron and the Georgian President.

Then, No. 10 and the Foreign Office seemed to contradict each other with David Miliband suggesting that the West should accept Georgia into NATO (if it continues on its path of democratic and economic reforms) only for Nick Brown, one of the PM's closest confidants, to say that 'he doesn't know anyone' who favours bringing Ukraine into NATO.

Now, Miliband has headed off to what is likely to be the next flashpoint in Ukraine (or should that be "the Ukraine"? I never know). Tensions are running high in Ukraine, with the Pro-Western President, Yushchenko, doing everything he can to bind his country to the West. If things with Russia do erupt, they are likely to be focused around the Russian naval base at Sebastopol in Ukraine, on which Russia has a lease until 2017. Yushchenko has made noises about renegotiating this lease and made masochistic threats, later rescinded, about not letting Russian ships that had participated in the Georgian mission back into port. Now he is talking about increasing the rent that Ukraine charges Russia.

Our intrepid Foreign Secretary has flown into this bubbling cauldron and instead of following a cautious line and attempting to defuse the situation, as might be expected, he seems to be following a policy intended deliberately to inflame the Russians, calling for a "coalition against Russian aggression". This (deliberately?) echoes the discredited "Coalition of the Willing" assembled by Bush and Blair that will always be associated with the mistakes of Iraq.

Pulling back from the inflamed tensions between Russia and the West will take time and a lot of careful diplomacy. It will undoubtedly be punctured by frequent outbursts from politicians on both sides seeking to reassure their domestic audiences. In flying into the white hot heart of the argument, however, to deliver such an inflammatory message, Miliband is not helping matters. He is far too keen on grandstanding and is seeming less than convincing as Foreign Secretary.

With everything that's gone on in the UK about his leadership ambitions, you've got to think he has one eye all the time on his domestic audience. In times of crisis, we need a Foreign Secretary who can see the big picture and not let ego cloud their judgement. Is Miliband that man and, if not, what does that say about his suitability for the top job?

Toynbee, Aaronovitch and Kaletsky: the 3 wise monkeys

Polly Toynbee is a favourite punchbag of bloggers like me. Every week she complains about the vulgar ostentation of the super-rich, makes a plea for income redistribution and moans about how New Labour have betrayed the poor. This week she has decided to lecture us on tax by, as usual, putting up her strawmen of evil energy companies and wicked tax evaders in order to argue that we don't, contrary to all our instincts, live in a high tax economy. In fact, we should stop moaning about it, pay more tax and be happy about it in the knowledge that our taxes are going to such good use.

David Aaronovitch is a diehard New Labour apologist who just can't help himself for getting it wrong. Today he has written a quite ridiculous piece in The Times. It goes along the lines of: we can't have a broken society in Britain because things aren't as bad as in the 70's and 80's, stabbings and shootings don't exclusively happen in the UK, lots of people are keeping fit (seriously), and we did better than expected at the Olympics. I'm not kidding...have a read.

Bringing up the rear is Anatole Kaletsky, an economist whose rose-tinted spectacles needed to be surgically removed from his face before he would say anything negative about the state of the economy under New Labour. Today he lends support to Gordon Brown's denial of the poor health of the UK economy by stating that the consumer (whose spending has held up surprisingly well) and the manufacturer (whose production, although down, has not yet fallen off a cliff) know something that the stockmarket (which is predicting a severe downturn) does not.

Even if the economy does get as bad as feared, according to Kaletsky, we won't become the 'sick man of Europe' again because, with our base rate currently being higher than elsewhere, the Bank of England has more scope to cut rates than in the Eurozone. In case he hadn't noticed, we are all caught in the same bind with slowing growth and a persistent inflation problem - does he really think the Bank wouldn't cut if it was able? The fact that our rates are higher than elsewhere is a cause for worry, not relaxation.

When the arguments being put forward by the main media apologists for the Government are so weak, we can conclude that they are running out of energy as fast as they are running out of ideas.

New Labour & business: they just don't get it

Last year, when they proposed charging owners of commercial buildings that had lain empty for more than 3 months a full business rate rather than the previous 50%, the Government was warned by business that this was a bad idea.

Nonsense, said the Government, we just want to "encourage" (read: coerce) landlords with empty properties to get them let and hence bring them back into productive use. They didn't need to say, of course, that the change would be a handy revenue raiser. The result? Landlords are now knocking down their empty buildings if they have stood empty for 3 months rather than pay the additional tax. This has left city landscapes, according to one of the Government's own advisers talking in this article in today's Guardian, looking like "rows of broken teeth".

Of course, the Government could not have foreseen the viciousness of the sudden economic downturn that has led to a glut of office property. Still, their refusal to listen to what business was telling them is indicative of their "we know best" attitude. As in their desire to speed up the housebuying process through the introduction of Home Information Packs, their intentions are good but the outcomes are the opposite of what they intended. Sometimes its just better not to meddle.

Vanilla Ice lookalike in plot to kill Obama

Has anyone else noticed the striking similarity between Tharin Gartrell, one of the men picked up in an alleged plot to kill Barack Obama, and Vanilla Ice, sometime 1980s rapper and most recently famous in the UK for appearing in celebrity 'reality' show "The Farm". Have they ever been seen in the same room together? I think we should be told.

New Labour VIP lane proposals defy logic

News this morning of another staggeringly stupid transport proposal from New Labour. The Times reports on plans to introduce a single toll lane on motorways, purportedly to ease congestion. The idea is that if you can afford and wish to pay the toll, you can whizz past the stationary traffic that either can't afford and/or is unwilling to pay. Not surprisingly, The Times has dubbed them 'VIP lanes'.

Despite the almost universal unpopularity of road pricing in the UK, the government and local authorities seem determined to press ahead with it. This, apparently, is all down to the "success" of the London congestion charge, which has reduced the number of vehicles entering the London zone but not congestion, as Transport for London itself admits. The planners who implemented the charge could not stop themselves from further meddling and their accompanying traffic calming schemes and traffic light phasing has reversed the gains that the reduced vehicles should have brought.

If the London scheme, then, has established the logic of hitting all drivers in the pocket to influence their decision to travel, how does the Government possibly follow that logic to conclude that introducing a single toll lane on a motorway will do the same job? If you want to cut congestion on a motorway through road pricing, then surely you have to make all prospective drivers pay the same charge? Adding an extra lane that is toll only will do nothing to change the situation and hence behaviour of drivers who do not use it. They will be faced with exactly the same number of lanes as before and no reduction in their incentive to drive from A to B. In fact, they may have more incentive to drive as they will perceive that some cars may opt to pay to use the toll lane, hence reducing traffic in the 'free' lanes and speeding up their journey.

So where is the logic? How will this reduce congestion? All this will do is antagonise already cash strapped motorists who cannot afford the daily charge on their commute and have to sit there and watch as others who can afford it drive past them, probably with a smug smile on their face. The Government is worried that schemes such as this will just be viewed as another attempt to tax the motorist and with such ill thought through proposals as this, their worries are well founded.

Darling eats his words as economy stutters

When Alistair Darling rose to deliver the Budget to the House of Commons on 12 March 2008, I think he truly believed that the UK was

"better placed than other economies to withstand the slowdown in the global economy".

Unfortunately for Darling, the deterioration in the UK economy that was apparent even then has got worse. This week official figures showed that the UK's GDP was at a standstill, worse than expected by economists and the Treasury. So what did Darling mean when he said we were 'better placed'? The proposition can be better tested by asking the following question: how resilient will our economy prove to be in terms of growth, jobs and income compared to others? In turn, this then means comparing the ability of different economies to react to the crisis by a combination of lowering interest rates, reducing taxes, increasing government spending and redirecting jobs towards less affected sectors.

So, has GDP growth held up well compared to elsewhere? Although we now know it has slowed to a standstill, it has not at least yet gone into reverse as in the Eurozone, but has not held up as well as the US. The relative depth and length of the slowdown is not yet known but the UK will not be helped by its relatively high interest rates (3m LIBOR 5.7% compared to 5.0% in Eurozone and 2.0% in the US) and an inability, admittedly shared with others, to cut them for fear of stoking inflation further.

In addition, the UK's budget deficit is relatively high at 3.8% (US 2.4%, Eurozone 0.9%), implying that the Government has less wiggle room to bail out the economy, via tax cuts or increased spending, than elsewhere. So it looks as if the UK will not escape a recession and may suffer from a deeper and longer one if one compares the tools with which a recession might be alleviated.

The UK's labour market is probably second only to the USA in terms of flexibility but then it is more exposed to the worse affected sectors (finance and construction) than the rest of the Eurozone - so it will need that flexibility. The number of people unemployed rose by 60,000 in the three months to June, taking the total to 1.67 million. The number of people claiming jobless benefits in July rose by 20,100 to 864,700, the sixth consecutive rise in the claimant count and the biggest jump since 1992. Eurozone unemployment was, by comparison, flat in Q2 (US unemployment rose at the fastest pace for six years).

UK consumer debt as a proportion of GDP (just over 100%) is greater than the US and almost double than the rest of Europe (according to Sir Howard Davies, writing in The Times). This suggests that UK consumer spending will be hit harder in a downturn than elsewhere as a greater proportion of household spending is taken up with interest bills. Expect more personal insolvencies and house reposessions.

I would not conclude from the above, then, that the UK is 'better placed' than elsewhere to ride out the downturn. Far from it. More jobs will be lost and more homes will be repossessed than our competitors, apart from the US which will bounce back faster. Gordon Brown stands alone, Canute like, in his rosy predictions of how the economy will shortly bounce back from its woes. His own Treasury is busily rewriting its forecasts to show the economy heading into recession. Alistair Darling's words have truly come back to haunt him.

What is football doing in the Olympics?

Hands up if you can find a single person, fan or not, who is in favour of professional footballers playing at the Olympics. What are they doing there? Football already has a massive global event that takes place every four years in the World Cup and no real football fans give a toss who wins the Olympic gold (apart from the winners, of course).

If ever there was a sport whose participants displayed the complete opposite of what the (admittedly tarnished) Olympic ideal is supposed to be all about, it has to be football. Overpaid, strutting, petulant and puffed up on their own self-importance...no, not the IOC, the footballers. I guess when the powerful lobby force that represents football decided it couldn't miss out on the global coverage the Olympics brings, its inclusion was inevitable.

Ditto tennis. A good test for inclusion could be whether or not the Olympics would represent the absolute pinnacle, the crowning glory, of every participating athlete's sporting career. For tennis players, they care far more about the annual US Open starting immediately the Olympics nds than the once every four years event. I dare say Andy Murray wasn't that upset that his early and undignified exit from the Olympics gave him some extra preparation time for Flushing Meadow.

Seeing as professional athletes are allowed in pretty much every sporting discipline in the Olympics, why aren't they allowed in boxing? We would get the deciphering of the alphabet soup of champions from different sanctioning bodies, no more contenders ducking each other for a big money pay day down the line...just the best against the best in a 2 week winner takes all contest for nothing more valuable than a gold medal (OK... maybe a bit of sponsorship afterwards). That would be worth watching.

The flaws in New Labour education policy

I have been stewing over Lord Adonis’s article yesterday in The Times in which he came out strongly against critics of the Government’s schools policy. Below are my observations on what he had to say:

“When the GCSE results are released today there will be the usual “dumbing down” claims about the number gaining A and A* grades and taking vocational subjects. It is of a piece with those criticising Team GB's “inadequate” Olympic success because state schools should be providing more Olympians.”

No, the two criticisms are unrelated. The former are concerned with the slipping of standards generally. The latter are concerned at the relative failure of the public sector to produce high standards.

“But a different sort of elitism lurks behind much of this carping. It is the class-based elitism that instinctively wants to ration success and cap the aspirations of the less advantaged. The underlying premise is that there is a fixed pool of talent in society.”

There is a fixed pool! Logic dictates that there are only so many pupils capable of achieving the highest standards, be they from the public or private sector. Not all pupils are born with equal intelligence. One part of the challenge is to remove the hurdles preventing the bright pupils born into poorer households from achieving the high standards they are capable of. A second and separate part is how to raise the standards of those children and schools at the bottom of the performance pile. The failure to distinguish between these two issues is the root cause of the failure of New Labour's education policy.

“So every August we are told that increased success rates demonstrate declining standards in state schools (increased success in private schools, by contrast, is usually put down to hard work and good teaching).”

The Adonis formula, as per his article? Recruit better teachers through better pay. Make it easier and faster for suitably qualified graduates to enter teaching. Improve the standards of leadership by giving suitable training to head teachers. Increase the numbers of trust schools and academies to raise standards. All obvious points that are uncontroversial (although teachers might disagree with Adonis’s point that their pay is now at the right level to achieve the recruitment goal).

It is Adonis’s last suggestion that is most telling, however:

“Thirdly, we need a modern curriculum that provides high-quality vocational qualifications beyond 14. For too long the curriculum beyond the age of 14 has been restricted to academic subjects; and too many students with different aptitudes and interests have left - usually at 16 - with few, if any, qualifications. This has to change, so we are introducing a wider range of vocational diplomas and from 2015 raising the education and training participation age to 18.”

Adonis is implicitly saying here (and explicitly elsewhere) that vocational courses are of equal worth to the individual and society (further education, employers etc.) as academic qualifications. He has gone as far elsewhere as to level snide accusations of “intellectual snobbery” at those that disagree. Academic learning is about attaining a set of skills (e.g. the ability to digest information, communicate it, make analytical decisions, perform under pressure etc) that are crucial to making a success of life.

Some children will naturally do better at this than others. Some other children might have achieved success but have been denied the tools to achieve those qualifications. For some children, who do not stand a realistic chance of academic achievement, it is right to substitute the academic qualifications for vocational ones. But please do not pretend that they are of equivalent value because they just aren’t. If they are easier to learn and pass, they are of lesser value. Not of no value, just lesser.

To claim otherwise is a betrayal of the children who undertake vocational qualifications and wilful self-delusion by defenders of the Government policy such as Lord Adonis. The ultimate goal is laudable, to raise up the educational standards of those pupils and schools at the bottom of the pile nearer to those of the top. Unfortunately, like most things the dead hand of the state gets involved with, all they achieve through their top down, one size fits all approach is to ensure those at the bottom stay there and condemn those who could better themselves to a life of potential unfulfilled.

p.s. see the comment from the Construction Industry Training Board at the bottom of this Anastasia De Waal article in today’s Guardian for a succint summation of the value of vocational qualifications.

Democrats realise they are in a dogfight

If the Democrats didn't realise they were in a dogfight, they do now. Much gnashing of teeth in the US media at John McCain's apparent catching and, according to one poll, overhauling Barack Obama. I said back in June that the Republicans should not be counted out and so it has proved.

McCain and his team have succeeded, so far, in making the election less of a poll on the state of the USA and more of a referendum on his opponent. If the Republicans are able to maintain that line of attack, they stand a chance of sneaking back in come November. For the Democrats, they have to try and move the focus of the fight back onto the economy whilst simultaneously reassuring undecided voters that Obama will not try and turn the US into a socialist utopia or lean over backwards to appease the likes of Russia and Iran.

The race, according to the polls, has never been anything other than tight and, as I wrote the other day, will be decided on the outcomes in a small number of swing states, as usual. Obama's success in persuading the classic 'Clinton' blue-collar Democrat supporter to vote for him will be important. The key, however, will be the turnout: the ability of each side to mobilise their core vote on the day.

Here, the Democrats have an advantage as Obama has done an incredible job of enthusing a vast swathe of people, especially young people. There is a questionmark over John McCain's ability similarly to enthuse the Republican base of evangelical Christians who were so influential in getting George Bush to the White House.

The Democrats seem to have now woken up and realised they are in a scrap, releasing a series of targeted attack ads in crucial states. With the announcement of Vice-Presidential running mates imminent and the conventions just around the corner, things are hotting up.

Tory 'fairness' claim puts Labour on back foot

The Tories have gone on the attack. By laying claim to be the new party of fairness, Osborne and Cameron are taking the fight to New Labour on their territory. This is a tactically astute move.

George Osborne's article in today's Guardian follows up on the Conservatives' recent attempt to reposition themselves as the only party capable of healing the country's social rifts. This ideological land grab would have had Labour supporters choking over their cornflakes this morning with what they would see as a cheeky attempt to colonise further their core values.

Whether or not the attempt by the Tories is successful, it is certainly tactically astute. At a time when the country eagerly awaits Gordon Brown's much heralded Autumn fightback, the last thing the Government wants is to have to expend valuable political capital in defending its own territory. It wants to do the opposite - take the fight to the Tories, questioning their policies and forcing them on to the back foot.

Does George Osborne's claim stand up to scrutiny? I suppose it depends on what your definition of fairness is. Osborne cites the benchmarks of life expectancy, inequality and social mobility (child poverty is another but the Conservatives are on shakier ground there). I am yet to hear a reasoned defence by a New Labour advocate as to why, on their watch, they have allowed (a) the gap between rich and poor to grow wider than ever before and (b) it to get harder than ever for people to climb the ladder.

The Tories may not yet convince that their number one priority is to help those at the bottom of the pile and to bridge the gap between rich and poor. But that they are even able to take aim at the topic shows just how much New Labour has failed in living up to its fundamental principles.

Labour quick to jump on Olympics bandwagon

In a post over on Labourhome, Richard Caborn, the Sports Minister, is already crowing about how our national success in Beijing is all down to a far sighted Labour Government and its investment in sport.

What an absolute @rse...Christine Ohuruogu's tears have hardly dried on her cheeks and New Labour are already spinning us a line. "We have put ‘great’ back into Great Britain this weekend.", claims Caborn, when we all know that it was John Major's decision to pay over lottery money towards UK sport that have indirectly led to this success. Lottery money that New Labour have consistently staged smash and grab raids on to fund their other spending priorities.

Right now, politicians of all hues should be getting behind the team, thanking them for their efforts and basking in their reflected glow. To try and play party politics (albeit poorly) is just going to backfire. Bad judgement from Richard Caborn.

Lessons for politicians from GB Olympic success

More sport/politics comparisons while we wait for Westminster pantomime to take the relay baton from the Beijing circus. Picking up on themes elsewhere today, Steve Richards has written a lazy article in The Independent today looking at the positive link between increased lottery funding for sports and the record gold medal haul in the Olympics for ‘Team GB’ (where did that come from by the way?) and concluding that the answer to all society’s ills is to spend more money on them.

There is a world of difference in the effectiveness of chucking money at a problem when the state sector gets involved (as Guido Fawkes has pointed out) but Steve Richards has also missed the crucial fact that our Olympic success has come not just from lavishing money on sports in general but from controversially targeting the increased funding only at those sports that have been successful. So cycling, rowing and sailing (all successful areas in the past) have all seen big dollops of money lavished on them in recent years. Unsuccessful sports like athletics and judo have seen and will see their grants cut.

Could this approach be successfully translated to the arena of public services? I am not suggesting that a failing school, for example, is dealt with just by cutting its budget but the use of financial incentives for individuals can be highly effective. Rewarding success and penalising failure offers an incentive for people who want to achieve better and a route out of mediocrity. Poor standards should not be tolerated and we must have the ability to replace underperforming staff, wherever they are found.

This does present something of a ‘chicken and the egg’ conundrum for the less successful (be they a school, hospital or a sport) that can only look on enviously at the level of spending elsewhere. How you deal with a poorly performing area that wants to improve but cannot is tricky. I would suggest that poor performers be taken over by the better performers in order to spread proven best practice. In reality this means good schools taking over bad schools and successful sports taking under their umbrella the running of less successful ones.

Politically difficult this may be but it must stand a better chance of success in raising standards than the blunderbuss approach that New Labour have taken to improving public services over the last decade. Perhaps the politicians can take away a valuable lesson from Team GB’s Beijing success after all.

Is that the best you can do Yvette?

Yvette Cooper has launched the first broadside in New Labour's much heralded Autumn fightback with an article in today's Guardian (where else?). She has responded to the call from David Miliband to 'take the fight to the Tories' by laying into what she sees as "the risks and contradictions at the heart of Cameronomics".

What is the evidence for her claim? The Tories, apparently, have not put forward a position on various things like Northern Rock, the 10p tax issue, nuclear power and global commodity prices. Even if this were true, not setting out a policy (particularly on cleaning up cockups caused by the Government) is hardly a risk or a contradiction.

What else? Yvette doesn't like the fact that David Cameron has come out against a new runway at Heathrow, seeing that as running counter to the Conservatives' promise to concentrate on improving infrastructure when in power. Well, in principle, yes it does but, in practice, there is no logic to blindly throwing money at the UKs infrastructure problems without coldly assessing whether or not that money is being sensibly spent.

Cooper's main point though is that the Conservatives are promising lots of juicy unfunded spending promises and tax cuts. This is a tired old line that Osborne and co. are well practised in defending themselves from. The Tories have, in fact, been extremely careful not to leave themselves open to this charge, being very clear that tax cuts will only come as when the economy can afford it. Spending pledges? Well, this won't be the first time that an opposition has pledged to spend money on popular issues but the Tories have thus made only vague suggestions that may or may not be adhered to depending on the state of the economy when they take power.

My view is that the strategy of attacking the Conservatives, which we will see more and more of over the next few months, actually plays into the David Cameron's hands. This is because (a) the Conservatives are well prepared to repel the assault and (b) it serves only to highlight the emptiness that lies at the heart of New Labour. What the public want to hear is what the Government is proposing to do to get the UK out of its current predicament, not to hear them constantly sniping at what the opposition may or may not do in a couple of years time.

Cooper's approach only reinforces the impression that New Labour have simply run out of ideas of their own and have to resort to taking digs at their opponents. James Purnell's pronouncements on welfare reform, which at least suggested the government was thinking about ways to cut its expenditure, was a good start and should have provided a blueprint for how New Labour should relaunch itself. If the Government relies on the same old lines of attack a la Cooper, all they will get is the same old result at the polls.

Musharraf resignation: good or bad for Pakistan?

President Musharraf has this morning announced his resignation as President of Pakistan in order to avoid being impeached. Like him or loathe him, he has dominated Pakistani politics since seizing power in a coup in 1999. Co-opted as an ally into the war on terror, his closeness to, and reliance on aid from, the West sat uneasily with a population with a fierce Islamic streak and only partial control over much of its terrain.

One school of thought suggests that the departure of Musharraf from front line politics will be a good thing for Pakistan, as it will remove what has proved a massive distraction for the political elite. Pakistan is a country riven with problems, from its rebellious provinces to its stuttering economy and entrenched poverty. PPP’s Asif Zardari and the PML (N)’s Nawaz Sharif can now stop playing power politics and get on with solving some of these issues.

On the other hand, it could be argued that the removal of President Musharraf from the scene could present Pakistan with another, perhaps unexpected, problem. The country's politicians focusing on Musharraf has given them an issue upon which they are very much agreed. It has given them a point around which their flaky coalition can coalesce and solidify. The danger is that without this issue to unite them, their differences will once again emerge and their coalition break apart. The old adage of being careful what you wish for may prove true for the long suffering people of Pakistan.

Jobsworth alert

Two excellent examples today of absolutely moronic officialdom:

1. This bus driver in Darlington, who ordered a 13 year old girl off a bus (forcing her to walk 2 miles home in the dark on her own) because her pass expired at 9pm. The time? 9.01. Nice work, bus driver!

2. These nameless officials at the Maritime and Coastguard Agency who have carpeted lifeguards in Hope Cove, South Devon, for using a boat, recently repaired but awaiting a seaworthiness certificate, to rescue a drowning 13 year old girl. The lifeguards (volunteers) have all been threatened with disciplinary action and the boat has been locked up. Nice work, Maritime and Coastguard Agency!

I'd like to blame New Labour somehow for this but I think there is just a streak of moron that runs through all petty officials in the UK that surfaces from time to time.

FIFA Mutu decision perverse and immoral

FIFA's decision to back Chelsea in their claim against their former player Adrian Mutu is wrong, wrong, wrong. I thought that when the original verdict was announced and now that they have perversely increased the fine and I have a blog, I am writing it too.

Adrian Mutu had a cocaine addiction when he played for Chelsea. They found out and decided to terminate his contract, leaving him free to play elsewhere and the club with a Mutu-sized hole in its accounts. How can it be right that the club can now pursue him for the amount it cost them to buy him?

If you own a business and buy another company, you do your due diligence. You check out the company, do your research and ask questions. You may even ask the sellers to guarantee certain things about the company and what they tell you about it, on pain of financial penalty. Chelsea bought an asset in Mutu that was flawed. That was unfortunate for them but what is the difference in that and buying a company only to find that there is a black hole in the accounts? In those circumstances a buyer would pursue the sellers for their loss.

Mutu is not a business, however (and Chelsea themselves would be far from a going concern without Abramovitch). But did Chelsea not still have a duty to mitigate their loss? The club did have a choice - they did not have to terminate Mutu's contract. They could have sold him on as soon as he failed his drug test, when he still would have commanded a significant, albeit reduced transfer fee. Witness Joey Barton's transfer from Manchester City to Newcastle after having been arrested for violently assaulting teammate Ousmane Dabo.

Chelsea could also have responded by treating Mutu with sympathy, recognising perhaps that his positive test for cocaine was as a result of an addiction with which they could help him. There is no obligation upon an employer to do this but an enlightened one might still choose to do so, particularly if the drug use was outside of work (which it was in Mutu's case) and did not actually affect their work (presumably it didn't for Mutu but we can never know).

Top flight football brings with it its own set of pressures for young men thrust into the public eye and rewarded with ridiculous amounts of money. Instead of doing harm to Chelsea's reputation, as they claimed, their reputation might actualy have been enhanced had they opted to forgive Mutu, help him through a drug treatment programme and then use him as an example to their young fans as a path they should not follow.

I don't know what was in the fine print of Mutu's contract...maybe it did state that he had to repay his transfer fee if he failed a drug test and thus breached his contract. But I doubt it. The original decision by FIFA was perverse and immoral. In now raising the amount Mutu is required to pay to Chelsea, they are now adding insult to injury and showing themselves (not for the first time) to have a total lack of good sense.

As for Chelsea, they show themselves to be both vindictive and bullying. Having made the stupid decision to sack Mutu in the first place, they have now managed to get their mates over at FIFA to gang up with them to try and destroy Mutu's career and his life. The next time you hear Kenyon and co. talk about what a bad example Mutu set or the damage done to Chelsea's reputation, please think about whether their acceptance of the on field antics of their players - intimidating referees, turning their backs when being booked, generally moaning and diving - show the club in a better or worse light than Mutu's lapse of judgement. Chelsea fans should feel ashamed of their club and I sincerely hope that Mutu emerges from this battle as the victor.

Michael Phelps, Milton Friedman and A Level results

How do you measure greatness? If you are an Olympian, one way would be to count your medals. Michael Phelps, the freakish half-man, half-fish, is being touted as the greatest Olympian ever due to his winning a record eleventh career gold medal yesterday.

Matthew Syed in The Times today has argued that Phelps cannot be considered the greatest because swimming is...well...boring. Essentially, swimming's different events are just variations on a theme and it hands out medals like confetti. In this regard, says Syed, swimming should take note of Milton Friedman who pointed out that if you print more banknotes than an economy needs you will not make it wealthier but poorer, as inflation will debase the value of its assets. That is to say, you can't increase the greatness of a winning athlete by simply issuing him or her with more medals.

What's my point? The point is that perhaps those in charge of setting the educational standards for A Levels should take note. Annual results were released today and (guess what?) the overall pass rate has risen to beyond 97 per cent for the first time - the 28th straight increase. A Levels are becoming increasingly impossible to fail, rendering them less and less usefull as indicators of academic achievement.

The Government, naturally, fiercely denies this as to do so would give the lie to their claim to have improved academic standards over the last 11 years. Why then are they simultaneously proposing changes (the introduction of an elite A* grade, harder essay-style questions and a dissertation) to make them harder? This is a tacit admission that A-level quality has deteriorated in recent years.

The Government has added to the problem by introducing a new qualification, the Diploma, to eventually replace the A Level but not, apparently, intended to undermine it. Make sense of that if you can. Meanwhile, the better schools are abandoning the A Level for the International Baccalaureate or supplementing it with the new Pre-U exam introduced by Cambridge (harking back to the old tradition of the S-Level in my day).

Grade inflation has eaten away at the value of exam results over time, reducing their worth to the economy and hoodwinking students each year into thinking they are the cleverest, brightest students this country has ever produced. This is a sad betrayal of their naive trust in the education system to do its job.

Olympics a boon to the lazy

If, like me, you do not have to leave the house each day to go to work, the Olympics are a real boon. I cannot tell you how great it is to wake up each day to Olympic Breakfast on BBC1, catching up on all my new favourite sports. For the inveterate timewaster, being able to lose yourself in the intricacies of rowing, archery or weightlifting is a blessing indeed.

Of course I console myself with the thought that I am at least reading the news or writing this blog whilst I am watching but...come on...who am I kidding? Anyone for beach volleyball?

Russia: realpolitik is not a dirty word

Realpolitik is not a dirty word, it is the basis upon which the real world is governed. This truth has been laid bare by the Georgian-Russian conflict. In the real world, powerful nations reach an accommodation with one another based upon their relative influence in the world and their national self-interest. Supranational bodies such as the UN and the EU have proven themselves to be little more than window-dressing, talking shops that allow politicians to make impassioned but futile pleas for action, usually more for the benefit of their domestic audiences.

Liberal interventionism (an oxymoron if ever there was one) has been shown to be a sham, a figleaf that strangely is only called upon when large and powerful countries in the West want to assert their interests over smaller and weaker countries. The winning of the Cold War removed the counterweight to the US and has led to it foolishly believing its own rhetoric. If you are going to talk the talk, you’ve got to be able to walk the walk and the West has had its bluff called and been too selective in its interventions, too many times.

Georgia, in over reaching itself in South Ossetia, has foolishly tweaked the tail of the Russian tiger and has paid the price. But the West has been tweaking the Russian tail with its meddling in the Caucuses, its bullheaded insistence on its missile defence system in Eastern Europe and its lecturing on democracy and human rights. Russia has been itching to slap down its southern neighbour and remind the world that it will not be pushed around.

There has been much angst about who fired the first shot but, in truth, the answer to that question does not matter a jot. Bleating about right and wrong will not change the situation on the ground. We can fulminate at the bullying belligerence of Russia, throw it out of the G8 and cancel joint military manouevres but in the end we have no choice but to find a way to get along with Russia. We are today intertwined in a global system of finance and commerce, not to mention facing the shared threat of climate change, which means we have no other choice. We may have to hold our noses but realpolitik is the only policy that gets results.

All fathers-to-be to undergo criminal records check

"The Department For Schools, Children and Families have announced that their guidelines that call for anyone coming into contact with children to undergo a criminal records check will extend to fathers-to-be. Any man whose wife or partner is pregnant will from now on have to be vetted by the CRB."

The above is not true. Yet. However, this is the headline that you can soon expect to see if this all controlling, interfering government gets its way. Not content with sticking their noses into the practice of parents lending a hand in driving the school minibus or even taking their own kid to school, the Government has now decided that any firm wishing to offer kids some work experience must get all their staff vetted by the Criminal Records Bureau.

This is getting beyond a joke. Taking kids on work experience is always a bit of a chore for companies but they do it because (a) they are probably doing a favour for a friend or relative and (b) they know how helpful it can be for children to get some exposure to the world of work early on (I know it was invaluable for me). If, as a business owner, you had to get all your staff checked by the CRB in order to take work placement kids that you were reluctant to take in the first place, tell me, would you bother?

Look, nobody wants paedophiles driving their kids to football practice but we have to draw get a sense of proportion. This relentless drive to check people, even in innocuous situations, is fostering an atmosphere of mistrust and is deterring honest, law abiding citizens from doing volunteer work with children, making the children's lives worse off as a result.

Read this article in today's Independent for a good discussion of the subject.

Not busy Gordon? Why don't you write a book?

You are the Prime Minister of the UK. Things have not been going that well for you lately. The economy is slowing, threatening to put people out of work. People are unhappy at rising bills and expect you to do something about it. Crisis has overtaken the banking and finance sector, ripping the heart of the UK housing market. Russia is flexing its muscles in Georgia, setting back the cause of global peace. Your colleagues are muttering darkly about your performance and thinking about knifing you between the shoulder blades. All this must be dealt with alongside the normal course of everyday government business.

Your supporters are desperate for you to take a lead, to show some of the vision you promised the country when you took office. In these troubled times, Britain needs a Prime Minister ready to roll up his sleeves, lead from the front and work tirelessly, night and day, to come up with the solutions to the country's ailments. You are, in short, quite busy.

So, why the @#@# is Gordon Brown wasting his precious Prime Ministerial time writing another sodding book??!! Not content with wantonly destroying a whole bunch of precious trees with his last mind numbing tome on "Courage", this time he is boring everyone into submission with a book on "Britishness". Why is it that just because a person is good at one thing (in Brown's case, let's be generous and say its climbing the greasy pole), that they automatically think they will be a good writer and that people will want to read what they write (ahem)?

When asked how he finds the time to write, Brown said "I get up early and write first thing in the morning." What? If you 'get up early', why don't you read some bloody briefings or think about how to get the country out of the hole its in? Don't waste your and our time writing a bloody book! How unbelievably vain and self-indulgent of him.

Olympics & drugs: not clean just undetected

Ask yourself: what will be going through your mind as the men line up for the 100m final in two weeks time? As the cameras flash, there will be a sense of excitement at the sheer occasion, the spectacle of the flagship event. But there will also be a nagging sense of doubt as we wonder not if, but how many of the finalists have managed to evade the testers and run with the benefit of performance enhancing drugs.

Simon Barnes has written a thoughtful article in The Times today promoting the idea that we just stop testing for drugs and let the athletes get on with it. He wonders why it is that we are opposed to the idea of drugs in sport in the first place and it is worth stopping and asking yourself the same question. Barnes posits the following suggestions: that we are just squeamish about the thought of injecting drugs into our bodies; that drugs are dangerous; they they are immoral; that a user is putting their own interests ahead of their nation or some other higher ideal.

I would say that it is all of these things and more. Gaining an advantage via the administering of non-natural substances goes against our innate sense of fairness. We want our sporting contests to be on a level playing field and if someone tilts the balance they are labelled cheats and pilloried as a result.

But who decides what is acceptable and what is not? Is it OK, for example, to train at high altitude? Is it OK to shave your head to be more streamlined in the pool? To wear performance enhancing kit like Speedo's new Lazer swimsuit? Get corrective laser eye surgery to improve your natural vision?

Perhaps we will look back one day and laugh, as Simon Barnes suggests, at today's objection to performance enhancing drugs as quaint. The advent of unidentifiable genetic tampering in sport may make these kind of ethical choices redundant fairly soon anyway, if it has not already begun. This will force us to consider wider questions such as why might it be OK to tamper with genes to eradicate certain hereditary illnesses but not to select the sex of a child?

So, I for one will be watching these Olympics through cynical eyes. One by one, the main sports, athletics, swimming, cycling and others, have fallen under the siren call of doping, their records discredited and champions cast into the sporting wilderness. The 100m final may be clean of drugs this year but, to my mind, that is just the same as being undetected.

Younoodle - the return of dotcom tomfoolery

It seemed like the heady days of Spring 2000 had returned yesterday with the launch of a new website, Younoodle, about which there is apparently a lot of 'buzz'.

During the dotcom boom, it seemed like anyone with a bright idea could turn it into an online business plan and investors would queue up to throw money at it. My friend, Erik Portanger, wrote the quintessential account of a dotcom in "Boo Hoo - A Dot Com Story", which details the mind-boggling rise and fall of Boo.com, the online fashion/sports retailer.

Younoodle has announced its presence to the wider world via the launch of its "Startup Predictor", an online tool that it claims will accurately predict the success or otherwise of your startup business and what it will be worth in a few years time. The tool, Younoodle says, uses algorithms developed by them to analyse factors such as the founder's education, previous salary, location and business description to come up with a figure. Otherwise sensible journalists have commented how useful such a tool might be for potential investors.

This is ridiculous. To demonstrate this fact, I have faithfully entered the details of this blog into the Startup Predictor. I am a reasonably well educated person who previously enjoyed a high salary and described my startup thus: 'GLC provides original analysis of UK and international current affairs'. Investment thus far is £0, the only employee is me and I opened for business in June 2008. According to the predictor, this startup will be worth $24.2 million by June 2011. Great! [see the "certificate" issued by Younoodle above]

Valuing a startup is a tricky business and an investor must rely on experience and gut instinct as well as a healthy dose of luck. For every one investment that does well, an investor should expect to have another ten amount to nothing. A computer program that purports to replicate this will never be anything more than an amusing sideshow for investors and a vehicle for daydreaming by would-be entrepreneurs.

I'm not sure if the over-excited employees at Younoodle really believe in their predictor but it certainly has succeeded in generating some decent press coverage for themselves, albeit in a quiet week for business news. I suspect that is the real point behind this. Looking at their website, the predictor seems incidental to their main function as a more mundane social networking site bringing startups and investors together.

When they crunched their own details into the predictor, it came up with a figure of $96 million by 2010 (wizard!). Using my own predictive tool with bespoke algorithms (my brain), I predict not such a bright future for them. Besides, if the tool really is that good, why don't they just keep quiet about it, launch their own fund and make millions that way?

Darling stands up to batty Hattie

Alistair Darling has copped his fair share of abuse since accepting the poisoned chalice of the Treasury. It seems has done nothing but apologise, make excuses and backtrack since he took office. So when he actually does something worth applauding, he should be given his due recognition for it.

The FT today carries a story about how the Treasury has objected to Harriet Harman's lunatic plans to make all companies that do business with the government (30% of all UK businesses) submit a report on their "gender pay gap" and how many disabled people and people from ethnic minorities they employ. This information is to be used as a tiebreaker if two or more companies are otherwise equal on value for money offered to the taxpayer.

As someone who used to run a medium sized company, I can tell you that government imposed red tape is choking businesses in the UK. There isn't a corner left that the government has not imposed some sort of regulation, restriction or burden on. I am sure that the regulations were for the most part drafted with good intentions but, as we all know, the road to hell is paved with such things.

The Treasury has sensibly pointed out that the government has a stated aim (sadly unfulfilled and now we can see why) of cutting red tape for business in this country, not increasing it. Red tape is beaurocratic, fiddly, time consuming and expensive. It disproportionately disadvantages small businesses who have to comply in equal measures as large businesses. This measure will therefore discourage small businesses from applying for goverment contracts, again running counter to one of the government's other stated aims.

Ominously, Harriet Harman is already threatening to try and overrule Alistair Darling, stressing that the requirements were already being developed: “This does not need to wait for specific legislation.”, she said.

What will happen if the two companies offering identical value for money are also equal in their gender pay and employment quotas? Is there to be some qualitative assessment of the number of black people or one-legged dwarves employed? 10 points for a lesbian, 15 points for a blind person...that sort of thing? Madness.

Jacqui Smith - this is why we don't intervene

Linda Buchanan, a 48 year old commuter, was lucky not be killed yesterday when a couple of yobs pushed her onto a railway line, just because she asked them to stop smoking. I wonder if she had been listening to the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, who last week exhorted citizens to intervene if they observed anti-social behaviour?

"I would never say 'Don't get involved'. .....I hope that we don't live – and I don't believe incidentally that we do live – in a country where people aren't willing to stand up for others."

If you try and intervene, you risk getting spat on, punched, knifed or thrown onto a live railway line. The odds are not in your favour because if someone is committing a crime or otherwise being anti-social, then they are more likely to be the type of person that won't think twice about doing you over.

If New Labour hadn't set about skewing the criminal justice system in favour of understanding and rehabilitation of criminals instead of deterrent, then perhaps society wouldn't be in a position where we fear even to stand up for ourselves.

Good news and bad news for Obama

Focus in the US Presidential election lately has been on John McCain's new rabbit punching, eye gouging persona and the apparent boost in the polls that has given him. Depending on which national poll you look at, Obama is still out in front or McCain's strategy has worked and the candidates are now too close to call or McCain has even taken a slight lead (albeit briefly).

This is bad news for Obamafans, used to double digit poll leads. National polls, however, are irrelevant as the election will be decided on a small number of swing states. It should be remembered that only 3 states, all small, switched sides between 2000 and 2004 (Iowa, New Hampshire and New Mexico). When the latest polling in the 10 most important swing states is analysed, you can see that Obama supporters have no room for complacency, with only Ohio, Virginia and Colorado predicted to switch sides this time:

California (55 electoral votes): 15.3% lead for Obama
Florida (27): 1.6% for McCain
Pennsylvania (21): 7.4% for Obama
Ohio (20): 0.5% for Obama
Michigan (17): 4.3% for Obama
N Carolina (15): 3.7% for McCain
Virginia (13): 1.0% for Obama
Missouri (11): 2.0% for McCain
Minnesota (10): 5.3% for Obama
Colorado (9): 1.7% for Obama

[source: RealClearPolitics]

There is good news and bad news for Obama in this. The good: California looks in the bag (it probably always was but Hispanic voters coming out for Obama has sealed it). The gap has narrowed in Florida to the point where this vital state could go either way (again). Pennsylvania, an absolute must hold, looks solid. Ohio, Republican last time (just) is up for grabs.

The bad news is that John McCain has narrowed the gap almost across the board over the last couple of months. Obama has his nose in front where it matters but it really is very close in all but a few swing states. Obama's deeper pockets will help him sustain the fight in what is a large number of states that could potentially swing this time or, at least, force the Republicans to spend time and money defending supposedly safe seats. Vice-presidential candidates will be announced soon - expect the candidates to pick the running mates that can help them most in the marginal states. McCain, as expected, is making a fight of it - this is going to be another tight race.

New Labour misses opportunity of lifetime

New Labour are missing a once in a generation opportunity to portray themselves as the party that tamed Mammon. This thought struck me this morning as I was reading this well written article over on LabourHome on why New Labour should get behind Gordon Brown. I don't agree with everything Free Radical has written (particularly the part about Gordon Brown being a "brilliant" Chancellor) but a lot of it rings true. The paragraph that caught my attention was this one:

"Moreover, since Brown is currently being attacked primarily by the far right of our Party he will become rather more dependent upon the centre-left and the Trade Unions, and the repulsing of such an attack means that social democracy has some hope of being back upon the political agenda (strengthened by a crisis of capitalism) for the first time in perhaps thirty years."

I have made the point elsewhere that the crisis that has engulfed global finance will inevitably lead to a prolonged period of tighter regulation and stricter capital requirements by governments and regulators. There is near universal agreement that there should be no repeat of the lax oversight of credit provision and its accompanying exploitation that has led us into the current mess.

This systemic failure has provided New Labour with a window of opportunity to reassert their social democratic credentials. Any move to limit the market's ability to repeat its excesses would find favour, at least temporarily, with an electorate that is currently disgusted and disappointed in the failure of global finance to keep its house in order.

Having been in thrall to the markets for all these years thanks to the Blair/Brown Faustian bargain struck in 1997, New Labour finally has a chance to reconnect with its roots and do something to back up its claim to be the party of social justice and fairness it so desperately wants to be. Instead, it has succumbed to finger pointing and infighting as they argue about who gets to captain the sinking ship.

The debate is not about big vs small government or even libertarianism vs authoritarianism. Increased regulation of finance and banking is coming and will be here in double quick time if the Democrats retain or increase their hold on Congress and Obama takes the Presidency. The only question for the UK is whether it will be New Labour or the Conservatives that get to implement it. It is ironic that its implosion means New Labour will miss its once in a generation opportunity. Unless it can pull its head out of the sand, it probably won't even realise.

The FA's "Respect" agenda is a joke

There is much that is wrong with football in England. The boring dominance by the same teams year after year. The cynical treatment of fans. The wrist slitting inability to qualify for major championships. Perhaps the worst thing, though, is the behaviour of the elite players.

Globalisation of the game over a decade of prosperity has seen the players' rewards rise to eye wateringly high levels. They rule the roost over their clubs, strut and preen off the field like movie stars and get up everybody's noses. It is on the field, however, that their actions are really offensive: diving, spitting, wagging fingers, waving imaginary cards, crowding around referees and generally behaving like petulant children. It is no wonder then that kids (and their parents)are copying their idols, abusing and intimidating referees and becoming increasingly aggressive on the field.

Everyone says that something needs to be done and yet, each year, nothing happens. This season, the FA has come up with the wizard idea of the "Respect" agenda, which is apparently going to deal with the problem by having the captain meet with the referee prior to kick off and making the players all shake hands before the kick off. As far as I can tell, the only new instruction is for referees to "stand their ground" when players swarm around them to protest a decision (instead of legging it for the corner flag as they now do).

We have long accepted that the FA is a toothless waste of space. If they really think they can wish this problem away with meetings and handshakes, they are more clueless than we thought. If there really is a consensus within the game to take action - and I suspect the consensus may not include the most important constituent - i.e. the players - then this represents a massive missed opportunity.

A zero tolerance approach to dissent is the only way to drive this scourge out of the game. Tellingly, the FA ran a pilot scheme in the amateur leagues whereby only captains were permitted to speak with referees - surely a simple and effective step - but they have chosen not to implement this generally because referees apparently weren't "comfortable" with it. This is nonsense - it works brilliantly in rugby and should be implemented without delay.

Another innovation that should be brought over from rugby is sin-binning for yellow cards. A 10 minute spell in the bin acts as a significant deterrent to cynical play and the threat would surely cut down on dissent. Arming refs with a stronger sanction than the current system of bookings, will also put a stop to otherwise competitive games being spoiled by early or unnecessary red cards. Bringing in a television referee to give limited help to the ref on the pitch is also good sense and would take the heat out of contentious decisions - but as it has been much debated elsewhere I won't go into it here.

As usual, these new rules or new emphasis on existing rules (whatever you want to call them) will be ignored by October and forgotten by Christmas. Expect a continuation of players intimidating referees, spitting at each other and generally setting a bad example. I guarantee we'll be having the same debate come the off season next year.

Why suspending stamp duty won't work

Alistair Darling has today floated the idea of temporarily suspending stamp duty on house purchases to kickstart the housing market. This will, if enacted, presumably be part of the economic package to be announced after the Summer recess - part of Gordon's big fightback. This presents a number of problems:

1. Floating the idea ahead of implementation will be counter-productive. If you are contemplating a house purchase in the next few months, would you a. go ahead anyway and pay the extra tax to the government or b. defer the purchase until the temporary suspension kicks in?

2. The temporary nature of the suspension will lead to a reversal of the above situation as the end of the suspension approaches. This will lead to a rush of buyers seeking to complete ahead the deadline, creating a further market distortion.

3. The goal of a suspension would be to make houses affordable for those who, were it not for the extra tax, would otherwise be able to do so. However, this would only serve to counteract what is already going on in the housing market, which will keep falling until it finds its point of equilibrium, i.e. the point where buyers and sellers naturally want (and are able) to transact again. The suspension of stamp duty will put an artificial floor under house prices by temporarily boosting the buying power of purchasers, instead of letting house prices continue to fall until the purchasers can afford them without such help. The effect will be to put taxpayers' money - the tax the government would have received - into the pockets of sellers.

The proposal would do nothing to deal with the real issue - the gumming up of the mortgage market. If it cannot be ungummed then house prices will just need to keep falling to the point where first time buyers can meet the lenders' new, stricter criteria.

Now, if the Chancellor proposed permanently scrapping stamp duty, that would be a welcome fillip and worthy of support. But as the tax brings in £6.5 billion a year for the Treasury and the Government is not exactly flush with cash, that doesn't seem likely. If, as has also been suggested, purchasers will simply be allowed to defer the payment of stamp duty for a period rather than avoid it altogether, then, as this would have zero effect on the market, it should be ignored as a serious proposition. Either way, Labour should think twice before trailing ill thought out proposals that, by their very trailing, might distort the market.

Preaching Gove reveals Tory weakness

It is clear the Conservatives have been doing a lot of thinking of late. There have been plenty of announcements and speeches, brimming with ideas, as they seek to fill the policy void left by New Labour. However, they need to be very careful not to overreach themselves - as Michael Gove may have done this morning in exhorting publishers to tone down lads' mags such as Nuts and Zoo in order to stop "encouraging selfish irresponsibility among young men".

This was a mistake for two reasons. Firstly, it leaves them open to the Labour line of attack of being light on serious policy, when in fact the rest of Gove's speech revealed much that was of interest on Tory thinking about communities, families and education. The Tories may have calculated that the column inches that result from populist headlines were worth the collateral damage from such attacks... but the approach is a risky one.

Secondly, to an electorate already fed up with New Labour's nanny state approach, such talk sounds preachy and patronising. The Tory approach straddles two seemingly opposing ideas. On the one hand, they want to stand for 'smaller government', abandoning the all-encompassing, centrist approach to problem solving and rolling back the New Labour nanny state. On the other hand, they also want individuals to be held accountable for their actions, be it knife-wielding youths, absentee fathers or the publishers of lads' mags, implying more state action to counteract problem behaviour.

Add in the fact that global banking and finance sector is moving inevitably in the direction of greater regulation and government interference (post credit crunch), and it becomes apparent how difficult it will be for the Tories to satisfy both urges. This could be a fruitful point of attack for New Labour, if they ever get their house in order. The Conservatives need to be more careful.

Gordon Brown's Amazing Travelling Circus

With his back to the wall and perhaps one last chance to save his career, the PM has decided that the thing to do is hold a Cabinet meeting outside of London. Pat on the back for whichever bright spark in the marketing department thought of that one. Perhaps they were inspired by Sven Goran Eriksson taking his England football team for a trot around the country during the Wembley stadium refurbishment? And we all know how that turned out for Sven.

With his party crying out for him to pull a policy rabbit out of the hat, he and his team have reverted to the most transparent kind of gimmick politics. Dressed up as 're-connecting with the people' or some other kind of drivel, this type of announcement plays right into the Tories' hands. If this is the best they can come up with, there really will be no end to their bottoming out.

John McCain gets desperate

John McCain's Presidential campaign did not get off to the best of starts. The foreign affairs expert made some odd gaffes, repeatedly referring to Czechoslavakia (a country that hasn't existed for 15 years), claiming Iran is supporting Al Qaeda in Iraq (it isn't) and worrying about the situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border (there isn't one).

He has surprisingly shifted to the right on some policies, backing off shore oil drilling and promising to make George Bush's tax cuts permanent. This is surprising as it is customary for a candidate to shore up the base vote, on either the right or left, during the primaries before tacking towards the centre come election time.

His campaign at times has seemed disorganised and incoherent compared to the slickness of Barack Obama's operation. His promise to balance the budget through a mix of tax cuts and unidentified cost savings has not been received well. To be fair, his is the much harder task - trying to get elected in the teeth of an economic slowdown and on the back of a universally disliked Republican incumbent.

He has responded by shaking up his team, appointing a man known as "The Bullet" to take charge. The Bullett is Steve Schmidt, a disciple of Karl Rove, who is overseeing a much more aggressive strategy towards Obama. The new approach seeks to portray Obama is little more than a celebrity who, by implication, lacks substance (see http://www.whosaiditcelebrity.com/ and the Republican video that places Obama alongside Britney Spears and Paris Hilton...rightly derided by Danny Finkelstein here).

True, this approach has put Obama onto the back foot, at least temporarily. His lead on Mr McCain is down to an average of 2.9 per cent, from 4.7 per cent just a week ago. However, McCain's strategy carries a lot of risk. Personal, negative campaigning is just what he said he wouldn't do during the Primaries and risks alienating the undecided. It also risks putting too much of the focus on to his opponent, making it a referendum on his suitability. That may be exactly what he is trying to do, but if so, it is as good as admitting that he is losing the argument over policy. Going negative so early in the campaign smacks of desperation.