Overview of the Sunday Papers
August 10th, 2008-
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 Around 1,000 Georgian troops have been withdrawn from Iraq, as Russia demands that Georgia withdraws to its undisputed territory.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 Times is reporting that Gordon Brown is proposing a £150 fuel payment for all claimants of family allowance, at a cost of £1 billion.
We were the first to bring you the news of a new YouGov poll in the News of the World, which has the Conservatives leading Labour by 20-points on 46%.
In the Sunday Telegraph, Schools Minister Jim Knight has launched an attack on Foreign Secretary David Miliband for his half-hearted tilt at the leadership of the Labour Party.
The Independent on Sunday makes mention of Senator John Edwards’ admission of an affair with a campaign film-maker. He denies that he is the father of her child, and has said he will take a paternity test. I gave my initial thoughts on this scandal as an update to this thread.
The Sunday Express, perhaps unsuprisingly, gives the whole front page over to asking whether they have identified the abductor of Madelaine McCann.
From the blogosphere, Iain Dale notes that Gordon Brown is writing another book, this time on the theme of ‘Britishness’. ConservativeHome readers are being fairly critical of the brevity of Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague’s statement on South Ossetia. Markos Moulitsas over at Democrat-activist blog Daily Kos is praying that John McCain chooses Senator Joe Lieberman (Ind-CT) as his running-mate.
Morus
PS: Double Carpet (Paul Maggs) will be away for a few weeks, so please send any guest articles or other correspondance to me at morus1516 [AT] hotmail [DOT] com. Many thanks.
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History repeats itself. South Ossettia is Putin’s Sudetenland.
However, it seems the Georgians are up for a fight.
History repeats itself. Perhaps Georgia is Putin’s Finland.
Latest reports seem to indicate a large number of Russian tanks burning near the entrance to the Roki tunnel. This is the main access through the mountains from Russia to Georgia. If the Georgians can deny Russia use of this tunnel, they might just fight off the “Bear” long enough for winter to come to their rescue.
Are we surprised that the Express leads on Madelaine McCann? I’m surprised she hasn’t been found by Diana yet…
1. That analogy is the precise one I have been thinking. Russia would have penetrated the difficult Caucusus mountains, and have its troops fifty miles away on relatively flat land to Tbilisi.
Oh and the article in the Sunday Telegraph appears to be more about Milburn’s attack on Brown than about Jim Knight’s attack on Miliband. Ferrets in a sack anyone?
Anyway Jim Knight isn’t interested in the years after the next Election is he - with a majority of under 2000 he will be very lucky indeed to repeat his 2005 hold! Richard Drax will make an excellent addition to the Commons…
From the News of the World
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/columnists/article9689.ece
On the Georgia invasion.
Those claiming that Russia is acting primarily in the interets of the Ossetians would do well to read the article in the Telegraph today.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/2531270/Georgia-Russia-demands-to-be-regarded-as-number-one.html
This sets out very clearly what Russias intentions are and the danger to the West.
2: Was wondering why the Georgians hadn’t just blown that up.
On a different set of waking hours at the moment due to the Olympics so probably not many people around!
Anyway, here’s further support of my points yesterday, article entitled “Obama’s Supposed Messiah Complex: The Distortions Mount”
Says it in a nutshell really.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/08/obamas-messiah-words-grotesque.html
Sullivan adds the view as to how McCain’s campaign makes him unsuitable to be Commander in Chief.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/you-think.html
“Here’s why all this matters. A critical part of what’s gone wrong these past few years has been the tendency of a war president to bully opponents, distort their meaning, use base emotional appeals when we need far more rational discussion about how to counter a very complex, terrifying Islamist threat. The kind of campaigns Rove ran in 2002, 2004 and 2006 made all this far harder. It reduced important debates about priorities in the war, detention and interrogation policies, the wisdom of long-term enmeshment in the Middle East, the difficulties of securing loose nukes, the excruciatingly difficult calls on which allies to trust and how - into dumb-ass contests about who is the biggest bad-ass, who is a treasonous wimp and which opponent most belongs in a French hair salon. ”
Anyone who passes the distortions on is just as guilty as the instigator as far as I’m concerned.
5 Wow - reading Fraser Nelson in today’s NoTW and there surely can’t be any doubt as to which way Murdoch will be facing at the next GE.
8 — Sullivan’s piece meshes with Krugman on Republican use of simplistic arguments: “real men don’t think things through”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/08/opinion/08krugman.html
A new game to play with Gordon’s speeches - the BarackOmeter
In the Indie’s report on his ’surprise’ appearance at Edinburgh Book Fair “Giving the example of “a young guy in London they call Britain’s young Barack Obama” and “”What we have to build up, and this is the lesson of Barack Obama and everybody else,..”
(didn’t get meaning of that second sentence if its the lesson of “everybody else” what’s special about Barack?)
The Re-Launch will presumably have plenty of ‘Baracks’ to try to identify the New Gordon with Obamania. Considering Gordon’s ability to curse success does this mean a certain McCain victory?
Does “barrack” count? (barrack = heckle, abuse, mock, bait, criticize, boo, taunt, jeer, shout down, diss)
Odd state of affairs when You Gov has a higher LD rating than the latest ICM. Mike S is right. When the polls are a stable and as bad for Labour as this the real signifigance is the passage of time from the last poll. The clock is ticking.
Barone on : McCAIN / OBAMA
“…I compared state poll results in this election with the results of the 2004 election and found patterns that reflect the surges of historic internal migration. For this year’s polls, I used the results from FiveThirtyEight.com, which discounts results based on its estimates of pollsters’ accuracy and the recentness of the polls. Thus, they don’t fully reflect the recent tightening of the national polls.
…
In two broad swaths of the country, John McCain is running about as well as George W. Bush did or better.
One is the route of the westward surge of New England Yankees across upstate New York, northern Ohio, southern Michigan and into northern Illinois. …
The other area in which McCain is running even with or better than Bush is the set of states settled by the Scotch-Irish stock, who thronged to the Appalachians in Colonial days and whose descendants followed the southwest path pioneered by their hero, Andrew Jackson. …. McCain … runs ahead of Bush in Tennessee and Arkansas and about even in Kentucky, Missouri and Oklahoma.
Obama is distinctly ahead of John Kerry in two differently settled areas. One is what once was called the Old Northwest but could be called Germano-Scandinavian America: Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and the northern Rocky Mountain states to the west. …
The other region where Obama is running better than Kerry or Al Gore is the string of states originally settled by southern planters — and their slaves — from Virginia south through the Carolinas and Georgia and west to Alabama and Mississippi. None was a target state in 2000 or 2004, but culturally liberal suburbanites in northern Virginia and North Carolina’s Research Triangle — plus possibly higher black turnout — may be moving them toward Obama.
…
Not all of these different shifts in opinion will alter electoral votes. … But they do explain why Obama is targeting North Dakota and Nebraska (where he might win the electoral votes of the Omaha and Lincoln congressional districts); why Virginia, Republican since 1968, is competitive; and why McCain is running better in economically ailing Michigan than in economically thriving Minnesota.”
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjAxYTU2OTI5NzBmNDJlMjVlMDE5MmM5MzM0YTEyODM=&w=MQ==
The Fuel rebate for Child benefit is interesting and i wouldn’t dismis it.
- hard cash in pockets in time for Christmas
- £1bn is qite affordable given that public finances are already screwed.
- easy to sell/explain. its policy by target letter.
- appeals to core vote.Good old government doling out cash to the poor.
- easy to administer and quick because its tacked onto an existing, non means tested benefit with a high take up.
- remember that CB is paid direct to mothers.
What ever you tink of the policy its not abd move politically for Labour.
16 Agreed and there will be a £120 tax rebate as well - so Gordon can say he’s delivered £270 to “hard working families”. Not sure though that there is necessarily an electoral advantage to one off payments as by January as the Christmas bills come in, the cash spent, then people face continuing high energy bills, economic slowdown.
Other candidates for the Labour leadership may be warming up.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/aug/10/alanjohnson.tradeunions
4
So Richard Drax would make a good MP? Well he tried the Army, got fed up and left, then TV reporter, on the local news, he was rubbish, so wooden you could have carved something out of him. So being a Drax, (can’t think of another reason) applied to be PPC in an area where his family are major landowners, and surprise, surprise was selected. Still if his campaign is as bad as the last Tory to oppose Jim Knight, who knows Knight might just (unlikely) hold on.
17. Yes. I would see it as an “upper”. I doubt there is much any government will be able to do to make this particular January feel any better. If we actually have a really cold winter then God help us.
18 How can you insinuate Richard Plunkett Ernle Erle Drax got the nomination on anything other than merit? I personally enjoyed his pieces to camera, which drained any scandal (or interest) out of murder reports, added portentous weight to stories of rubbish bin collections and his reports from the beaches made made Gordon Brown, tieless in natty jacket, look like a sybarite in comparison.
16 I’m not convinced these, ‘handouts’ are of any real value politically.
When the economic, political cycle turns against the government of the day, its chances of reversing its position are very slim.
To re-capture the public’s support would take a really, ‘dramatic event’ which the government could use to its own advantage, like the Falklands war.
20
Have you noticed, that only realy, really upper crust people have the nerve to wear a cardie under an old double breasted jacket, which they inherited from grandad: Tony Benn does it too!
BREAKING WIND NEWS **** BREAKING WIND NEWS **** BREAKING WIND NEWS
The breaking news is that WIND is reporting to JNN the contents of a new ARSE poll of polls that comprises ICM, Populus, YouGov, CR and MORI that gives :
Con 45.2% .. Lab 26.6% .. LibDem 16.8% .. Others 11.4%
The PISSED Wells/Baxter Index with added SOAMES weighting shows :
Con 396 seats .. Lab 174 .. LibDem 44 .. Others 36.
Con majority of 142.
……………………..
Sources :
WIND ….. Whimsical Independent News Division.
JNN ………..Jacobite News Network.
ARSE ….. Anonymous Random Selection of Electors.
PISSED … Political Intelligence Seat Selector Election Determinator
SOAMES …System Of Amending Measured Election Scores
21. I wouldn’t disagree with that per se. Its just i notice we seem to have current floor under Labour support of about 25%/26%. If they can get that upto 30% then they can prevent complete disaster.
24
30% is possible I’d be surprised if they got much above that. Going back to ‘83 I think it unlikely that Labour will drop below the 27/28% they got then.
The Russians are sending overwhelming force: another 10,000 troops are said to have entered Georgia already. Georgia has already been defeated and withdrawn from South Ossetia. If they could have closed the Roki tunnel they would have done it aleady. This is a total catastrophy for the West. Eventually Putin will come after the NATO states, starting with the Baltic. He must now be faced down, or we will face no alternative except WWIII.
I love the amount of pure bilge and hypocrisy being spewed forth amongst commentators in the MSM, the BBC and even on this website, about South Ossetia.
Whilst no-one will be claiming that Russia is acting purely for the Ossetians, people underestimate at their peril what the people of non-Western societies “feel” about their country, patriotism and the idea of nationhood. Russia in Georgia and Chechnya, China in Tibet or over Taiwan, Indonesia over Timor, and India and Pakistan each over Kashmir. Each are reflective of a magnified version of what Serbs felt and still feel about Kosovo - that a territory can be morally “yours” regardless of transcient demographics. There are no right and wrongs here, only the imperfect passion of human emotions and, whether you like it or not, unlike armchair commentators here these people are willing to go out and physically fight for what they believe in. People are confusing the character of the (often authoritarian) regimes undertaking the action, with a lack of support amongst the population, as if under such a government any policy must inherently be anti-popular or against the general will. I can tell you now that, despite poor equipment and morale in the armed forces, in any of the above examples the government could call for a purely volunteer military force and be inundated with positive responses.
Given that there is little question the Ossetians are broadly speaking not just anti-Georgia but actually pro-Russian, I don’t need to point out the hypocrisy of being pro devolved independence when it suits us (Kosovo) but against it when it does not (Ossetia). Please do not try to imbue a moral consistency in Western action when there is not one; it demeans all serious discussion on the subject.
1. The Sudetenland analogy is a very good one. But let us hope the military outcome for Russia is more like Afghanistan.
The Observer Alan Johnson-Jon Cruddas story strikes me as weak.
There is a lot of chuntering in the unions about how to stop Miliband, including with Cruddas (which wouldn’t be a winning ticket).
Two problems
1. Lots of people think Johnson could win if he ran. He could well be the best Labour leader for an election just 6 months afterwards. He seems fairly determined not to go for it this time.
2. Just as Miliband would be smart not to run as an uber-Blairite, why would Johnson run on a Compass/union left ticket, if he did want to run? He understands the unions. But they traditionally are suspicious of him because he was one of them but was also New Labour. He was the only union leader to back clause IV reform unequivocally at the time. The unions have shifted much leftwards since. They might have to support him if they want to stop another candidate. Johnson would run as a centrist unity candidate.
But don’t forget the unions don’t control their members votes. That is another reason for them to back Johnson. He will have a strong appeal to their members (who are more moderate than their leaders). But it also diminishes the importance of his cutting deals with the bosses.
Without Johnson, is there a stop Miliband candidate? I am sceptical about individual party members and trade unionists and MPs believing that H.Harman would make a strong PM and party leader at an election.
27. I think it is certainly reasonable to argue that the West has been very inconsistent over the issue of border anomalies and self-determination of minorities over recent years.
But that shouldn’t obscure the fact that Russia is using the Ossetia and Abkhazia disputes as a pretext for aggressive bullying of a weak neigbour and to further strategic goals which are inimical to the West.
25. In 1983, the turnout in Labour areas was still very good - not that dissimilar to what it was in safe Tory constituencies. Since 2001, the turnout in these safe Labour seats has dropped dramatically (it’s dropped just about everywhere, but it’s most marked in that group).
If there were to be a similar result to 1983 (and I don’t think that’s at all on the cards, irrespective of Jack’s ARSE), Labour would probably achieve it on a smaller share of the vote, though it would also depend on the size of the Lib Dem vote, which was much higher in 1983.
Gosh! do you remember those far off days, when the West was convinced that once Russia ceased to be communist, the world would be a safer saner place. I always thought the opposite would be the case.
You knew where you were with the, ‘Commies’ may not have liked ‘em but you knew where you were.
Could be a good time for the Russkies to put in that bid for Centrica that they’ve been talking about for some time.
Ah, the joys of the, ‘Free Market.’
I’ve been reading the threads overnight and one post in particular needs comment. One of my friends is one of Belgrade’s top hairstylists - he’s going to be VERY upset about SeanT’s slights on Serbian haircuts.
Isn’t this all a bit of dead cat bounce by the Russian Empire?
what do people think of this?
http://jay1949.wordpress.com/2008/08/09/why-mccain-wins-if-the-election-is-tomorrow/
35 - That anyone calling themselves ‘McCain Democrat’ is either lying or needs their head testing.
30/32. Is not the problem that since 1989, the West’s policies have been inimicable with Russia’s interests, and that Russia has been patronised and treated with contempt? Why are we surprised when she seeks to redress that position at the first opportunity - especially given her history?
NATO - a relic that wasn’t really needed after 1991 anyway - was expanded right up to Russia’s doorstep, onto the former Imperial Russia / Soviet state’s territory. The Soviets were always (and rightly) concerned about encirclement; Russia feels the same threat.
We get concerned about Russia invading a part of Georgia (a part with a Russian-majority population, which since the 1920s had autonomy from the main Georgian SSR), and seeking to disrupt its communications; would not Moscow have some concerns at the USA and Britain invading a much more potent player in the Great Oil Game and stationing over a hundred thousand troops there, not too far from the southern flank of Russia?
This is very much a ‘faults on both sides’ issue, and the Georgian leaders have behaved foolishly, but the root cause is the failure of the leaders of the West to recognise that Russia has interests too.
27 Entirely agreed, Anatole.
Suppose, in a bid to obscure the boundaries of the consituent parts of the UK to weaken separatists, the UK govt allocated Northumberland, Cumbria and Lancashire to Greater Scotland and allocated Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Shropshire to Greater Wales. Fifty years in the future, the UK breaks up and Greater Scotland and Greater Wales become independent.
Whither Lancashire or Salop? No doubt some fools like Cicero would be calling for the territorial integrity of the spurious countries of Greater Wales and Greater Scotland to be upheld.
There need to be a number of territorial re-drawings of boundaries in the Former Soviet Union by Stalin. IMO, the most serious of all the problems is the allocation of the historically and ethnically Russian Crimea to the Ukraine. If Ukraine behaves as recklessly as Georgia, then there will be a major conflagration.
I know some quite wealthy people who are in receipt of family allowance. They will probably put Brown’s £150 fuel subsidy/bribe towards one of this year’s many foreign holidays.
Meanwhile there’s more trouble at’ mill:
Gordon Brown’s relations with Health Secretary Johnson ‘at breaking point’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1043250/Gordon-Browns-relations-Health-Secretary-Johnson–8216-breaking-point.html
Darling: I’ve been stitched up by No 10 on stamp duty
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1043249/Darling-I-8217-ve-stitched-No-10-stamp-duty.html
Perhaps a silly question but why did Gord miss the opening ceremony of the Olympics??
I have been puzzled by this most of the week-end
Oh dear! looks like Tim Yeo in the poo.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/2529667/Tory-MP-Tim-Yeo-in-conflict-of-interest-row-over-car-tax-report.html
40. The official reason is that he’s going to the closing ceremony instead, as the UK’s the next host for the Olympics.
37. Russia’ ‘interests’ have been consistent throughout Tsarist, communist, and now post-communist times - essentially expansion and conquest.
The key factor that has varied has been their ability to achieve them - a chronically weak Russia in the 1990s was unable to prevent territories conquered in the past reasserting their independence, a stronger Russia today is trying to partially reverse this.
The ‘encirclement’ argument is a red herring, used by expansionist powers (Rome, Louis XIV’s France and Hitler’s Germany to name just three) to justify their behaviour since time immemorial. Russia’s neighbours know how Russia thinks and that is why they have been desperately keen to join western security structures.
Of course there are border anomalies, as previously stated. But to suggest these in any way justify Russia’s actions is to miss the big picture.
41 Because he was on holiday - nothing could drag him away from Sarah and the boys!
Well, except a chance to appear as a literary giant in Edinburgh promoting his latest collection of Boys Own stories on Courage and inform his breathless audience that a new Brown work, on Britishness (presumably taking more of an Eagle based style), would be appearing soon.
44 I wonder who’ll be ghost writing it for him?
35. It’s the point about the undecideds that is the most interesting. That is why how the campaigns play for the next couple of months will be important, in my opinion. From word of mouth reports (from my American friends) the personality cult (their words) around Obama is huge - there is a LOT of social pressure to support him. This is in Montana, as well, hardly a liberal state. Given this social pressure I wouldn’t be surprised if some of Obama’s lead is very soft. McCain’s recent good results have come in polls of likely voters. I’m wary of the idea that new voters will turn out in droves this time - that’s exactly what the Dems said last time. This is why I think he needs to be careful with the celebrity endorsements and similar stunts. He needs to avoid giving the impression he thinks he’s entitled to the victory.
There’s an interesting historical review of the politics of replacing Prime Ministers by Alan Watkins in the Independent on Sunday:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/alan-watkins/alan-watkins-an-election-is-the-pms-ultimate-deterrent-889644.html
I suspect that he particularly enjoyed writing this sentence:
“He [David Miliband] enjoys the support of the foolish virgins – I refer solely to their political opinions – of The Guardian newspaper.”
I completely disagree - you are confusing ‘interests’ and ‘ambitions’. In any case, it’s worth thinking why Russia has sought territorial expansion in the past. Russia’s history is one of invasion, occupation and terrible suffering. It has no natural borders to the east before the Pacific, to the south before the Central Asian mountains, to the north before the Arctic, or to the west. The only way it found it possible in the past to pretect itself was through distance.
That’s no longer so important, but what does matter for leaders and citizens alike is that Russia is respected. Russia has always felt vulnerable, and the Mongols, Napoleon, the Kaiser and Hitler have given them good reason to think that. NATO, in a lesser way, can be added to that list. If the Soviets had tried half the strategic advances or tactical ploys that the West made in the Cold War, it wouldn’t have stayed cold.
Of course Georgia’s right to self-determination should be respected, and Russia’s actions are disproportionate, but far from my missing the big picture, I’d argue that it has been the short-sightedness of commentators, advisors and politicians in the west who don’t understand Russia that has in no small part produced this situation.
Russia sees France intervening in its former colonies in Africa, and the UK too, from time to time. It sees the US dominating the Western hemisphere, at least to its south. It sees the US and Britain invading and setting up camp in Iraq and Afghanistan - the latter with some justification (which it no doubt understands), the former with much less. What lesson is it supposed to draw about how to deal with small states? More importantly, should we be surprised, or even concerned, that Russia is simply doing the same, or should that concern be restricted to how it is doing it?
Russia have got their success. The Georgians have pretty much withdraw from South Ossetia though still reportedly occupy some areas (which they had done before this conflict).
The next question is whether Russia decides to completly militarily eliminate the Georgian presence in South Ossetia which looks likely, the Georgians complete a total pullout in advance and save theit troops from the larger Russian force in the area, or the Russians keep going and put enough damage in to humiliate Georgia further and cripple it for time to come, probably forcing the current Georgian leader out.
You only need to be a *tiny* bit inclined to conspiracy theory to be even more scared about what is going to happen next with Georgia.
http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/2008/0808.html
through to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoliy_Golitsyn
Gold for Nicole Cooke in the cycling. Rule Britannia! We love these sitting down sports.
New thread - Could Miliband be Labour’s Nick Clegg?
“Russia has always felt vulnerable, and the Mongols, Napoleon, the Kaiser and Hitler have given them good reason to think that.”
Fair enough, but then, Russia’s neighbours have always felt vulnerable, and Russia has given them good reason to think that.
54. I expect the following -
1) Pressure from the French and Germans to stop any NATO expansion east.
2) A confederation of neighbours of Russia will be proposed. The kind where an invasion of one will mean war with all. The Russians will scream about this one.
3) One (or more) countries near Russia will announce a new energy policy - lots of nuclear reactors. Quite possibly Poland.