How will the next POTUS affect the UK’s General Election?
October 5th, 2008-
Will British voters learn from the lessons of a new American Presidency?
In a fantastic post over at the Spectator Magazine’s Coffee House blog, James Forsyth asks whether an expected Obama presidency will either prove or disprove Gordon Brown’s claim that “this is no time for a novice”
He writes “If by the time of the next general election, which will probably be about 16 months into an Obama presidency, Obama is seen as a success, the line will lose most of its force.
It will be a stretch to argue that while America is doing just fine with a novice president, the situation is too serious for Britain to have one.
A successful Obama presidency could also set off a yearning for a generataional turning of the page which sees the Browns, Mandelsons and Campbells of this world consigned to history”
I think there is some truth in this, and wonder if the same could be said in reverse - that if American elects the veteran Senator John McCain as its President, that his successes could bolster the PM, or that the ‘continuation of the same failures’ could prove David Cameron’s point that “the risk is sticking with what you’ve got and expecting a different result”?
We have already noted that, in general, focus on the economic helps Barack Obama and any foreign policy or military challenges play to McCain’s strengths. I wonder if the difference in the UK is starker and less issue-focussed - that in moments of crisis, either economic or of security, Brown benefits as the incumbant. Certainly, the recent economic fallout has improved Labour’s numbers a little, and his highest poll ratings (albeit during his political honeymoon) came during the floods and terrorist attack on Glasgow airport.
Of course, British voters will not be founding their decision on the personage or performance of the new American President, but I suspect James Forsyth is right to pick up on the way that a new US Administration performs will percolate into the language of our next General Election campaign.
Morus
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WATFORD!!!!!!!!
If the apparent trend of the McCain/Palin campaign into the realms of bitter negative attacks proves to be successful, then the Labour attack dogs might well try it as a last-ditch attempt.
I can’t see it working for McCain and it won’t work for Brown - but with people like Mandy and Balls around, it might well happen anyway
Sorry to go off thread so early. But Republicans will be upset. Now that renowned bastion of liberalism, the economist profession, overridingly supports Barack Obama:
http://media.economist.com/media/pdf/Totals1.pdf
It may have an effect but I don’t think it’ll be great, to be honest.
If Obama is rubbish, Brown can hardly say “Look how America has fared with a novice”, as it would sour relations.
However, Cameron could easily say “Look how America has benefited from a so-called novice” if Obama does very well.
Don’t think it’ll have much impact though.
Given the shambles UK policy is on bank guarantees, recapitalization of banks and injecting liquidity into markets - not to mention tripartite bank regulation and supervision, ..
one could argue that,in the UK, experience has been a disaster.
Experience is a bad teacher. It always gives you the test before the lesson.
I do wonder if it really is a good idea for Brown to bang on about the credit crunch being ‘made in America’, it may be a contributory factor is the liquidity problem, but part of the mess over here is home grown. I would be surprised if either McCain or Obhama would be impressed to see the USA being used as a scapgoat by Brown and Darling.
SimonStClare do you refer to the Bible the Holy Book the Bible?
Can we take it you are Muslim, or a Politically Correct Beeboid, or work for a Labour Council? I cant imagine non christians calling the Bible the “Holy Book the Bible”.
Its a bit like the BBC saying “The Prophet Mohamed” but not “the Mesiah Jesus”. Although they do call Obama the “Mesiah Obama”.
Complete list of Ministers outside the cabinet here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/05/2
4 - then again, it might be a subconscious thing, as in nobody explicitly says it has an impact but deep down it drifts that way.
It’s Obama’s to lose right now
9 - Kim Howells been demoted? He’s no longer in the FCO - is that a new development?
Full reshuffle now up on Politics Home:
http://tinyurl.com/3rl9fe
- I see Digby is still on board, albeit as an Ambassador. Pretty impressive business roll-call, actually.
Anecdote alert: chatted to a lot of people today who are interested in politics but have widely varied views (attendees at the local Civic Service - councillors, spouses and church people): the prevailing view was that Mandelson’s appontment was a good thing because it showed Brown putting competence before personal history. As Morus says, there’s a widespread feeling that Brown is a good man to have at the helm when things are rough. I know there are people here who think that’s a mistaken view, but it’s quite common at the moment.
I think this remains a risk for Obama as for other ‘change’ candidates - seen, perhaps, more as a man to take the country into sunlit uplands in good times. But McCain is blowing the ‘gritty veteran’ image by playing the maverick card too much - a veteran with a history of doing odd things is not what you want in a blizzard.
Neither McCain nor Obama are incumbents and both will be a change. Experience, as the Bush Presidency splutters out, hasn’t proved a great asset. No one is calling for Alan Greenspan to return.
An unlikely McCain presidency will fail if it’s a continuation of the Bush one economically and with a Democrat dominated Congress that’s not probable anyway.
Has Stephen Carter been ennobled?
8 - SimonStClare unveiled as secret Muslim/Labour supporter - lol, probably not. Tories on this site sometimes mirror the last days of the Spanish Republic, with people shooting each other for not being quite extreme enough.
id love somebody (would have to be a backbencher) at the next pmqs to ask ‘given the financial crises gripping america, who does the pm prefer for president, the youth, character and judgement of Obama or the experience of McCain? im guessing brown would have to say as pm he doesnt comment on other GE, but it would generate roars of laughter in the commons and get the message out into the public.
4-Don’t you mean “when” rather than “if”-he will end up like Carter frazzled after 4 years.
9,12 They’ve finally shifted Adonis from education. This is all Ed Balls’ doing as Adonis is a neo-blairite and has been offered a post as an education minster in the next Conservative government.
Whatever the next POTUS does, or whoever he is, is irrelevant to our election. The US does not have a parliamentary system, and we, thank God, do not have the American system…
And are you seriously suggesting David Cameron is the British “Obama”?
Daft, imho…
No effect whatsoever.
11.I think I read on the previous thread that Howell had gone?
12.My straw in the wind, someone telling me that the best cartoon they had seen about Mandelson’s return was in yesterday’s Scotsman.
15 How do you feel about Quentin Davies being made an armed forces minister?
11 Departures from Government:
Margaret Hodge (temporarily leaving Government on compassionate grounds of family illness and will return to Government in the spring)
Kim Howells
Lord Jones of Birmingham
Lord Rooker
Malcolm Wicks
Parmjit Dhanda
Tom Harris
Anne McGuire
Meg Munn
James Plaskitt
Derek Twigg
Baroness Crawley
Liz Blackman
Alison Seabeck
So Kim Howells is out
Was Sarah Palin booed at her own rally?
14.That is what I understand, he would have to be I think to hold the brief he has been given? Anyone confirm?
12. What’s been impressive about the Obama campaign, though it didn’t seem so to many observers at the time, is the way it has made itself the “safe choice”. From his toning down the protectionist rhetoric, to his reasonable and conciliatory approach to debates, to picking Joe Biden as his running mate, it’s all been part of a clear plan. Obama realised his main issue was that people felt he was risky, and has spent his time since winning the nomination neutralising that factor, regardless of the various media narratives going back and forth since then. The McCain campaign, on the other hand, has been obsessed with winning every media cycle with newsworthy announcements, and has often succeeded, only to damage his brand longterm by coming across as reckless and erratic.
Lord Adonis moved to Transport as Minister of State - surprised he accepted that and didn’t leave.
The POTUS election has more relevence to what happens in Britain as a whole than our own GE. Our governments like to pretend they are in control but what is the reality?
27.
Why should he leave? The Brown bunker is even more these days a home for Blairite Tory nomarks.
29 Oh Dear wage slave, the stylus is wearing mighty thin.
29 - Because his “special interest” was in education, and that was the whole reason he was in the Govt in the first place.
30.
You and your 78s!
31.
You believed that spin? Adonis’ ego is so big he probably had to have the doors in Whitehall altered. There is not a subject on the earth (and possibly beyond) to which he does not have a valuable contribution to make. Another Mandelson.
Quentin Davies a Minister.. God help us… The wages of disloyalty were obviously high….
1… is (referring to previous thread),most certainly across the border of Greater London(the county,the parliamentary consstiencies that comprise it-like it or not Watford is in HERTFORDSHIRE!!!
(Re why I support the Hammers-in common with 1 in 4 of Bournemouth’s population,I have a parent from north-east London (and late grandparent from same neck of the woods).In 1980,when I was 9,West Ham and Arsenal played the FA Cup Final-I became a Hammer then.(28 years-you only get 14 years for murdering someone! :lol:)
Incidentlaly, I think I’m probably a slightly more free agent now - I see Malcolm Wicks has been reshuffled out, and as his PPS I’d expect to walk the same plank, though the PPS list will follow in a few days.
And no, that doesn’t make me revise anything I’ve said.
The BBC Headline is “No job for Cruddas in reshuffle”, good bit of knife twisting there.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7653645.stm
Not only is it astonishing that Mandy felt the need to seek Blair’s permission and blessing to take a role in cabinet and to announce that he would ‘work with’ the PM who is head of said cabinet as if it were some sort of valid yes or no situation, it appears he will be sitting in the economic politburo - an unelected, formerly disgraced politician in a position of critical importance in a shadowy group who’s powers and remit are no doubt ‘TBA’.
8 – Alfresco, distinctly agnostic I’m afraid and certainly unconnected with Auntie in ant shape or form, however I cut and pasted direct references from a source cos I always cock-up the spelling , my only concession to censorship was to put the ‘prophet’ in inverted commas.
So you see, I fail the PC test, thank God!
35 Obviously its not just north-east London’s children/grandchildren that live in Bournemouth-all parts of London are represented.There’s about 12,000 scousers in Bournemouth,Mancs,Glaswegians and Brummies probably add up to even more.It is actually rare to meet someone with much family heritage in Bournemouth,maybe not surprsing as its only next year Bournemouth celebrates its bicentennial
The new Cabinet seems to combine a heady mix of uber loyalist Brownites, and anyone else who might be considered too dangerous to leave lying around the backbenches. It also allowed Brown to get rid of a few of the weaker Blairites who might have posed a risk.
This has been a short term political reshuffle, rather than an interesting economic one with an eye to the longer term, it will end in tears.
41 - Christina, I think the tears have already started
It is a deeply cynical and political reshuffle - nothing to do with national interest in the slightest
41.
If you want your dangerous Blairites inside the tent hissing outwards it is wisest to ensure that the zipper isn’t jammed!
John Redwood on dealing with the BBC.
“In recent weeks the BBC have shown some interest in what I have been writing and saying on the Credit Crunch, and occasionally I have been allowed an interview to put a point of view.
They still delight in juvenile “Gotcha” journalism. They always know my views better than I know them myself, but of course their version of them is normally a caricature and sometimes simply wrong. If you tell them they have got it wrong, they then try to assert you have changed your view!They never seem to read any of the pieces I write, but rely on hearsay, the distorted views of critics, and the misrepresentations they have helped put into circulation.
Before Conference the aim was to portray me as a deregulator who thought banking shoudl not be under any kind of control. They clearly had not read the Report I co authored for the Conservative party seeking stronger Central bank control over solvency and liquidity, the very things that have been going wrong under a government which has greatly increased the amount of needless regulation to so little effect.
At Conference the attempt was to get me to say I would have voted down the package in the USA had I been a Congressman. Had I obliged I would doubtless have been presented as someone who could not see the need for action at a time of crisis.
It’s pathetic. If all the BBC want to do is to assert their caricatures the interviews will simply be wasted in allegation and rebuttal over facts the BBC refuse to accept because they cannot be bothered to read what their guests have written.”
Is the full reshuffle list up anywhere? No 10 hasnt got it up yet & the Sky list isnt complete
A government of retreads, triumphal undead, turncoats, timeservers, tasteless tiresomeness, telephone terrorists and Brown ultra-loyalists.
Yes, Nick, I am sure the whole country is aghast at the talent which has been brought forth.
Rejoice, rejoice. We are saved.
17 Surely a very pessimistic view-as a Brit who would almost always vote Democrat in US elections (with the exception of 1984 when I wanted Reagan to beat Mondale),I would nevertheless put Jimmy Carter down as probably the worst post-war US President-even including Dubya!!
See Ian Pearson (Dudley South) has gone to The Treasury. Always found him to to be a little on the unimpressive side, certainly when compared to Ross Cranston (formerly Dudley North), Simon Murphy (former MEP for West Midlands), Sylvia Heal (Haleowen and Rowley Regis) and even Debra Shipley (formerly Stourbridge). I see the ability of MPs means that it is very difficult to fill many ministries with quality people.
465
Its been seen before but its just soooo pertinent
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=iMi776jah1w
45 http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/05/2
Mike S. I agree in general with your sentiments but you are making a simple mistake. Right now Brown may have benefited a little from the experience v. novice argument but in a say a years time when the real economy is in a much worse state and the Government is less able to benefit from been seen to be busy then the experience argument is likely to be a lot less relevant and only a very marginal issue.
49 - I’m waiting for the Glenrothes one
51. Ignore the experienced vs novice argument entirely. Better to ask the question Buonapart asked before promoting senior officers - “Is he lucky?” Cameron - probably yes: Brown - definitely no.
19 - Rod - read the final paragraph of my article.
They must need the money.
Beckett kicked out of cabinet by Brown comes back as a mere Minister of State. Stephen Timms also booted from cabinet comes back as a Finance Secy, one level down.
17 people left the Govt. A rather massive change.
Robert Peston appears to be saying on news 24 that UK will have to guarantee deeposits as per Germany within 24 hours (if Germany have indeed issued such a guarantee)
56. Yes & yes!
56. The only problem is that once all the countries guarantee deposits we’re right back where we started - in the proverbial s****
But didn’t we attack Ireland for doing this 3 days ago? It looks a little bit weak, indecisive and pathetic to turn around 3 days later and say ‘oh ok we will as well then’ - by a little bit weak I eam dithering and incompetent
59 *mean not eam
The Hypo Bank move appears to have stemmed from its DEPFA subsidiary, registered in Dublin that provides a lot of public sector financial services.
58 - happy days…….. (not)
And our Dear leader continues to insist its all America’s fault
Sunday international slot will follow at about 8.30 - apologies for the “late running of this service” and many thanks to Morus for stepping into the breach.
Double Carpet
Richard @ 50 - thank you
15. As someone who has openly gloried in his extremist past on this site, Mr.Palmer, you are in no position to accuse others of having extreme views.
59 - There’s a clear difference between Ireland’s original move, and everyone else being forced to follow in order to prevent capital charging out of their own banks. The reason they were criticised is because everyone knew that it was inevitable that others would follow. Germany’s move makes it likely that we will have to respond.
And, as per 58, we’re back to square one.
What is really dodgy about all this is that the banks with 100% guarantees seem to be the ones offering the best rates. Which is ridiculous.
I don’t think there would be as much problem about Ireland if their banks were all offering 3% interest. But they’re not. Northern Rock have been forced to cut their rates because they were becoming too attractive. All 100% accounts should have to do the same.
56. As recognised on this site when Ireland did it and Brown challenged it was abundently clear the UK would follow and give 100% guarantees. What I find interesting is that Brown & Darling keep on saying “we will do what is necessary” but have critised the Irish for their actions but the Irish Government from their perspective appropriately did what they thought was necessary to save their economy.
I cant let Nick’s ridiculous “anecdote” go unchallenged.. but I have yet to meet a single person in the last three weeks(including a load of Americans at a dinner in New York who had barely heard of him) who think Brown is a good person to have in a crisis..I imagine the view may be different among Labour lackeys but lets not confuse them with ordinary people.
As has been said many times, the prevailing view I have encountered is why on earth have one of the arsonists in charge of putting out a fire.
All in all what Brown does seem to have done over conference season is secure his base and his position as Labour leader. I see thia as all upside for Cameron in terms of the next election but I do fear for the country and the already messy public finances in the meantime.
67 - That is a fair point. The “do whatever necessary” line, repeated ad nauseam is really beginning to grate.
58. No once countries back deposits and interbank lending we can start the process of trying to work out who is actually insolvent. Then we shoot the execs, expropriate the shareholders and put in some capital. We then get liquidity back in without the government guarantee.
The main problem at the moment is that no one knows who is solvent and who isnt. This means no lending short or long by banks (and everyone else) to each other. This idiocy of £50,000 deposit guarantee just adds to the worries* - bloody Darling and the useless FSA. Brown is a dork. We will follow the Irish. Thank you, Gordon for pissing away some more government credibility. He just doesnt have a clue.
*It puts the wind up business depositors, the rich and means that interbank credit is kiboshed.
67 It was just dithering. It was inevitable. It was par for the course.
66 I appreciate that but the first question to the government is going to revolve around their response to ireland and the ‘unity’ that has fallen apart from the weekend summit and they are going to have to respond with ‘we had no choice’ - weak, incompetent and out of control is how it will appear, reality of the situation aside.
68. Strangely enough I heard a friend of mine say ‘You can’t really blame Brown for this, he hasn’t been in the job long’ to watch I ranted and showed him the error of his statement. The Tories must pin this all on him and make people aware that this isn’t just a problem from America, this is what you get with a dithering short termist Chancellor.
72 - The actual merits of the thing aside (as per 70), is this not one example where it is actually preferable to be a follower than a leader?
Better to say “we are guaranteeing deposits because of the threat caused by other countries doing it and undercutting the competitiveness of our banks” than effectively saying “we are guaranteeing deposits because our major banks are on the verge of going bust” (as per Ireland).
Actually while the Irish action put pressure on everyone else, it was the correct reaction. We need to have time to consider who is bust and who isnt. The damage done by the banks being in constant crisis is so high and we are going to have to bail out some of the banks.
Some people seem to think that the Irish banks will then play fast and loose with the guarantee. If they know an audit + forced recapitalisation + exec criminal responsibility is on the way, it will prevent the casino restarting.
This is really Financial Crises 101. Gordon has confirmed (as if we needed proof) he is neither a leader or terribly good at economics. Sarko looks better.
75 - It’s not so much that they will “play fast and loose”. But they certainly haven’t taken any steps to reduce their newfound (misplaced?) attractiveness for depositors.
Sunday international thread now up - Germany savings protection + Austria election round-up.
Many thanks
Double Carpet
74. No, the answer is to say “we are guaranteeing deposits because of irrational fears about bank solvency. Some banks may be bust. They will be recapitalised. There is no need to worry. You may all lend and deposit without fear.” “We will take appropriate action, criminal if there has been fraud, fiscal if we need to recapitalise, monetary to add greater liquidity”.
This is what Gordon should have said instead of going to Washington and grandstanding. He has far greater executive and legislative power than the US government. He could have organised something with the Europeans. Instead, he did nothing and talked. He kiboshed the french plan with the idiot Germans, who have now had to give a guarantee.
74 I don’t know - but I know how it looks, and thats all I am saying at this stage. I don’t have enough financial nous to know what we should do - but 100% guarantee instinctively feels wrong
69.”67 - That is a fair point. The “do whatever necessary” line, repeated ad nauseam is really beginning to grate.”
That is definitely true of both Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling in various interviews over the last couple of weeks. Forget partisan politics, I have actively cringed watching two particularly poor interviews Brown has given to coincide with the headline news programmes.
But, what I have noticed over the last few days, is the attempt by the news channels to edit out this appalling style of response where by they just keep repeating the same thing to various questions. Maybe I am wrong, but it seems that now they are just showing quick edited clips of one or two of their sound bites, rather than showing them repeating the same thing over and over again in a interview clip lasting a few minutes?
Both Brown and Darling have consistently shown that they are useless and have no clue how to fix anything. They just blunder from crisis to crisis uttering the same banal statements. It really is criminal.
A ‘novice’ perhaps in the sense that everyone is on becoming President, but is the selection of Joe Biden as running mate not significant?
Where is Cameron’s Biden?