The bland careerists who rule us
We are now ruled by a cadre of dark-suited, mainly male, politicians who rose through the ranks of Conservative Central Office, the Labour party research department, a few London-based thinktanks and PR firms, and innumerable roles as special advisers, writes Jackie Ashley. For most of those who inhabit the Westminster village, politics was an early career choice, and that in itself may have been a bad decision. They grew up thinking The West Wing was populist TV and that a glossy magazine meant the Spectator or New Statesman. They were pimpled politicians at university and moved quickly to London. They went to drink warm white wine at political lectures, seminars and conferences, wrote speeches for older politicians, then dug up facts for them, then dug up policies, found a seat and rose without bubbles or much kicking. Jackie Ashley The Guardian
Full article: Until parties find real voices, the mavericks will flourish 
Desperate Brown tries to be humble
If the rumours are right, Gordon Brown plans to deploy the most remarkable wonder-weapon in his speech to the Labour conference. He is going to sound humble. It might seem that he has as much chance of bringing that off as he does of singing counter-tenor at Covent Garden: that he must be absolutely desperate even to contemplate such a bizarre miscasting: that if he did try, his speech would turn into the first pantomime performance of the 2008 Christmas season. But it would be worth watching. Poor old Gordon. As John Major could tell Mr Brown, there is only so much any premier or leader can do. Once his party refuses to be led, that is that. In the Labour Party today, as with the Tories in the mid-90s, the inmates are in firm control of the lunatic asylum. Bruce Anderson The Independent
Full article: No cavalry can save Brown now
How Nixon divided America
The American cultural divide has always existed, but in its present form it dates from the 1960s, when some conservative politicians figured out how to exploit liberalism's support for minorities and other contentious causes, says Michael Tomasky. George Wallace, the segregationist Alabama governor, did it superbly. But no one was better at it than Richard Nixon. As author Rick Perlstein argues in his book Nixonland, Nixon took all this personally. At his college, there was a society that dubbed itself the Franklins - well-heeled, urbane and mostly liberal. He started his own society called the Orthogonians (a Latin portmanteau meaning, basically, "straight shooters"). These were the unfashionable students, whose chief rallying tenet was resentment of the Franklins. When he attained power, Nixon did his best to divide the country into Franklins and Orthogonians. Our 'blue' and 'red' Americas are, in essence, these two groups. Michael Tomasky The Guardian
Full article: America is dissatisfied - and that's good news for Obama
US Election: Sarah Palin 'affair': big media stays quiet as lover named
State funding for Jeremy Kyle?
As Jon Culshaw put it on Dead Ringers, there are two factions in "Jeremy Kyle World": "I'm Jeremy Kyle and you're scum."Certainly there is no grey where he patrols, writes Jim White. Everything is manipulated to fit the vital edict: make good telly. Sad tales of modern misery are reduced to a headline laugh: "Your Baby's Too White To Be Mine" or "Is This Britain's Worst Dad?" or "I May Be A Crackhead And Serial Housebreaker But That Doesn't Mean I Slept With Your Mum". Now a government-appointed agency is seeking to link up with Kyle, in a series promoting the Department for Work and Pensions. It is mooted that £400,000 be spent sponsoring "Jeremy Kyle Gets Britain Working". It is the equivalent of chucking government funds at Jeremy Clarkson to endorse a programme about cycling. Jim White Daily Telegraph
Full article: Should the taxpayer pay for Jeremy Kyle?
The £3 billion question
This week the £3bn, 14-year-old Cern nuclear accelerator on the Swiss-French border is being switched on for a split second of fame, writes Simon Jenkins. Cern claims that its accelerator has pioneered advances in everything from magnetic engineering to the invention of the worldwide web. But its most down-to-earth defenders, such as the scientist David Evans, admit that answering questions about the origin of matter is primarily an "intellectual curiosity". Unlike Mr Casaubon in the gloomy vaults of Middlemarch, this curiosity is not a matter of a few books and candles but £3bn of other people's money. Hence a question more immediate than what is the origin of the universe: how badly do I really want to know the answer? It could be one of those questions that I can happily leave to future generations. Simon Jenkins The Guardian
Full article: A big bang and ... big problems are ignored
