Us politics

At last, signs that Washington's lawmakers may have scrabbled together a debt deal after all. According to the overnight wires, the White House and Congressional leaders have alighted on a package that would raise the ceiling by $2.4 trillion, so long as the deficit is reduced by at least the same amount over the next ten years. There are more details here, but the key claim is that around $1.2 trillion of immediate spending cuts have already been agreed upon, with a Congressional committee to recommend further deficit reduction measures by the end of November. And although these proposals will still have to pass through the corridors of Congress, leaders from both sides sound increasingly optimistic that it will do just that.

The homepage of the Washington Post has a clock ticking down to America's debt-ceiling deadline: four days, 14 hours, and a fast-declining number of minutes and seconds. It also has details of the events, last night, that upset the prospect of a deal being reached yet again. The Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, had been frantically trying to corral support for a bill that would raise the ceiling in exchange for $billions of extra spending cuts. He only needed 216 of the House's 240 Republicans to vote with him. But it wasn't to be. The vote was called off, postponed until at least later today, as it became clear that Boehner couldn't immediately persuade those in his party who want further cuts still.

“He got it entirely wrong.” That is Rupert Murdoch's response to Gordon Brown’s singular account of his relationship with the Murdoch press. "The Browns were always friends of ours,” Murdoch added in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, in which he promised to set the record straight on the “lies uttered in parliament” when he appears before a select committee next Tuesday. It is going to be a moment of the most gripping political theatre. Murdoch also uses the interview to defend News Corp’s handling of the phone hacking crisis. He concedes that ‘minor mistakes’ have been made, but, fundamentally, all is well with the Kingdom.

Politicians are swarming all over the phone hacking scandal today, in even greater number than during the past week. If it isn't the main topic at PMQs at noon, then it certainly will be immediately afterwards; when David Cameron delivers his statement on an inquiry into the whole mess. And then there's Labour's Opposition Day motion, urging Rupert Murdoch to withdraw his bid for BSkyB. By the end of the day, our parliamentarians will surely have delivered an official reprimand to the News Corp boss and his ambitions. The news that the government will vote in favour of Ed Miliband's motion has sucked some of the vicious factionalism out of today's proceedings. But, never fear, there will still be plenty of political one-upmanship to go around.

As unveiled in Grosvenor Square earlier:.

Today’s announcement on a proposed new National Crime Agency (NCA) is a key element in the government’s ambitious police reform agenda.  Recent political attention has focused on changes to police pay and conditions and budget reductions, but the structural reforms that Theresa May and Nick Herbert are pursuing matter more in the long-term.  And before it is dismissed as another attempt to create a “British FBI”, the background and rationale for the NCA is worth exploring. The NCA is much more than a rebranding of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) – the troubled organisation set up by Charles Clarke.

Sarah Palin will be in town soon and she hopes to meet Mrs Thatcher. She told the Sunday Times: “I am going to Sudan in July and hope to stop in England on the way. I am just hoping Mrs Thatcher is well enough to see me as I so admire her.” However, it seems that the admiration is not mutual. The Guardian’s Wintour and Watt blog reports an old ally of the Lady’s saying: “Lady Thatcher will not be seeing Sarah Palin. That would be belittling for Margaret. Sarah Palin is nuts. “Margaret is focusing on Ronald Reagan and will attend the unveiling of the statue (in Grosvenor Square). That is her level.

You may have noticed that Barack Obama came to the country on a state visit this week. But he wasn't the first US President to be extended an invitation from the Queen, oh no. George W. Bush beat him to that particular honour in 2003. Here are a couple of Spectator pieces from the time, the first the magazine's leader column, the second by Peter Oborne: Don't burn Bush, The Spectator, 15 November 2003 The Queen's state carriage has carried some pretty rum types over the years. Nicolae Ceauscescu took a break from murdering his countrymen to take a ride down the Mall in June 1978. In 1994 it was Robert Mugabe's privilege and in 1979 Kenya's President Daniel arap Moi - at a time when Moi's corrupt administration was bleeding his country of £00 million a year.

Remember Herman Cain? The former CEO of Godfather's Pizza who scored a surprise win at the first Republican presidential primary debate earlier this month? Well, the latest Gallup poll is out today, and shows him on 8 per cent amongst potential primary voters: essentially tied for third behind Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. This is the first poll conducted since Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump and Mitch Daniels all declared that they would not seek the nomination, and is also the first of Gallup's to include Cain's name. 8 per cent may not sound all that impressive, but it is when you consider that just 33 per cent of respondents know who he is. In other words, 24 per cent of those who've heard of Cain have him as their number one choice to be the nominee.