James Forsyth

The Tories need to do three things when talking about the economy. First, give the public some straight talk about how bad the situation is. Second, pin sufficient blame on Gordon Brown and the government for the current problem. Finally they need to show the electorate that life would be better under the Conservatives, that after four years of Tory government the economy would be growing again and Britain would once more have a bright future. In strategic terms, the challenge the Tories face is similar to the one that the Reagan campaign faced in 1980. The Tories could learn a lot from Reagan’s economic rhetoric in that election. This past week, the Tories pulled off this triple play. The baby debt message accounted for the first two and their green proposals for the final part.

As Pete noted earlier we can expect the government to announce a new string of measures to try and get the banking system moving again next week. The key political question is whether action from the Prime Minister revives his poll rating or whether the public conclude that this means that the government’s first effort failed and that it doesn’t know what it’s doing. I’ve spent most of today at the Fabian Society conference and sitting on a panel with Peter Mandelson I was particularly struck by this comment from him: “No one responsibly would say that this is all that needs to be done to put right what’s gone wrong ... We’ll get there but it will take more time, more ingenuity and possibly some further trial.

There has been a conspicuous silence from the Tories about David Miliband’s deeply mistaken piece in The Guardian yesterday. While there are not many votes in foreign policy for an opposition, it is vital that a party that wants to be a success in government uses its time out of office to work out its world view. So far, there’s insufficient evidence that the Tories have done this. David Cameron has developed impressive relationships with foreign leaders but the intellectual framework for Tory foreign policy, especially when it comes to the broader Middle East, is lacking. Part of the problem is that there is no ideas infrastructure on the right when it comes to foreign policy; no think-tank on the right does work on it.

According to the school league tables published today no pupils at Eton are “achieving 5 A*-C GCSEs including English and maths". How can that be? Well, Eton like various other top private school have abandoned GCSEs in certain subjects and instead have their pupils take international GCSEs which don’t count in the league tables. IGCSEs, though, are far harder than their British counterparts, more like the old O-Levels than GCSES. For all the talk from Balls and Brown about "social mobility", they have presided over the erection of a new barrier to social mobility: the rise of an alternative set of exams that are more highly valued by universities and employers but are unavailable to children edcuated in the state system.

Having let the Ken Clarke hare run, the Tory leadership are faced by what happens to him dominating reshuffle coverage. If after this Cameron doesn’t bring him back there’ll be a lot of headlines about Cameron bowing to pressure from the right. But if Clarke does return, then the press—egged on by Mandelson—will start speculating about ‘Tory splits.’ (If Clarke does return, expect to see rather a lot of this pic from the Britain in Europe launch.) Cameron’s dilemma is that Clarke’s return would boost the party in opposition—he is, whatever his faults, a highly effective media performer—but hinder it in government.

Obama might be right that there is no alternative to the US running “trillion-dollar deficits”. But the $1.7 trillion deficit, its likely size in 2009, is truly alarming. Consider these comparisons that Kevin Hassett provides: “The whole world’s military spending in 2006 totalled a little less than $1.2 trillion. So next year’s U.S. deficit could cover that and still have $500 billion left over for building bridges. Perhaps the most disturbing comparison is this one: When President George W. Bush was first elected, total federal government spending was about $1.7 trillion. In other words, the difference between federal outlays and federal revenue this year will be bigger than the entire government was as recently as 2000.

In a classy gesture, Barack Obama is holding an inaugural eve dinner to honour John McCain. (There are other dinners that night for Colin Powell and Joe Biden). But it is also smart politics, as it costs Obama little and gains him much. McCain is a genuine American hero and the evening will be seen, and is presumably intended to be seen, as a sign that Obama is moving from being the candidate of one party to the president of the whole country. McCain isn’t going to run for president again and his support for various initiatives—think immigration reform and climate change legislation—would give them a pleasing bi-partisan sheen. The dinner will make Obama’s administration appear bi-partisan without actually having to compromise on policy.

Labour is right to want to do more to bring working class children into the professions. It is undeniable that middle-class children derive a considerable advantage from the social capital of their parents and the fact that their families can support them in low-paying or unpaid internships. Schemes that can offer those from deprived backgrounds access to these social networks should be welcomed; Chris Grayling is quite wrong to call it ‘class war’ and is playing into the worst perceptions of the party by doing so. But far more important to making Britain a more meritocratic country is school reform; making a good education available to everyone will do far more for social mobility than these schemes, however worthy they are.

There is a deep divide in Republican circles about how to think about the 2008 election result. Some argue that the results show just how close to becoming a rump party of the Deep South the GOP is. Others say that considering the economic crisis, the drag on the ticket that was the Bush presidency, the failings of the McCain campaign and Obama’s skills as a candidate to lose 53-46 in the popular vote was not that bad a result. I think the former group have the more convincing argument because of the ways in which America is changing. Just consider this from Ron Brownstein: “To grasp how powerfully demographic change is reshaping the political landscape try this thought experiment about the 2008 election.