James Forsyth

Sue Cameron delivers up another great mix of scoops and quotes in her FT column this morning---it is worth paying £1.50 for this quote from Peter Hennessy alone: “If you think this lot have a Baldrick-style cunning plan you are flattering them”. But the more serious point comes from an anonymous insider:“Downing Street is a court… It’s about individual power and you mustn’t go thinking it’s logical” The Brown court has been even more dysfunctional than his harshest critics predicted, it has been a brutal reflection of the Prime Minister’s own flaws. The scene Cameron paints of an irate Brown striding the halls, demanding to know how on earth David Cameron was able to beat him and Miliband to Georgia rings all too true.

The transfer of Anbar province to Iraqi control marks another step forward in Iraq. The transformation in Anbar has been quite incredible. Two years ago, no one sane would have predicted that the then heartland of the Sunni insurgency would be peacefully and voluntarily handed over by the United States at the end of August 2008 with the occasion marked by a parade featuring unarmed US troops. To be sure, there is still much work to be done in Iraq. The situation there is fragile and there appear to be some new problems to confront but there has been a remarkable amount of progress made there in the past year and a bit; the number of attacks has fallen from a hundred and eighty a day in June 2007 to around twenty a day at the beginning of this August.

When David Miliband wrote his infamous Guardian piece and then further stoked the controversy with a series of provocative media appearances many of us expected the Brownites to knee-cap him. After all, vicious party in-fighting is what they do best. But the Brownites—reportedly because of Stephen Carter’s intervention—backed away. At this point, the air of almost physical menace that surrounded the Brownites evaporated. Maintaining discipline within the Labour party has consequently become far harder. No one now fears the consequences of speaking out in the way they once did. (It was once seriously put to me that Charles Clarke was prepared to stand up to Brown because his belly acted as a physical buffer zone between him and Brown).

The Independent on Sunday’s report that Stephen Carter has been demoted is hugely significant. If it is right, and I have no reason to think it is not I just haven’t independently confirmed it, it suggests that a change in strategy is coming; that the Brownites are going to adopt a more bare-knuckle approach. In recent weeks, Carter has been advocating not trying to tear David Miliband down, he played a key role in the brokering of the Peace of Minorca, and trying to separate David Cameron from his party, Carter argues that the public believe Cameron to be a decent guy and a moderate so attempting to demonise him won’t work and that the best strategy therefore is to say to voters OK Cameron is alright but what about the rest of them.

At first blush the selections of Joe Biden and Sarah Palin appear to have little in common. Obama went for an experienced Washington insider with a ton of national security experience, McCain went for a first term governor whose previous statements on foreign policy hardly suggest a great deal of knowledge about the subject. But the two picks do have something in common: they’re the picks you would have advised the candidates to make if they were running in 2000. In 2000, with the misguided holiday from history still in full swing, Biden would have answered questions about Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience in the way that Cheney did for Bush.

A few weeks ago I was talking to a Republican who fretted that McCain wasn’t far enough behind. His worry was that the McCain campaign wouldn’t realise just how many risks it has to take to win. Well after McCain has tapped the young, inexperienced Alaska Governor Sarah Palin no one can make that argument anymore. The question is this is a sensible risk or a stupid one? The argument for it being sensible is that she is a woman, a Washington outsider, a reformer, someone who excites social conservatives but doesn’t scare moderates and understands energy issues at a time when high gas prices regularly come in the top three issues for voters. On the other hand, she has no national security experience and is not tested on the national political stage.

The McCain campaign used to rail against the media’s obsession with Obama but now it feeds it. It has jumped into the conversation through a series of ads mocking Obama and tough charges all of which has helped turn the election into a referendum on Obama. (This shift from a referendum on the Bush years to a referendum on Obama is the best explanation for why race is so close.) As part of this approach, the McCain campaign will bracket Obama’s acceptance speech tonight with an ad from McCain asking Obama a series of pointed questions. The ad will undoubtedly get good play in the media but it is a risk. If McCain gets the tone wrong, it could look mean spirited on a historic night for America.

Bill Clinton’s speech is going to be the dramatic focal point of the night. Whether it is an emotional rapprochement with Obama, a lukewarm endorsement or a reflection on the prosperity of the Clinton years it will be news. The nervousness among Democrats here in Denver about the speech will only have been increased by the news that Bill told a group of donors that “Last night after she spoke, anyone who helped her were glad they did. And some were sad they didn’t.” If Bill’s evident regret that the Democrats didn’t pick his wife seeps into his speech tonight then the press will have a field day and another day of the Democratic convention will have been overshadowed by the Clinton drama.

Everything this year seems to have aligned for the Democrats. The incumbent Republican president is deeply unpopular, more than three quarters of voters think the country is on the wrong track, the economy is in trouble and the conservative coalition is fracturing. But still the presidential race is tight; there aren’t more than a couple of points in it. The explanation for this is quite simple: the election has moved from being a referendum on the Bush years to a referendum on Barack Obama. The extent to which Obama dominates the media coverage of the campaign means that the most important thing in deciding your vote is what you think of Obama. This is what explains why quite so many Clinton Democrats are supporting McCain.