James Forsyth

First it was Margaret Beckett tipped for a return to the front line, now it is John Prescott. Here’s Martin Bright in the New Statesman. “There is also talk of the need for a Chris Patten figure to act as cheerleader for the party, as the Tory chairman did in the run-up to the 1992 election to cover for John Major's inadequacies. More likely will be the emergence of a praetorian guard of seasoned TV and radio performers to protect Brown from the growing hostility of the media. One figure who may yet make a play for the Patten role is the former deputy party leader John Prescott, who has re-entered the fray as an unlikely blogger on the LabourHome website.

President Bush’s decision to have the US military head up a humanitarian mission to Georgia is about more than bringing much-needed aid and relief to the Georgian people. The thinking appears to be that using US planes and ships to deliver aid will serve as a way of pressuring Russia not to close down Georgian airspace and try and blocks its access to the sea. In an interview with The New York Times, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said that Bush’s announcement marked  a “turning point”:  “What I expected specifically from America was to secure our airport and to secure our seaports,” he said, in a telephone interview minutes after Mr. Bush spoke.

New York Magazine has done a special issue this week on race and the US election. There’s lot of good stuff in the package but this line from John Heilemann’s cover story stood out to me: “In October, Obama’s former pastor, Wright, will publish a new book and hit the road to promote it” This is a huge problem for Obama. It means that the whole controversy over Wright’s racialist sermons and his friendship with Obama is going to be returning to the news agenda just as undecided voters begin to make up their minds. Wright’s performance at the National Press Club back in April showed that Wright revels in the national spotlight and doesn’t care if his performances hurt Obama.

The 12 days since David Miliband’s Guardian op-ed has seen Miliband both achieve a tactical success and a tactical failure. Indeed, the real gainers from this initial phase have been the other possible challengers. Miliband’s achievement is that he is the boy who lived. He is the first Labour MP since Blair in 1994 to emerge as a serious threat to Brown’s leadership ambitions and survive. The fact that Miliband was not dispatched instantly means that his credibility has risen. His continuing presence in the government even after his performance on the Jeremy Vine show is a daily reminder of Brown’s weakness. But if Brown is forced out, Miliband will be the candidate tarred with disloyalty and the one that the Brownites will do anything to stop.

Russian ground forces are now moving on Gori, a Georgian city outside of South Osseti. This marks a major escalation in this conflict. Russia’s behaviour in the past few days—most notably, the bombing of Georgian energy pipelines far away from either South Ossetia or Abkhazia and its lack of interest in a proposed ceasefire—have demonstrated that Russia’s actions are not really about South Ossetia but about an attempt to force countries in its ‘near abroad’ to accept Russian hegemony. It would be an error both strategically and morally to accept that Russia is entitled to exercise this kind of suzerainty over its neighbours. The disputes over South Ossetia and Abkhazia needs to be settled by internationally monitored referendums.

Today’s most important news story appears in the Washington Post, here’s the lede: “U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that elements of Pakistan's military intelligence service provided logistical support to militants who staged last month's deadly car bombing at the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan's capital, U.S. officials familiar with the evidence said yesterday. The finding, based partly on communication intercepts, has dramatically heightened U.S. concerns about long-standing ties between Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, and Taliban-allied groups that are battling U.S. forces in Afghanistan, according to two U.S. government officials briefed on the matter.

Politics right now is unbelievably macho. Every conversation I’ve had today about the Labour leadership has involved phrases like ‘kill or be killed’, ‘kneecap him’, ‘destroy him’ etc. As this seeps into the coverage, it is going to be distinctly unappealing to voters.  Now, consider that Gordon Brown is only going to be removed from office once much blood has been spilled and that David Miliband will almost certainly face a challenger and you see a real opportunity for Harriet Harman. She can emerge onto the scene after an ugly struggle and offer a less testosterone-fueled politics.

Camilla Cavendish’s column in The Times is essential reading about the Miliband leadership bid. She makes the point that for all the talk about Miliband being a big thinker with a firm grasp of policy, the Miliband manifesto is very vague: "His pitch is that a refreshed Labour Party must combine “government action and personal freedom”. But he is shy about saying where the balance should be struck. To be fair, he has been saying for two years that people want more control over their lives, and that Labour must devolve more power to people. He said it again yesterday - but without a whit of detail.