Murdoch Uses Brits For Obama Campaign

The once respected Times has the audacity and arrogance to presume to speak with the voice of the "British people", using UK readers to sway American presidential voters, as Murdoch urges the US to do it his way.

Murdoch's Times has called it for Obama with the boss clearly deciding to put profits before reasoned argument and use those 'British people' as part of his campaign. 

Murdoch has made no secret of putting his backing where it will sell more papers and now it's a case of 'follow my leader'. 

With Obama riding high in the polls it was to be expected. Murdoch thinks he's on a roll with this one. 

But instead of coming out with a deep and thoughtful analysis, The Times leader reads more like a free puff for its favourite brand of soap powder and its leading article, which has not been written for UK readers, is clearly aimed at an American audience. 

It is a blatant attempt to try to use its UK readership base to influence people on both sides of the Atlantic. 

"Some Americans wish to know how their election appears to many British people," it begins. "The Times, reflecting upon an American choice, hopes that the outcome will be an Obama victory." 

Murdoch's media tentacles stretch far and wide on both sides of the Atlantic and no one should underestimate his influence either in the media or politics. 

He's a global player but at heart, he's a newspaper man, driven by advertising and profits and what sells newspapers. And Obama is flavour of the month. He'll now use any means to manipulate public opinion for his man.

Murdoch has made no secret of calling it for Blair before the 1997 general election because it would sell more papers, nor of his support for Obama for the same reason. 

At one time the nation held its breath as The Times pronounced on an important issue of the day. The Times leader thundered with authority. It was the voice of the establishment and could bring down governments. Not any more - it just takes its place with the other tabloids on the news stand. 

But in the US, some people still think The Times counts for something. 

Murdoch's influence is everywhere in the media. But there are many more respected newspapers and TV news stations out there which are not part of his global empire. There too, the political blogsphere, which cannot be controlled, is independent, sophisticated and influential. 

The Times lost its authority when it switched from a broadsheet and was forced to elbow for space on the news stand with the other tabloids. It lost its respect when it started coming out with free puffs like this one, for one of the presidential candidates and trying to use the "British people" as part of its campaign.

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Joe The Plumber Wins Final US Debate

Joe the Plumber won last night's crucial TV debate, as McCain and Obama got up close and personal and McCain tried to remind voters, yet again, that he wasn't George Bush. 

McCain kicked off the final debate, accusing Obama of waging a class war with tax increases that would "spread the wealth around" and led to a constant battle about what's best for Joe the Plumber, that shaped the debate and could decide the result of the election. 

McCain at times looked angry and got under Obama's skin. Obama tried to keep his customary cool, calmly sipping his water but the unflappable mask and charming smile slipped on a number of occasions. 

It was McCain, not Obama, who needed to win last night's debate and launch a political comeback. 

McCain finally had some fire in his belly as he brought up Obama's relationship with former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. 

He demanded to know the full extent of Obama's relationship with Ayers, a violent 1960s terrorist and the Democrat's ties with ACORN, a liberal group accused of violating federal law over registering voters. But he allowed Obama to parry the Ayres attack without driving his point home.

McCain then accused Obama of not levelling with the public over his decision to forgo public financing for his campaign in favour of raising his own funds.

"He signed a piece of paper earlier in the campaign pledging to accept federal financing", McCain said, adding that Obama's campaign has spent more money than any since Watergate. Obama let that one go.

Negative TV ads and accusations are all part of the cut and thrust of any US presidential campaign and the jury's out on whether they sway the undeciders or just harden the views of hard-line Obamakins and McCanines.

The economy dominated the headlines before the debate even started and dominated the debate. The election will be decided on who best to trust with that withering economy. 

Struggling to escape being tarred with the same brush as Bush, McCain ran with the line and sound-bite: "Sen. Obama, I am not President Bush. ... You wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago."

With parallels to the Nixon-Kennedy TV debate in 1960, if you didn't listen to the words, Obama, on the whole, just looked much better than McCain and he came across again as a better debater. 

Obama leads in the national polls and surveys in many battleground states, since the economic crisis gripped the nation.

McCain has a steep hill to climb. But he needs now to stop freaking people out about their jobs. Harping on about Joe the Plumber's small business problems won't help in the final days. McCain needs a game change. Obama, just to keep his cool and a level head.

Obama holds a 7.3% lead in the Real Clear Politics polls average but the latest Gallup tracking poll reveals there are nearly twice as many undecided voters this year than there were in the last presidential election. 

The financial crisis has taken an enormous toll on the McCain campaign over the past month but Obama hasn't closed the deal yet. 

In the campaign's final days, it will be that vast swathe of millions of undecided voters, not the already committed, who will take a last serious look at both presidential candidates and finally make up their minds. 

The outcome of this race isn't cast in stone yet, as much of the media desperately hopes and would have us believe.

And what did Joe 'the plumber' Wurzelbacher make of it all?

He said Obama's reaction on the tax question left him feeling uneasy. "I didn't think much of it the first time I heard it," Wurzelbacher said, adding that he still thinks Obama's plan would keep him from buying the business. About McCain: "He's got it right as far as I go."

And which candidate would get Joe's vote on November 4? "That's for me and a button to know," he said.

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Brown's Labour Isn't Working

People struggling in the real economy took another battering today as unemployment is set to hit the two million mark by Christmas. There's little hope for anyone on the horizon, apart from the banks, as experts warn the devastating impact is only just beginning.

The number of people "out of work" rose by another 164,000 between June and August, to 1.79 million, according to government figures, the biggest rise since 1991.

This is despite the best efforts of the government to manipulate the easy target of unemployment figures and mask the true number of people not working who do not claim benefit.

Unemployment is now set to climb above two million by Christmas. Some forecasts put it at three million the year after. 

Even New Labour union sympathiser, Brendan Barber from Unite, reckons, "There can be no assumption that the people who are losing their jobs will find it easy to get new ones."

Today's figures come as inflation soared to a record 15 year high of 5.2 per cent, even using the government's discredited CPI index, following sharp rises in fuel and food prices.

After leading the way with the £500 billion bank bail-out and pseudo-nationalisation, experts predict the UK will now "lead the way" into world-wide recession.

Meanwhile, Brown is having praise heaped upon him from money-men around the world, as they rushed to join him and throw two trillion pounds of taxpayers cash and unrealistic borrowing to prop up the world economy, according to the Daily Telegraph. 

But there's little praise in the real world of the real economy, where people are worried sick about losing their jobs, getting work, facing crippling food and fuel bills, while trying to make ends meet struggling with spiralling debt.

Cameron's Conservatives and Salmond's SNP are right to attack the government's past economic record, creating the false boom and then the real gloom of the real economy, which directly affects people's lives. LibDem, Vince Cable, would do well to do likewise or face being labelled Mr "Has Been".

There are few words of comfort from Brown, who said the government would do "all it could to create work and help people maintain their jobs. Unemployment and redundancies are something that we wish to avoid wherever possible." 

Brown should get out into the real economy and the real world a little more often instead of coming out with the same tired old platitudes.

The Saatchi Tory Party 'Labour isn’t working' poster, which helped the downfall of Callaghan and the rise of Thatcher in the 1979 election, came at a time when unemployment stood at a paltry 1.4 million. Those were the days. How times change.

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Quick, Slip In Another Climb-Down

42 days, secret inquests and Sats. The climb-downs are coming thick and fast along with soaring inflation. With ministers thinking they're on a roll after Brown bankrolled the banks, it's a good time to bury bad news for the government but good news for schoolkids and civil liberties.

After the Lords booted out 42 days detention, Brown couldn't risk sticking to his guns nor could he lose face and throw in the towel. So up popped home secretary, Jacqui Smith, with the odd 'bill but no bill' solution. Totally bizarre - but Brown fudge won the day. 

Then the government dropped plans, in the same counter-terrorism bill, to order inquests to be held in private using the old chestnut of "on the grounds of national security."

The Oxfordshire coroner was clearly getting up the nose of the government as time and again he publicly blasted the MoD and ministers for equipment failures during inquests into Iraq and Afghanistan troop deaths. 

The solution was simple - just keep them all secret then no one would be any the wiser. 

42 days and the secret inquests have bitten the dust for now. But neither will go away for good. Popping the champagne is too early. It should be put on ice, which is what's happening with these deeply unpopular measures.

42 days will return in some form or other when the government feels there is a politically less risky climate. Another bill is already in the pipeline. There are plans to include those secret inquests in a bill on coroners reforms.

Now, instead of scrapping himself, schools minister, Ed Balls, is to scrap Sats tests for 14 year-olds in England, following this summer's marking shambles.

All this on a day where, back in the real economy, inflation today hit home above the 5% mark, even using the government's own manipulated CPI figures.

What next to get buried in the dust?  How about ID cards? 

The government was playing politics with people's civil liberties the first time round and is just doing it again. Burdening children with a testing culture was playing with young people's minds. Masking the true rise in inflation, is playing with the effect on the real economy 

As has been observed elsewhere, it's all leaving a nasty taste. 

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Meanwhile, Back In The Real Economy...

Brown's big bank bail-out came down with a bump today as, back in the real world, inflation hit home at above the 5% mark. Bailing out banks with taxpayers cash keeps the stock market happy but people are asking, what's in it for us? For the moment, not a lot. 

As the focus switches to the fall-out from the bank bail-out, even the government's much loved and discredited Consumer Price Index (CIP) is now weighing in at a hefty 5.2%, up from 4.7% in August. Now the highest in 15 years.

A better indicator, the Retail Price Index (RPI), ditched by New Labour in 2003, was already at 5% last month. 

The CPI may be a less effective measure of price rises than the old RPI, but it's much easier to manipulate. But even the spin can't halt the upwards march.

Even these official figures mask what's happening in the real world and tell people what they know already. Food prices and, in particular those obscene gas and electricity bills, are going through the roof, while Brown borrows billions of pounds to pop up the banks and get us all deeper in debt. 

The UK's annual rate of inflation rose to 4.4% in July, up from 3.8% in June, as measured by the CPI. That was the biggest monthly change in the annual CPI rate since records began in 1997. And it's just getting worse. 

The annual rate of inflation for energy and other household bills has now reached 15%.

It will be this real economy of jobs, inflation, mortgages, small businesses and meagre wage rises which will determine Brown and the government's future.

The recriminations have already begun. Cameron and the Conservatives have started to focus on that real economy and at the same time hit home on the decade of Brown's incompetence and the false boom years which got us in this mess in the first place. 

Voters have short memories. Brown's bounce will be short-lived. It is inflation, unemployment and spiralling debt, trying to make ends meet, which is the bogyman for the government, not the banks. After the boom, the gloom.

The nitty gritty of life determines the success of governments and whether they survive, not hugely expensive quick fixes for the City.

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42 Days Later, The Fudge?

The Lords have flexed their muscles and come down on the side of civil liberties, throwing out the government's much derided 42 day detention bill. Does Brown stick to his guns and risk the wrath of back-benchers, throw in the towel or fudge the whole issue? 

Brown got his way with the 42 day bill with some neat footwork and hefty bribes. It scrapped through the commons by just nine DUP votes in June, with 36 Labour MPs rebelling. This time round he won't be so lucky. 

The government can use the Parliament Act to steam-roll through the legislation. But Brown and the government's position is too precarious to play ping-pong. When the dust settles and the spin of the obscene bank bail-outs are seen as for what they are, there's nowhere left to hide. 

Few but government ministers want this draconian law. Brown staked his political reputation on getting the bill through the commons, sacrificing civil liberties for political power.

Whatever way ministers tried to spin it, this was 42 Days Detention Without Charge or Trial. The most serious threat to our traditions of civil liberties since before the signing of the Magna Carta.

The proposal had been criticised by not only Conservatives, LibDems and backbench Labour MPs, but also the director of public prosecutions, the former attorney general and the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner. It didn't stand a chance of getting through the Lords. 

Times have changed and so has the mood of the country. Most of the alleged terrorists have either been rounded up or gone into hiding. 

Brown cannot risk a suicide note, unless ministers have become so smug and arrogant they think they can ride rough shod over people's basic rights once again. But he cannot risk what will be seen as a climb-down and leave him open to attack. 

Brown's answer maybe to do what he has always done in these circumstances. Hide in the bunker and hope it all goes away. 

42 days could be just put on the back-burner or more likely spun away with an almighty fudge. Unless of course, the government ministers are so buoyed up with a false sense of security after the bail-outs, they think they can get now away with anything.

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Brown's Bulimic Bail-Out Makes You Sick

Another day, another eye-watering bank bail-out. This has little to do with helping people and everything to do with saving the City and Brown's skin. Not a penny is being used where it really matters. Another bulimic bank bail-out and it's enough to make you sick. 

Today we were forced to sit through the same obscene spectacle, with another taxpayers bail-out which crept up throughout yesterday from around £12 billion ending today at around £37 billion. 

This is no Northern Rock nationalisation. This is pseudo-nationalisation. There's little accountability. City shareholders not parliament still call the shots.

Schools, hospitals, old people's homes, small businesses, obscene gas price rises, capped and meagre wages are left to rot.

The government thinks it's riding high on the crest of a wave with the unsinkable Gordon Brown. But look through the looking glass and you see a very different picture. 

Announcements are being timed for political advantage and to wrong-foot the opposition. Spin doctors and plumbers are working overtime to paint the boss in a good light. 

Billions of pounds is being begged and borrowed and thrown around like confetti. Meanwhile people are worried about jobs, gas and food bills continue to rise, no one gives a bugger about UK manufacturing and people are being forced to live on a pittance and struggle with debt on a meagre income. 

Attention has switched slightly to what's laughingly called the "real" economy. Jobs, prices, small businesses, pay deals and the like. If that's 'real' then what is going on at the moment is unreal. But it's more than that, it's surreal. 

Some things just won't work because they can't. Try striking a match on a bar of soap. The amounts of cash being thrown at the banks is so staggering it beggars belief. 

Some have warned this is the end of capitalism and globalisation. It is the opposite. What we are witnessing is the triumph of the banks and the City, not their downfall. 

October 13, 2008 will go down in history. The time when the money men finally took over politics and parliament now plays second fiddle to the City.

You cannot change the bad habits of a decade overnight. The illusion of wealth is a delusion too entrenched in our psyche. The decade of debt now part of the disillusioned aspiring lifestyle. 

Anything other than bowing to the pressures of the banks and handing them our cash means Brown would have to admit his handling of the economy has been flawed and incompetent from the start. 

Taxpayers cash is being used to prop up the banking system to get them all off the hook. Secret bank and government meetings exposed Brown and Darling as either weak and being used as the democratic front men to get their hands on the cash or they were willing partners. Probably a bit of both.

Brown's much vaunted 'rescue plan', now touted around Europe as a cure all for all economic ills, is laughable not laudable. Use taxpayers cash or get the country deeper in debt with more borrowing. That's not a plan that's a recipe for disaster. 

Bank nationalisation is being spun as some kind of monster lurking around the corner. The rantings of sad old socialists. But is it really that worse than freely handing over wads of cash with few strings attached? 

If politicians can't hack it or screw up they are booted out by voters, instead of being rewarded for incompetence with fat bonuses and payoffs. 

Full public ownership brings accountability back to parliament. It imposes checks and safeguards. It brings a clear chain of command back to people. But even that just scratches the surface. 

All people want to know is that their savings are safe and no bastard is going to come round and repossess their home. Both measures could have been achieved by a government which puts people first and without all this fuss. 

For the moment, most politicians seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet but some searching questions are starting to be asked by Conservatives, LibDems and true Labour. And there are growing calls for Brown to be called to account for his actions.

For Brown and his ministers, it's the same old song. The words have been written by bankers and orchestrated by the City. Any pretence of putting people first has become a sick joke. 

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Markets Braced For A Manic Monday

Markets are bracing themselves for manic Monday, as Brown plans another big bank bail-out. Black Monday, Black Friday, Black Wednesday. Soon there will be not enough days of the week left to feel black about. 

Bush and then Brown handed over billions of taxpayers cash to prop up the banks, which sailed off into Galbraith's "wild blue yonder" without any risk or accountability, leaving the markets wide-open for another Minsky moment.

The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned the world financial system is on the "brink of systemic meltdown". What is clear is that Brown's £500 billion bank bail-out package was doomed from the start. Just throwing more taxpayers cash at the problem without full accountability and proper safeguards won't help.

Brown's plan cannot work in its current form, because he is trying to find a solution within a flawed economic model of his own making, strung along by a bunch of sharp Ponzi operators. A point made here earlier in the week.

The cut in interest rates did nothing for the inter bank lending rate which went up. But then it would. Banks got the guarantees of cash. So after screwing gullible investors with Ponzi schemes, they'll screw each other for every penny. 

Traders and investors were put on this earth for money-making in the good times and damage limitation in the bad. Politicians, to bank-roll the banks and utter a few words of comfort for confidence. 

It is confidence which lies at the heart of the matter. Bush's bail-out couldn't work and didn't. There was no Plan B. But what did Brown do? The same, only bigger. Confidence? Throwing billions to the sharks in the banking system smacks of desperation. 

Bush is on his way out. Brown, when the dust settles, not too far behind. Together they've been responsible for creating the 'illusion of wealth' on the back of a decade of debt, living in cloud cuckoo land. If there was an economic war crimes tribunal they'd be brought to book. 

Some politicians and economists are coming round to nationalisation of the banks as the only possible solution. 

Labour grandee, Tony Benn, has used the issue of accountability as the main reason for public ownership along with the disturbing fact that power has been transferred from parliament to the City. 

LSE economics professor and former Monetary Policy Committee member, Willem Buiter, has made a similar case for nationalisation but as a temporary measure to restore confidence.

G7 finance ministers have paved the way for part-nationalisation. Now Brown is planning more bank bail-outs before markets open, with HBOS and RBS likely suspects, hiding behind the spin of "recapitalisation" with few checks and little accountability for taxpayers.

As screens turned red around the world on Friday, the money men took one look at the money markets and each other and decided to sell. Lock, stock and barrel. 

The selling frenzy turned into a stampede, as everyone realised their 'assets' were not worth the paper they were written on. They got out while they could, with what they could.

Cash from the sales has been hoarded away for the next rainy day. That Minsky moment, predicted for so long, the mad rush for the exit, had finally arrived. 

There will have been a lot of hard-nosed thinking by hard-boiled money men over the weekend. If stock markets do ever stabalise, then it will be only because they've milked the system dry. 

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Not Such A Pretty Straight Sort Of Guy

Blair was telling porkies about the notorious Ecclestone Affair when he offered himself up on TV as a "pretty straight sort of guy". The truth about Teflon Tony during New Labour's first big sleaze scandal has been revealed in secret government documents. What next, the dirty secrets behind the Iraq "sexed-up" dodgy dossier?

The Sunday Telegraph, in a long Freedom of Information battle, has disclosed that Blair personally intervened to secure Formula One's exemption from a tobacco advertising ban. That came just hours after meeting the motorsport's boss, Bernie Ecclestone.

The government has always maintained that the Tony and Bernie meeting did not influence the final decision to offer exemption.

But previously secret papers show that Blair did order ministers to find ways to implement the "derogation" for Formula One.

Parliament and journalists were told a very different story when the sleaze scandal first broke in 1997.

There were calls for Blair to go when it became clear Ecclestone had donated £1m to the New Labour Party coffers, just months before the tobacco advertising climbdown. 

But the prime minister popped up on the BBC's 'On The Record' programme to defend the exemption and to insist he was "a pretty straight sort of guy." He got away with it. Teflon Tony had arrived. 

At the time the government insisted the decision to exempt Formula One was not decided by Blair following his meeting with Ecclestone. They insisted it was a joint decision made with the Department of Health at a later date.

But the Telegraph maintains, "the newly released documents prove conclusively that Mr Blair ordered his Government to prepare for the policy change immediately following his meeting with Mr Ecclestone - a fact which was not revealed at the time of the scandal."

So now we know what we suspected all along. Blair was lying through his polished political teeth. And if he could get away with one porky, then Saddam's elusive Weapons of Mass Destruction would be a piece of cake. 

The Cabinet Office has yet to lift the lid on the Iraq "sexed-up" dodgy dossier, after the information commissioner's request to release documents on that shameful episode.

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