By Adrian Hamilton

So Obama's speech at the Denver Convention was not the rip roaring, high rhetoric, inspirational declamation that his supporters inside and outside the stadium would have liked. So it was deliberately low key, detailed on the policies and soft on the emotion. So in many ways it was a speech in response to the concerns of his psephologists and the advice of his professionals.

But it was a good speech.

By Adrian Hamilton

There's not many who will mourn Musharraf's passing, nor should they. The fall of Pakistan's 'strongman', as the BBC rather curiously called him, was a long time coming and something of an anti-climax when it did Although he came to power in a military coup in 1999, a strongman General Pervez Musharraf never was, rather a rather weak leader who endlessly tried to keep Pakistan's forces - the military, the secret service, the tribal leaders, the feudal landlords and, not least, the Pentagon in Wasington - at bay by trying to buy off each in turn in a long and unproductive attempt to keep power. This has been no fall of a tyrant. When he finally went, what was most clear was not his strength but how few of his allies - most obviously in  the US and army - any longer supported him.

By Adrian Hamilton

Whatever else the current outbreak of hysteria in the Labour government may have done, one point it has thrown up is the need to move to fixed terms for governments. It wouldn't alter the current fury over the leadership; indeed, if it was clear that Labour would have to go to the country at a set time, it might actually sharpen it. But it would at least put a stop to the shameful discussion in Labour ranks as to whether a new leadership would then rush into an early election or the existing Prime Minister hobble on to a time of his choosing.

By Adrian Hamilton

Are the Europeans expecting too much from Obama on this visit? Of course they are. Barack Obama is not president (yet) nor JFK. His speech in Berlin and his meetings with Merkel, Sarkozy and Brown (as well as Blair and Cameron) are the tactics of a Presidential candidate facing criticism of a lack of experience in foreign affairs.

They are there - hence Obama's tour with a whole planeload of US TV journalists and presenters - to give the impression back home that the Democrat candidate is popular with America's allies, can handle the big occasions and is at home with the big foreign policy issues.

By Adrian Hamilton

Is there no end to the kow-towing to China these days? Well not in the BBC. The decision to devote its sixtieth anniversary Reith Lectures to the subject, and to place them in the hands of a historian (Jonathan Spence) is typical of the way the British establishment (and indeed the establishments of the US and most of Europe) is bending its knee to the coming power.

Nothing wrong with the subject. China is a fascinating, indeed obsessive, subject today as its extraordinary growth outstrips all historical parallels and reshapes the world. So what does the BBC do? Give it to one of the many experts who might tackle head on the questions of where this power is going and what it is doing to its own people? No. That might be contentious and arouse China's ever-combustible sensitivities.

By Adrian Hamilton

It is what political leaders leave out of their speeches that is often more interesting than what they put in. So with President Bush's speech this week to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel. The peace process which he is supposed to be pushing as his final legacy of office barely got a look in.

Which tells you all you need to know about how the talks for peace set in motion earlier this year at Annapolis are going. The straight answer is nowhere. Although Washington would still hope to get some kind of statement of agreed principles by the time Bush leaves office in January, words are the very most they can hope for. On anything substantive or practical there just isn't the ability to deliver from either side. The Palestinians are divided between Gaza and the West Bank. Israel's government is too weak and its prime minister may fall any moment, charged with corruption.

By Adrian Hamilton

The government's handling of the credit crunch is now rapidly descending from denial to panic and now farce. The crisis is real enough but the attempt to show Prime Ministerial firmness against the banks in the breakfast summit at Number Ten is really nothing more than a ridiculous piece of posturing.

The fact is that the banks are in a stand off with the British authorities. The financial institutions say they can't ease their lending until the government bails them out with increased liquidity and by lending against some of their dodgier assets. The government - particularly the Bank of England - say they won't do this because it will only reward the banks for their irresponsible past lending.

Fine as a moral argument. No-one need to have any sympathy for the banks, a bunch of self-rewarding greedheads if ever there were. But what the government is demanding is just totally contradictory.

By Adrian Hamilton

You have to hand it to the Royal Family and the Establishment. It's not fast on its feet and it's certainly not attuned to the modern world, but when it comes under direct attack - as it has from Mohamed Fayed - it sure knows how to gather its strength to squash the offending beetle.

I'm no believer in conspiracies on Diana's death. Nor  have I ever been much interested in her private life. But the way that the coroner's inquest was set up to damn for ever the Egyptian owner of Harrods and - they hoped - to lay finally Diana's ghost to rest was almost frightening in its ruthlessness and purpose.

By Adrian Hamilton

Can you believe our Prime Minister agreeing to have the Olympic torch come to Downing Street and then, when the protests mount, very carefully avoiding actually touching it so that he can't be pictured carrying it? But then this is the same man who reluctantly agreed to meet the Dalai Lama when he comes to London next month but only at Lambeth Palace not Downing Street, to make the occasion a religious rather than political gesture.

It won't work. For, whatever they may achieve in terms of changing Chinese policy, the demonstrations over the Olympic games have brought the Tibet cause fairly and squarely onto centre stage and western politicians cannot any longer get away with trying to have it both ways - mouthing human rights whilst cosying up to the Chinese government.