David Cameron’s pitch for the progressive ground of politics is a huge challenge to the centre-left. It is both threat and opportunity. The threat comes from the fact that he might be believed. Given that New Labour has never trumpeted its redistribution to the poor no one feels good about it. The recipients don’t know why their pay packets are fuller as a consequence of tax credits or the minimum wage and the rest of society is not hard wired into the moral prerequisite of a fair and just society. It would be a tragedy if New Labour lets the Tories get away with such a trick.
The sad passing of Gwyneth Dunwoody could be the catalyst for change around Crewe and Nantwich. There’s been a flurry of political activity leading up to the former Labour MP’s funeral, with plenty of seemingly rash promises being made. If half of them are honoured the town will be transformed! Trouble is, we’re in danger of getting lost amid substantial bouts of mud slinging. The 10 per cent tax issue has been played early by the Conservative candidate Edward Timpson, with other Labour woes also being highlighted by him and the Lib Dem’s late substitute Elizabeth Shenton. None of them should look smug, however, as if any of the political heavyweights in London gaff over the next two weeks, you can be sure that their by-election representatives will get slaughtered up here.
For me, though, the local stuff is crucial and Crewe and Nantwich voters need to rise above the national squabbling.
Israel marks its independence by counting: the number of soldiers fallen in wars; the number of civilians murdered in acts of terror; the number of Jews and non-Jews who live in the country. But counting also produces an accounting as the country assesses the price its people pay for Jewish sovereignty. As Israel has moved further from its 1948 point of origin, its fear of not measuring up to the ideals of the nation’s founders is as real as its consciousness of progress.
A Jewish state was intended to secure Jewish lives, revitalize and expand Jewish culture, and serve as a universal model for social justice. Perhaps such exacting goals could never be fully met, but they continue to set the standards against which the nation tests itself. Independence Day is a kind of secular Rosh ha-Shanah, another occasion when the state publishes its census and a Day of Judgment according to religious tradition.
When asked on ABC News about what she would do if Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel, Hillary Clinton was explicit, “…we would be able to totally obliterate them and those people who run Iran need to know that.”
Forget the fact that the latest CIA National Intelligence Estimate on Iran concludes that the Iranians have suspended their nuclear weapons programme. No, Mrs Clinton was perfectly happy to skip across two lily pads of ‘if.’ Mrs Clinton treated the scenario of Iran acquiring a nuclear capability and launching a nuclear attack on Israel as a round-the-corner possibility. Someone keep her away from the red phone, please. Suddenly, the fact that Barack Obama’s nutty, former pastor believes that AIDS was an attack on black Americans orchestrated by the Federal government seems almost quaint by comparison.
Not to be outdone, the Fox News Commentariat has responded with its own set of ‘ifs’ that can only hurtle the US towards ever more assertive militarism.
Two predictions: Gordon Brown will definitely lead Labour into the next general election - in the spring of 2010. How should he give Labour a fighting chance of winning? Despite the opinion poll gloom, the roadmap to recovery is not too hard to find. It was best expressed by Gordon Brown himself, when he ran (unopposed) to be leader of his party last year. Brown represented both continuity and change – with the emphasis firmly on ‘change’.
There would be no great lurch leftwards. But Brown knew too that ‘more of the same’ would fail, and that the politics of 2007-10 are not the same as those of 1997. Sometimes, because of Labour success: chronic under-investment in health and education had been urgent in 1997; battles won have made the minimum wage and civil partnerships part of a new consensus. But ‘change’ was also needed on foreign policy after Iraq, and on ‘trust’ in politics where Brown needed to acknowledge mistakes and change course to win back a disillusioned public.
Almost a year on, the public is not clear what the Brown government stands for. The problem: not enough change.
Iain Duncan Smith has become indispensable to David Cameron's Conservative revival. The work that his Centre for Social Justice has done in its Breakdown Britain reports has prepared the ground for a new advance in Mr Cameron's broad tent political strategy. Having brazenly marched his new Toryism onto the environmental and NHS agendas, the Tory Leader is now pitching his tent on that traditional Labour turf: poverty. And Mr Duncan Smith was at his side as Mr Cameron marched forward at yesterday's launch of the Conservative's 'Making British Poverty History' report.
This Toryism is a world away from 'the no such thing as society' brutal neo-liberalism of Margaret Thatcher. This comes across as genuine social concern and the Labour party ignores this audacious political manoeuvring at its peril.
Gordon Brown and Labour are doomed unless they start enacting policies based on the traditional Labour values they dumped in 1997.
Under Labour the gap between the rich and poor has widened. While giving perks and breaks to the super-rich, Gordon Brown's abolition of the 10p starting rate of tax has penalised low income earners. The government's u-turn and compensation package will not benefit everyone who has lost out. Some people will still be worse off. Either the 10p rate should be reinstated or personal allowances should be raised to compensate for its abolition.
Cheaper is decidedly not greener when it comes to travel, according to an interesting little bit of research that turned up today. The cost of domestic air flights have halved since 1996 while rail travel has got six per cent more expensive in real terms.
The trends were condemned by the Liberal Democrats, who obtained the figures from Parliamentary questions put down by Norman Baker, the green-minded Lib Dem transport spokesman.
Yesterday’s rejection by the Scottish Government of the proposed giant windfarm on the Isle of Lewis may be seen by some people as an unjustified setback in the vital fight to counter global warming with renewable energy. But if you think, as many of us do, that climate change is the biggest threat out civilisation has known, and fighting it is an overwhelming priority, ask yourself this: would you put a windfarm next to Stonehenge?
Mr Chu’s chinese restaurant in Hull will not be
struggling for lack of profile after John Prescott disclosed he would
“eat my way through the entire menu" there. But what was the point of
the BBC’s item on the Prescott story on the 10pm bulletin last night?
If you’ve never made a mistake it’s likely you’ve never made anything and never done very much. The Labour Government has done lots of good things over the last 11 years to fight poverty, improve our public services and create a fairer society, but no one can deny that there have been some mistakes and errors of judgment made along the way - and my constituents have never been slow to bring these to my attention.
Up until now, I’ve always been able to put up some kind of credible defence for my Government even when I’ve felt that they were getting it wrong. But the consequences of abolishing the 10p tax band for low earners is – in my view – indefensible.
It is Zimbabwe’s Independence Day today, but rather than living in a state of freedom and independence, Zimbabweans are trapped in an interregnum. These elections are different from all the previous elections that have been rigged by Mugabe because we know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that we have proof we have won. We also know that most of the world believes we have won too.
The international legitimacy that Mugabe craves and needs to economically survive has been lost to him forever. The political dynamic has shifted into a different phase. For the first time, the freedom loving forces in our country visibly have the upper hand, and it is Zanu PF and Mugabe who are scrabbling, violently, to retain control.
Our twilight period is banded at both ends with the faint glow of hope: the hope we felt when we cast our ballots and the hope we still have for the future we have voted for.
The Independent was kind enough to ask for my thoughts on this week's debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but I've got to confess - I didn't watch. The American news media - especially television - has become so vapid and devoid of information that I didn't see the point, and the reviews of the debate prove me right.
On Tuesday, there were lively and well attended demonstrations across the country against the Government as it introduced its new biofuel law. This included one at Downing Street including groups and speakers representing those who will be most affected from the Global South. Why? Because, despite its insipid name, the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO) is dangerous new legislation, that forces biofuels to be blended into the UK fuel supply. It is the policy child of wider EU plans to mandate massive amounts of biofuels into petrol and diesel across Europe over the next decade.
For four years, I and others have warned that these EU targets will wreak havoc on the climate and food supplies, and eco-systems and people in the global South. It is an outrage that this law mandating biofuel use has been enacted when just a week ago Gordon Brown himself acknowledged in a letter to the G8, IMF, UN and World Bank that rising food prices are linked in part to rapidly increasing biofuel production. Why then is our Government risking the lives of millions who are close to starvation as food riots ravage several countries?
By guest authors, Stuart White, Karen Rowlingson and Rajiv Prabhakar
Progressives are often disappointed by the debate around tax. On one side groups like the Taxpayers’ Alliance push for tax cuts, backed up by the right-wing press. On the other, stands the Labour government. Frequently, it doesn’t enter the debate. And when pressure on a particular tax builds, as it recently did over inheritance tax, the government beats a headlong retreat. In other countries, damage has already been done. This year Sweden abolishes wealth tax. The US has already scrapped inheritance tax.
Governments cannot ignore the climate of opinion. We have to tackle ingrained public attitudes: research shows that around half the population opposes inheritance tax. However, our research also shows that only a tiny minority know about how inheritance tax works.
New controversy has hit the Brown Government amid the speculation that Lord Digby Jones may be leaving his position as Trade Minister before the next election. The former director general of the CBI was brought in apparently in a move toward Brown’s big tent politics. Jones is commonly seen as more Tory than Labour, so his departure is certainly better late than never, but the question should not be why is Digby Jones leaving? But, why was he ever allowed in, in the first place?
This was a political event unlike any other that the candidates for Mayor of London had encountered in their hectic campaign schedule. Last night’s Mayoral Accountability Assembly, organised by London Citizens, was the biggest and most diverse public event of the Mayoral Election campaign. Methodist Central Hall was full to capacity, as 2500 citizens from more than 100 London Citizens member organisations – schools, trades unions, faith and community groups – called upon the four leading mayoral hopefuls to endorse their “Citizens’ Agenda for London”.
For once, the stars of the show were not the celebrity candidates, but the citizens of London.
By guest author and Pennsylvania blogger, Greg Palmer
Despite the best efforts of political party insiders, Pennsylvania is playing a big part in the US Presidential Primary. Frankly, no one thought it would go on this long; party leaders assumed the Senator Clinton would secure the Democratic Party nomination before Senator Obama's gutsy insurgency could take hold. This surprise has a lot of people wondering about Pennsylvania - what we're all about, why we vote, and what issues are most important.
First and foremost, Pennsylvanians are realists. We don't trust the sizzle and the fireworks of some politicians. Our most successful politicians know how to connect with the average citizen in a meaningful way to talk about real, attainable solutions.
I have been following Zimbabwe’s 2008 elections closely. My emotions have mutated with alacrity, checking news sites more often than I should, and receiving calls and messages from family and political contacts in Zimbabwe. In the past 72 hours I have gone from ‘Robert Mugabe and ZANU PF will win’ to ‘it will be a landslide victory for the opposition’ to ‘Mugabe has already fled the country fearing retribution’ to ‘the army has ordered the electoral commission to declare Mugabe the winner’ and now, my present mood and thinking is that a lot of people are going to be disappointed by the looming result.
While George Bush pats himself on the back for the success of the ‘surge’, last week saw the passing of two symbolic milestones in the Iraqi conflict: the fifth anniversary of the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein and the death of the 4,000th US soldier. However, a more important development is currently being played out in the battle for Basra: the final failure of military-based policies.
There is little doubt that the US troop surge coincided with relatively reduced levels of violence in Iraq. However, the latest figures from the respected casualty-monitoring group Iraq Body Count, show that last month, for the first time since September 2007, the number of civilian deaths from violence were higher than in the preceding month. This suggests that civilian casualties may be on the rise again and that the security improvements which can be achieved through current tactics have now reached their limit.
“You can vote for them (MDC), but that would be a wasted vote. I am telling you. You would just be cheating yourself. There is no way we can allow them to rule this country. Never, ever. We have a job to do, to protect our heritage. The MDC will not rule this country. It will never, ever happen. We will never allow it.”
Thus spoke Mugabe last weekend in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Coupled with statements issued recently by heads of the army, police and prison services who are vowing that they will not salute anyone else but Mugabe, you would be forgiven for thinking that there is no point to the current election. This however would not be wholly accurate because the situation on the ground shows there is an even bigger appetite for change.
When Nicolas Sarkozy was elected President, he enjoyed a clear mandate to push through economic reform in France. Ten months on, few significant reforms have been achieved, and there is now a strong sense of anticipation of battles ahead, especially in the difficult areas of reform at the heart of the government’s programme. Sarkozy won an early victory by seeing-off the powerful rail workers last November to push through reform of early retirement regimes, but his plans to simplify the contentious labour market legislation (widely regarded as a cause of persistent unemployment) are running into trouble.
Five years ago yesterday I was sitting in the Press Gallery of the House of Commons watching Tony Blair making the final case for the invasion of Iraq. It’s a cliché to say it, but it really was a day of high drama.
Whatever you think about the war, Mr Blair made a brilliant speech on the day and effectively established the principle that MPs should vote on going to war. It is still worth re-reading the report in Hansard not least because it gives a flavour of the highly-charged scenes. He made a powerful case for action against a tyrant, but his words on Iraq’s weaponry ring very hollow today.
There will be no settlement in Iraq without a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and without talking to Syria and Iran, so there needs to be a whole Middle East peace settlement. It is perfectly possible to see the key outlines of such a grand bargain.
One aim should be the establishment of a federal Iraq, not imposed by the West, but facilitating efforts by the Iraqis themselves to find it. Though federation has been scouted as a Western idea, it is in fact a development of the originally separate Ottoman provinces of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra which prevailed for centuries before the Baathist dictatorship of Saddam was forced on the country in the 1960s.
Darling’s problem is that he has inherited an economy facing perhaps the worst downturn for decades, but given the Government’s neo-liberal monetarist agenda can do little about it when public borrowing is already at £40bn. The Budget is therefore a deflection of attention to other more innocuous areas.
There are small, but welcome, measures to reduce child poverty. But the reduction in the number of children living in households with incomes below 60% of the median (the conventional definition of poverty) is only from 2.2 million to 2.1 million. Pensioners will get a slightly higher winter fuel allowance, but nowhere near enough to compensate for the 50% rise in energy prices for the poorest households over this last year.
Alistair Darling’s opening statement today showed that he is well aware of the gloomy outlook and financial problems faced by millions of people around the country. With rising food prices, soaring household bills and high taxes, many people – especially those on low or fixed incomes – are increasingly struggling to make ends meet. That in turn is knocking consumer confidence and threatening serious trouble for the high street.
The talk the Chancellor talked at the opening of his speech painted a picture of rocky economic times ahead, challenges that require an ambitious, innovative Budget. How disappointing, then, that what followed was not only lacklustre but actually harmful to our economic prospects.
Given the tough economic climate which Alastair Darling faced for his first Budget, finding extra money to tackle child poverty shows that this has arguably now become the Government’s number one domestic policy priority. The increases in child benefit and child tax credits announced today will lift another 250,000 children out of poverty, costing government £765 million this year and £950 next year.
But they might best be seen as a down-payment in political trust, with the Budget offering an important signal of how the battle lines for the next general election are shaping up.
The whispers before Darling’s announcements today promised a focus on child poverty with a renewed effort to meet the target of eradicating it by 2010; perhaps even some green taxes coming through as well with speculation suggesting a tax on plastic bags, carbon emissions and a reproach on greedy energy companies. The noises were of the greenest budget yet with progressive elements thrown in for good measure.
However, pre-eminent fears of an economic downturn, the global credit crunch – which will not leave Britain unaffected – compounded by the strength of the CBI and the power of the City appears to have put the government on the back-foot, and where their was hope of a modern progressive Labour budget now there’s only the worrying reality of a Government that seems unable to separate itself and the interests of society from the demands of big business.
The Chancellor shuffled a few hundred million here and a few hundred million there, as if he were running an economy one tenth the size of the UK’s. The overall increase in spending is dwarfed by the huge supplementary estimates that went through with precious little explanation on Monday. The big tax hike on alcohol will pay for very little of those big spending increases, so we now know most of that money is going to be borrowed.
The Chancellor rose like a rocket and fell like a stick. Action on climate change is urgent, he said. We need to do it now. And transport is a major contributor - and rising - to carbon emissions. So what does he do? National road pricing is back in the long grass, subject to yet more time-delaying studies. Worse, in a section of his speech written by BAA, he committed himself again to the unsustainable carbon-busting expansion of Heathrow and Stansted airports. And he reiterated that road building would continue - since 1997, Labour has opened 15 times as many miles of trunk roads as it has new rail track, and that's before Ruth Kelly's crazy hard shoulder plans.
In 1999 the Government said it would halve child poverty by 2010 - taking 1.7m children out of poverty. To date it has missed its targets and only removed 600,000 children from poverty. In the pre-budget briefings pouring out of Number 10 and the Treasury we were all led to believe that the Chancellor would make a major announcement today to get the Government back on course to meet its target.
Instead, the Chancellor has admitted defeat in the war against child poverty and has confirmed that the Government will not meet its 2010 target - and will leave over 2.5m children still living in poverty in the fifth richest countries in the world.
During this primary election, I chose to vote early. We have two weeks prior to election day to cast a ballot much more conveniently. We are able to vote anywhere within our county. On election day, we are required to vote at a specific polling location. In our area, we had a more significant turnout for both early vote and day of voting. It is not often that Texas gets to be in a position to make or break a candidate, so the electorate statewide was energized.
Here in deep South Texas, we saw record turnout at the polls in total.
Surprise, surprise! Dmitry Medvedev is Russia’s new president! There was, of course, nothing unexpected or vaguely questionable in these elections. Everything went as planned, and Russian voters confirmed President Vladimir Putin’s choice for a successor.
The turnout – often under pressure from local authorities – was higher than expected and the percentage of those who voted for Medvedev the same as predicted – about 70 per cent. In that sense, it can be hardly called an election in a full fledged sense of the word, but a popular validation of the choice has already been made by the ruling group and the outgoing president. In that sense, it is very similar to the way Putin himself came to power in 2000 as President Boris Yeltsin’s picked successor.
Yesterday, much to my surprise, I found myself being dismissed from the Chamber of the Commons by the Deputy Speaker. This sort of thing doesn’t happen to Liberal Democrats, and I don’t have a rebellious reputation, so what the fuss about?
The issue was Europe, and our attempt, as pro-Europeans, to get the Commons to debate and vote on whether the British people should get a vote on the UK’s membership of the European Union.
Next big problem – Credit Default Swaps. What are they? Very simply, someone writes a contract to effectively pay up on a loan if the borrower doesn’t or can’t. It’s an insurance policy – except you don’t need to be an insurance company to play and an insurance policy is only as reliable as the entity that writes it. Some CDS contracts are written by hedge funds. There is no regulation of the market. The market is enormous - $45,000,000,000 is a good guess (40x the UK government’s annual total spend!).
Six hundred thousand is a big number. That is six times the population of my West Dunbartonshire constituency. It is greater than the population of, say, Bristol, or two thirds the population of Glasgow. It is the number of children who have been lifted out of relative poverty by the Government since 1998. This is not just a statistic. Poverty shortens lives. Families living below the poverty line are at a much higher risk of physical and mental illness than those fortunate enough to be living above it. Children in low-income families are denied the same opportunities to succeed in education, in work and in society generally. And, as if this were not reason enough to act, these factors create large pressures on public spending, reduce employment and restrain economic growth.
But there is a growing feeling that the Government’s ambitions for child poverty—to reduce relative child poverty by a quarter by 2005, halve it by 2010 and eradicate it by 2020—are not achievable.
Kosovo has just become the world’s youngest state. The people of Kosovo claimed their right to secede from a state they no longer wish to belong to. Serbia and Russia are calling foul, arguing that Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence is illegal under international law and a dangerous record-setting precedent. While the precedent argument is significant – and Russia’s threat to unilaterally recognize two secessionist territories in Georgia is a case in point – this claim misses an important condition justifying Kosovo’s secession. Serbia has a history of ruling over Kosovo Albanians with a heavy hand. The regime of Slobodan Milosevic during the 1990s imposed a de facto state of apartheid in Kosovo, stripping Albanians of basic human rights. When Albanians organized an insurgent armed movement, Serbia’s respond was swift, brutal, and extensive. Furthermore, even after the 1999 NATO war when Kosovo was placed under UN protection, the Serbian government consistently encouraged Kosovo Serbs to stay out of the political process, not participate in Kosovo institutions, but instead sit tight because help from Belgrade is on the way.
The ideal of multicultural citizenship is a critique of the cultural assimilation traditionally demanded by nation-states of migrants and minorities, as well as of that liberal individualism that has no space for groups. Nevertheless, it is clearly grounded in and is a development out of the ideas of individual equality and democratic citizenship. It is not about pre-democratic arrangements such as the Ottoman accommodation of minorities through the millet system. It seeks to pluralise, and hence adapt not undermine, the unity and equality of citizenship and national identity.
We see that Steven Spielberg was so conflicted during his time as an overseas artistic advisor to the Beijing Olympic Games that he couldn't even bring himself to sign the contract he was given, and leaving now was a step taken to clear his conscience:
Much has been said about the crisis in Zimbabwe, but still Zimbabweans at home and abroad find themselves practically none the wiser. The latest permutation in the jockeying for future power is the expulsion of the rebel challenger former Finance Minister Simba Makoni from Zanu PF, which was almost predictable. The question at the moment is when are his supposed backers, among them former Generals Zvinavashe, Mujuru and the two vice-presidents, going to step out of the shadows?
African-American Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama, the leader of the Obamanation, is a merry young boy today, poised to win the State of Maryland’s primary. According to pollsters, Obama, the not yet one-term Senator from the State of Illinois, will not only win the Maryland primary. He will most likely win the other two primaries taking place Tuesday in the neighbouring Commonwealth of Virginia and the District of Columbia.
Just think back to your days at school. Can you remember any tests you had? I’m sitting here writing this post and trying to remember any tests other than my weekly spelling and times-table tests, which I hated, as I’m sure everyone else did, that I had. Nope – can’t think of any.
Schools are so different now. Almost every month I’m asked to give data about the children I teach. Sometimes to prove that I’m teaching my class to the high enough standard, sometimes to prove that our school as a whole is not letting children down. What information am I asked for? Are we as a school going to let down the authorities target set from up high? How far have the children progressed since September? What level will the children be in July?
When I started in general practice, I was determined to be available for my patients at nights and weekends for medical emergencies. Over the years, the demand increased until I was providing a round the clock service for routine non-urgent medical problems. I was not coping. (See “Out of Hours work: a personal view” here). Then, one day, the health fairy said you can stop doing the out-of-hours work in return for a pay cut of £8,000. What is more, if you will sign this little contract, committing you to jumping through some hoops you can have the £8000 back, and more, more beyond all possible imagining. And I saw that it was good and I signed quickly before the health fairy changed her mind.
The government has never understood general practice. It thought our nights on call were spent dining on roast swan and claret. In fact, our nights were increasingly spent pandering to the demands of the twittering middle classes who thought it reasonable that they should be able to see a doctor after work.
By guest author and California blogger, Brian Leubitz
Throughout the country voters turned out heavily, but far more heavily in Democratic primaries than in Republican primaries. The American people are calling for a break with the devastatingly wrong-headed policies of the Bush administration. Both Senators Clinton and Obama present a genuine difference than the narrowly focused Senator McCain. In California, Democratic voters were excited to get the opportunity to vote for these two historic candidates.
By guest author and Connecticut blogger, Chris Bigelow
Last night, Connecticut saw two very different races: a predictable, low-turnout landslide for John McCain and a gripping upset win for Barack Obama.
John McCain won just about everywhere in Connecticut, including heavily Republican Fairfield County on the border with New York. His win in a state that's winner-take-all was never really in doubt, which is one reason why a lot of Republicans decided to stay home. Only about half as many Republicans turned out this year as did in 2000, when McCain won the state against George W. Bush.
On the Democratic side turnout skyrocketed, setting a new record for a Connecticut primary.
It has been a long time since Minnesota has had a role to play in choosing the major parties' presidential nominees. In recent memory, the nominations have been wrapped up before the North Star State's caucuses were held, traditionally in March. But the Republican Party and Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (the Democratic Party in Minnesota) mutually agreed to move up their caucuses to February 5th so voters here could have a voice in the 24-state mega-primary.
As the largest state east of the Mississippi River, the state of Georgia has always played an integral role in choosing the President of the United States. In 1976, we sent one of our own, Jimmy Carter to the White House; and in 1992, we gave Bill Clinton the crucial momentum he needed to capture the Democratic presidential nomination. Today, February 5, 2008, Georgia will once again have a big say in who becomes the nominee for the Republican and Democratic parties; and we take that very seriously.
By guest author, Connecticut blogger Chris Bigelow
Connecticut is a small northeastern state with the sorts of problems typical of small, northeastern states. We have a faltering industrial economy, a high cost of living, decaying urban centers, a wide wealth and education gap between rich and poor, and creaking, out-of-date infrastructure.
We're also a state that has never really had much of a chance to see presidential candidates before this year. However, state officials decided to join more than twenty other states in holding the presidential primary on February 5th instead of a month later, and it's paid off. John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have all made campaign stops in Connecticut over the past week, and it's been incredible. I have rarely seen voters in this state so energized.
Arkansas is in a unique position on this Super Tuesday. Former Governor Mike Huckabee is among the Republican candidates and former Arkansas First Lady, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, is a Democratic contender. Mrs. Clinton has visited the state, Obama has not. Nobody has dumped a truck load of advertising money on Arkansas either.
By guest author, Arizona political blogger Michael Bryan
In Arizona, only registered Republicans or Democrats may vote in the Presidential primary election. As a result, the two candidates with the greatest appeal to independent voters–Senators Barack Obama and John McCain–are somewhat at a disadvantage. Both conventional wisdom and polling indicate that McCain, a favorite son of Arizona, will win the Republican vote with or without the independents. Since the GOP allocates its 53 Arizona delegates as winner-take-all, Republican hopefuls have had little incentive to campaign in Arizona: McCain has nothing to gain, as he is assured of the win, and second place is of no real value to the other GOP candidates.
In the Arizona Democratic race, on the other hand, the exclusion of independents might be the deciding factor that allows Senator Hillary Clinton to prevail over Obama.
Guest author, Ugandan blogger Gay Uganda, in Kampala
Practical aspects of government in Africa dictate that the most important thing, the thing that people want, is stable government. Democracy is a myth propagated by you know who (colonialists). Now, look at what is happening in Kenya. Neighbour against neigbour. The kind of communal violence which should never be provoked by unstable government. It happened in Rwanda, until, with some help, Rwanda became stable. There have been rumours of a hand in Kenya. Just rumours. And, Ugandans, all Ugandans, know that this kind of communal violence is just below the surface. It must not be let out.
So here we are, slowly spiraling into a state of anarchy. To say we are in unfamiliar territory is a gross understatement. We not only do not know where we are but we are struggling to remember who we are. As Kofi Annan rightly says, this country has been brought “to its knees.” The horrors continue to flood in, no one is exempt from the effects of the current unrest.
Yesterday, after a great deal of worry and an equal amount of prayer, we received word that a colleague’s mother, whose life had been under real threat in Naivasha, had made it safely to Nairobi, ferried in the boot of a Pastor’s car, disguised as luggage. We sighed with relief. This morning, we received word that her cousin had not been so lucky. He went missing some three days ago. His body was found, he had been slashed to death. She wept. We stood and watched in disbelief. We were tongue-tied.
Those who support men who pay for sex with women would often have us believe that the women who sell sex are somehow empowered, that it is they who are gaining and the men who are losing. If only these women were quite so fortunate. It's thought that 90 per cent of prostitutes are drug addicts and most have suffered some form of physical or mental violence or coercion. Some 85 per cent of women working in brothels are thought to be from abroad, many speak little English and most are trafficked here illegally. Most women trafficked into the UK have a vast debt to pay back to those who brought them here - a debt so large they will never pay it back. They are, in effect, slaves and have little scope for any free choice.
It’s been one tough week in Gaza. It is not that it
has been easy lately. However, this week was a rollercoaster getting Gaza mentioned in many
media means worldwide.
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