PMQ cancelled - Queen to miss speech?

As Parliament has been prorogued a day early, in preparation for the Queens Speech, that lucky Tony Blair will not be facing his weekly grilling today. Or next week, as the House will have five days of debate on the contents of the Speech after Her Maj graciously reads the drivel from the Throne. That happens on Wednesday.

There have been reports that the Queen may not be able to attend the ceremony this year, which would be the third time that she has not done it.

In 1959 and 1963, the Queen was pregnant and missed out on reading some quality speeches. In recent weeks the Queen hurt her back and has been advised by doctors to rest fully.

In the event that the Queen cannot attend, the Lords Commissioners, led by the Lord Chancellor, read it out instead.

Missouri Shows The Way

My mate Chase is in London for a semester, broadening his mind. He has been a great help to me in understanding how American politics works, and we have had many drunken conversations about how to make the world right.

It is great to know an American who is liberal, active in the political process and wants to serve in government. Plus he is cute as hell - so what's not to like?

Chase has been anxious about the very close Senate race in Missouri. Claire McCaskill, a kind of mid-West Hillary, fought a very strong campaign on the failures in Iraq and on other wedge issues like stem cell research. The campaign commercial made by Michael J Fox endorsing McCaskill caused some controversy, but it was also indicative of a positive change in Democrat campaigning. If the Republicans can throw around wedge issues like gay marriage to energise their base and conservative independents, then the Dems can do the same with social issues where a majority of Americans disagree with the religious right.

Chase need not have fretted that he was not back in his home state campaigning for his beloved Democrats. I felt his joy at McCaskill's stunning win, and felt the excitement of Hillary Clinton and new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi making victorious speeches about America's bright future.

It is something you have to love about Americans - they are always hopeful about the future. The Bush doctrine of security and fear has always sat uneasily on a people who want to feel hope. A little dash of the Kennedy/Clinton magic should sweep the Dems into the White House in 2008, as long as they keep the message positive.

Lieberman Won't Die!

Former Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman won his seat in the Senate as an indepenent - after losing his party's nomination.

The incumbent lost the Dem primary, with many unhappy at the Lieberman's support of the war in Iraq. But if proof were needed of the value of name recognition and campaign funds, this victory is that proof.

Lieberman will sit as an independent, although he is a membef of the Connecticut for Lieberman party. He will vote with the Dems, as will the other independent senator, Bernie Sanders.

Sanders, who has been in Congressman since 1991, becomes the first ever socialist to sit in the US Senate.

Blog like a chav!

Sorry for the lack of posts in the last few days. This is due to my home internet not working - the problem should be solved in the next few days.

So now I have to blog from an internet cafe like a proper chav. Living in Bethnal Green, it is hard to find a cafe that is not full to bursting with people already. It is shocking. I miss my internet connection so much. Please give it back to me soon BT!

US midterm elections

Next week’s Congressional elections in America could prove to be a turning point in the presidency of George W Bush.

From a European perspective, it seems Americans are always having elections. They elect Sheriffs. Mayors. District Attorneys. Governors. Lieutenant Governors. State Assemblymen. Fire Chiefs.

The country is engaged in constant electioneering, a never-ending round of fundraisers, town meetings and personal appearances. The ‘primary’ system of picking party candidates at federal, state and local level means that even though there are elections every two years, they all just seem to merge into one long process.

Even Senators, who serve six-year terms, constantly have their eye on the next election, squirreling away campaign funds and pocketing money from special interest groups.

Next Tuesday is Election Day. The entire House of Representatives is re-elected every two years. A third of states will be electing one of their two Senators.

There will also be elections for governors and other state-level offices and referendums in some cities and states.

There are 435 House seats being contested on 7th November, and the Democrats are confident they can take at least 15 from the Republicans and seize control of the lower house for the first time in ten years.

That will effectively cripple the last two years of Bush’s presidency, as the Democrats will want to expend all their efforts choosing and supporting their candidate for President in 2008.

That election is wide open, with no obvious Republican successor to Bush and the sitting president constitutionally barred from running a third time.

The Democrats have Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, both strong candidates, already pulling in tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions.

If the Democrats manage to take the Senate as well, Bush will lose any control over the legislative process. The Dems need to unseat six Republican senators to achieve that, which is unlikely. But not unheard of. These are the first national elections since Bush was returned of office in 2004.

It is clear Americans have wearied of the war in Iraq, the Abu Ghraib-like scandals, and the President’s foreign policy failures. Many were very shocked and distressed at the White House’s mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. The images of American citizens trapped in a major city, with the federal government seemingly unprepared, did the President as much damage as a hundred car bombs in Baghdad.

Americans are jittery about rising petrol prices, a slowing economy and increasing poverty. Instead of making citizens feel secure, the President’s heavy-handed security measures have left his countrymen anxious, worried and on a constant state of alert.

Bush’s opinion poll ratings bump around the lower 30s, and if disaffected voters do decide to make the effort and vote, the Democrats could end up running the whole show.

These elections, called midterms as they fall two years into a Presidential term, are effectively a referendum on the governing party. In this case the Republicans are in control of both legislative branches and the Executive. It is a vote for, or against, the current administration, similar to a by-election in the UK but with a much greater political impact.

Dirty campaigning is mainstay of American political life, and these midterms have seen some shining examples of spin, manipulation and smear. The email and instant messenger pederasty of Florida Representative Mark Foley added some much needed dirt during the campaign.

His sexual exploits with teenage Congressional pages truly shocked many Americans. A Democrat explained to me that the Foley scandal has helped his party, because many conservative Americans will be disgusted enough, not to vote Democrat, but just stay at home.

This stay-at-home vote will prove pivotal across all the Senate and House elections. Probably the subtlest dirty trick of the campaign has come from Fox News. The rabidly pro-Bush cable news station, dubbed White House West, has been flagrantly captioning Foley as a Democrat across its bulletins.

To deflect from the pages scandal, the overwhelmingly right-wing American press have concentrated their fire on Democrat Nancy Pelosi. She is almost certain to become Speaker of the House if the Dems win the 15 seats necessary.

That would make her the third in line to the Presidency, which given the state of Dick Cheney’s heart could be worth a small wager. Pelosi would be the first woman to become Speaker of the House. The 49-year-old Italian-American represents San Francisco in Congress, and the Republicans have consistently tried to portray her as an ultra-liberal.

Opponents have accused her of supporting paedophilia, as she attended a gay rights march where the notorious North American Man Boy Love Association also had a small presence. The fact that she has publicly repudiated NAMBLA went unnoticed in the frenzy.

In fact, trying to paint a female Democrat as a danger to teenage boys does not appear the wisest tactic when it is now clear that the entire Republican hierarchy covered up Foley’s inappropriate behaviour towards teenage male pages. Democratic female hopefuls across America have used the Foley incident to subtly portray themselves as a safer alternative.

The Republicans, normally the masters of spin, have been knocked off their axis. The campaign ads that Michael J Fox made supporting Missouri’s Democrat Senate candidate Claire McCaskill’s stance on the use of stem cells highlighted a growing division in America over the future of medical research.

In the past, stem cells would have been a lightning rod issue for god-fearing Americans. It seems that the Republican Party’s ability to galvanise and energise the religious majority is waning.

The subsequent right-wing attack by shock jock Rush Limbaugh stated that Fox was lying or ‘acting’ his Parkinson’s disease symptoms. This was clumsy and clearly a lie, but it also showed how rattled the once-mighty Republicans have become.

The Florida Senate race is indicative of the changed fortunes of the Republicans (or Grand Old Party, as they are known). In 2000, Katharine Harris became infamous as the Florida Secretary of State who handed the state’s electoral college votes to George W Bush.

She won a House seat on the back of that infamy in 2002. A few years ago her challenge to incumbent Democratic Senator Bob Graham would have seemed savvy.

Yet in 2006, with Iraq in flames and the Florida economy suffering, she is certain to lose the Senate race, and Florida, a state with a Republican governor, will be sending a Democrat to Congress. There is a chance that Mark Foley’s seat will fall to the Dems too.

The Montana Senate race could see another defeat for the GOP, with polls indicating a win for Democrat challenger Jon Tester. This would be a blow to the ‘honest cowboy’ posturing of Bush, as Montana is one of the ‘red’ states (Republican) that ushered him into the White House.

Other Senate seats likely to fall to the Democrats are New Jersey and Virginia.

In Tennessee, a little bit of history may be made on Tuesday, as Harold Ford Jr is expected to take retiring Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s Republican seat.

Ford will be the first African-American Senator from the Southern States since the Civil War. Recent racist TV commercials from his opponents, which appeal to a fear of , actually worked in his favour and are yet another example of serious miscalculation by GOP spin-doctors.

There are high hopes that Claire McAskill will take the Missouri senate seat from the dubiously named Jim Talent. Missouri is a bellwether state, meaning that it almost exactly mirrors the demographic, economic and political makeup of the nation. It has voted for the winning president in every election in a century, with the exception of 1956.

If McCaskill can win in Missouri, and on issues like stem cell research, then there is hope that Democrats can take back the White House in 2008.

There are around 30 marginal seats in the House that are expected to change hands. The results will not be clear until about midnight Washington time. By Wednesday morning we should know the new political map, hopefully a lot more blue than red.

36 state governors are up for election on the 7th November. In modern times, the governor’s mansion has proven to be the safest launch pad for the White House.

Bush Jr, Clinton, Reagan and Carter all ran for President from the governor’s office and won. Republicans will be looking to some of these state leaders to run in 2008.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is certain to be re-elected as governor of Kahlifurniah, as the state is now called.

California is traditionally a Democratic stronghold, so the Big Austrian’s ability to reach out to voters is a quality the Republicans desperately need on the national stage.

Unfortunately the US Constitution reserves the office of President and Vice President for American-born citizens only. Arnie will not be breaking out of the Golden State and taking over the world.

Over on the East Coast, New York state looks set to elect its first Democratic governor in 12 years. State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer expected to beat his Republican challenger, and is already being talked about in Presidential terms.

Meanwhile, the future looks grim for the present occupant of the Oval Office. A Democratic Congress will lose no time in launching inquiry after inquiry into the conduct of the war in Iraq.

Legislators are relishing a very public washing of dirty linen, designed to ruin any chances of another Republican in the White House.

There is even talk of impeaching President Bush, though likely Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has stated publicly she would prefer a lame-duck President to another impeachment.

Next Tuesday, we should start to see the end of the cold ideological war that America has been engaged in for the last five years. Democrat control of one or both Houses in Congress means that finally the Bush administration will be questioned and held to account.

It should make for an exciting backdrop to the next federal elections, including a brand new President, in 2008.

Hands off the House of Lords.

In a deep, drunken conversation with a government press officer last night, I suddenly discovered I am passionate about the House of Lords.

I don't want Jack Straw to bugger it all up with nonsense about party lists and elections and nonsense like that. Let us consider for a moment what we have before we chuck it in the bin.

Every time I sit in the gallery of the House of Lords, two things strike me. First, there is something really useful about having people involved in the democratic process who are not elected and therefore not in a position to be bribed or intimidated by party whips.

The fact they cannot be removed makes peers much more likely to stick to their principles - vital in a revising chamber whose specific role is to rein in the mentalness emanating from this government.

The second thing is that we have in the UK probably the best educated, most experienced, most widely read chamber in the world. When the Lords discuss Iraq, we are treated to the expert opinions of former Chiefs of Staff, Foreign Secretaries, Defence Secretaries, specialists on Iraqi culture, scientists, senior doctors, former ambassadors, and experts of every discipline.

And what do we propose to replace this House with? What does Jack Straw and the rest of that mob in the Cabinet think would be the best way to replicate the unique brilliance of the Lords? A chamber full of people appointed because of merit and appointed for life?

List systems. Bloody regional lists. Party hacks who were too mediocre to be MPs are kicked into a list of "reliable" candidates.

More elected party fodder, this time even more boring, gray, mediocre people. This lot with even less ambition and drive than the shower of backbench nobodies we already have wasting our time and money in the Commons.

More elections, less choice. All the talent that is present in the Lords will be lost, for this one simple reason. The Lords whose experience and talent we need the most are exactly the sort of people who don't bother joining political parties.

Like most people in Britain, they think politics and politicians are a lower form of life, along the lines of not wanting to join any club that will have them as a member.

But no, the New Labour vandals are ready to rip apart the only bit of Parliament that is working effectively and in the interests of the nation as a whole. To replace it with more expensive party yes-men, to give them complete control over the process from start to finish. No more irritating Lords amendments.

We must stop them! I propose that we just keep the present arrangement. Let the heriditary peers slowly die out. Cut the bishops from 16 to 8 and give the new seats to the other religions. Then appoint people. For life. And make sure it is the same sort of person. The Lords is one of the last things we have against the onslaught of a one party state.

Speaker goes mad!

PMQ has been rocked by an intervention from The Speaker, Michael Martin. At the end of exchanges between Tony Blair and David Cameron, the leader of the Opposition was asking the PM about whether he would be supporting Gordon Brown for the leadership.

At this point the Speaker made a bizarre intervention:

"Order, order. The Prime Minister is here to talk about the business of the government. Who will be the next leader of the Labour party is a matter for the Labour party. It is not a matter for the floor of the House."

The Tories went BANANAS. As they should, this was a truly odd thing to say. David Cameron sought clarification, starting with "are you honestly saying that ..."

It seems that The Speaker was honestly saying that MPs cannot ask Tony Blair who he is supporting as his successor. The Speaker at one point threatened to suspend the session. It was the most vocal display from the Chair in many years.

Cameron tried again with "Who would the PM like to be the next PM," and The Speaker allowed that one, presumably as that is the business of government.

This was yet another intervention from The Speaker. Barely a day goes by when he is not on his feet, trying to tightly control what can be asked. Earlier in PMQ he cut the PM short for even mentioning Tory policy, as he has done in previous weeks. Perhaps The Speaker is trying to appear even handed.

The exchanges between Blair and Cameron all concerned the NHS - it was pretty much an even match. Usual stuff - cuts in the NHS, the Chief Medical Officer says things are bad, chair of the BMA is dismayed, the real failure is endless targets.

The PM responded in kind: lots of statistics, reduced waiting times, lots more money than there was under the Tories. Neither heat not light from these exchanges. What was interesting was that the packed Labour benches were CHEERING the PM after every point he made about the NHS. Clearly the whips want to demonstrate unity after yesterday's rebellions over Iraq.

Ming asked about an Iraq inquiry. Blair told him that the troops have a UN mandate AND the support of the Iraqi goverment AND the Liberals are trying to undermine our brave boys. Again, a draw.

The session started with DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson, using his question to slag off republican terrorists who set off firebombs in Belfast last night. The PM decided to empahsise the hopes for peace at the St Andrews conference. Then, in the sort of tit for tat nonsense that poisons Northern Irish politics, a republican called Eddie McGrady was called to ask the second question. He clearly has not learnt how long a question is supposed to be in his 19 years as an MP, and came close to being told to sit down. He bitched about changes to the education system in the province.

Mr Blair quite equably pointed out that if the fighting children that constitute the Northern Irish political class could work together, they could decide the future of the province themselves.