Merry Christmas!

I would like to take the time to thank everyone who has been reading my blog for the past eleven months, it's much appreciated. I hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas holiday with your family, and that Santa is kind to you all and doesn't leave a lump of coal!

Unfortunately there are people out there who will be having a less joyful Christmas, the Connecticut victims' families will be celebrating their first Christmas without their family members, there will be people spending their first Christmas homeless. If you want to help some of those this holiday season you could give a small donation to a charity or organisation. Although it is too late for Christmas day, you can still help someone who has fallen on hard times.

Anyway, I wish you a merry Christmas and if you're still travelling, I hope you have a safe journey.

-- Michael.

So What is the Fiscal Cliff?

If you’ve been listening to American politics at the moment you will almost certainly have heard of the term ‘fiscal cliff’. Basically it is a series of tax rises and spending cuts that will go into effect in January 2013 unless Congress brokers a compromise and passes new legislation. The combined effect of the spending cuts and tax rises, most experts agree, would push America back into recession during the summer of 2013 (remember a recession is defined  as two quarters in a row with negative growth in an economy).

So what are the tax rises and spending cuts? Well most of the spending cuts are a result of a political battle that took place last year. Basically in 2011 the political system of the US was in disarray, the Republicans (who controlled the House) were refusing to raise the debt ceiling (and therefore cause America to default on its debts and send the American – and world – economy into freefall), unless they got certain radical laws passed. The Democrats who controlled the Senate and Presidency were unwilling to give in to all of the radical demands. A deal was finally agreed just days before the US reached the debt ceiling and defaulted. Part of the Budget Control Act of 2011 was that if Congress did not pass a deficit reduction bill worth $1.2 trillion by the 2^nd of January 2013 then automatic cuts (sequestrations) would take place across the board, half from defence, half from domestic spending. As well as this, federal unemployment benefits, the bush tax cuts and the payroll tax cut would all expire, tax thresholds would return to their 2000 level and new taxes would be imposed.

Part of the problem here is that Republicans want to take more from domestic spending rather than defence (which is the Holy cow to Republicans), whereas Democrats are on the opposite side. Obama is trying to persuade the Republicans to let the bush tax cuts expire, but only for the top 2%, the tax cuts for the other 98% would be made permanent. There is also talk of cutting social security, which has infuriated ordinary liberals and many Democrats in congress as social security doesn’t contribute to the deficit and actually has a surplus!

To make matters worse, the Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, has just suffered a humiliating, self-inflicted, defeat. John Boehner tried to pass a bill in the House called ‘Plan B’, which was basically a Republican wish list of everything they wanted. Boehner knew it would never even get looked at in the Democratic Senate, so he didn’t pass it for policy reasons. Boehner was trying to put on a show of strength and make the Republicans seem united against President Obama. The only problem; he had to cancel the vote when he realised that he would not have the support to get it through the Republican House. As a result he sent the House of Representatives home for Christmas. Seriously. Although they will be back after Christmas, there will only be six full days until the new year. American politics could get very interesting over the next couple of weeks; if Congress and the President fail to reach a compromise then the effects will be devastating. Expect stock markets to plummet across the globe instantaneously, and here in Britain we will almost certainly experience a triple dip recession. Yay. 

Massive Rifts Opening Up in Tory Ranks

The current coalition government of the United Kingdom is known to be divided, which is to be expected as there are two different parties in power. We know there are rifts between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives over social and economic policies, but what is usually less visible is the rift within the Conservative Party.

The rift in the Conservative Party is quite surprising considering that it was only two years ago in which they placed first in a general election. Most people would expect, at this stage, for the Labour Party to be rife with divisions and the Conservatives to be putting on a united front. Yet the Tory Party has shown time and time again that there are massive divisions in the party that are threatening to tear the party apart. HS2, the high speed rail link between London and cities in the north of England has angered a lot of the Tory MPs from the rural regions through which the new route will pass. There are also large divisions over the possibility of building a third runway at Heathrow Airport. Europe has always been a headache for Tory Party leaders, David Cameron is no exception. Many within the party demand a referendum on whether or not to stay in the European Union, much of the party is euro-sceptic and would rather we leave the EU altogether.

The most recent issue to create a colossal divide within the Conservative Party is that over gay marriage, the proposals have been supported by Cameron and much of his cabinet ministers for many years. The proposals also have support of the ascendant Boris Johnson and both the opposing parties. Yet there is increasing anger amongst many Tory backbenchers who are opposed to gay marriage and believe that the government has no mandate to pass it since it was not in the Tory Party manifesto or the coalition agreement. (I don’t see how 70%-80% public support for a policy isn’t a mandate)

All this makes things very difficult for the government, there are rifts opening up everywhere and over every issue. If the coalition survives until the 2015 general election I will be very impressed and very surprised. 

Plebgate Scandal Returns

It was supposed to have been largely wrapped up when Andrew Mitchell resigned as government chief Whip but this week the ‘plebgate’ scandal has taken a new turn. A police officer has been arrested over allegations that he submitted false evidence, the officer claimed that he was a member of the public that was passing by the gate to Downing Street when he heard the row between police and Mitchell. He claimed that he heard Mitchell use the word pleb – an allegation that Mitchell has always denied. He claims that he was with a group of tourists who were shocked at the way the chief whip spoke to police. CCTV footage has now emerged that there was nobody near the gate at the time of the incident, never mind a crowd.

This all was naturally welcomed by Mitchell and his supporters who now see the tide of public opinion turning in Mitchell’s favour. Mitchell and his allies are also furious at the Police Federation who in the weeks following Mitchell’s confrontation appeared to use the plebgate scandal as a way to get revenge on the government for police cuts and changes to their pay and conditions.

Although we will never know for certain whether Mitchell used the world pleb, two officers who were definitely present accuse him of using that word whereas Mitchell denies it. This is still a very serious allegation, the officer in question will almost certainly lose his job and there may be others within the force who will have to leave. 

Newtown Shooting Leaves 27 Dead

For many families this Christmas is not one they will remember with happiness, 27 people were murdered in Newtown, Connecticut yesterday. The massacre took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School, as a result 20 of the murdered were children. This is truly horrific, the local community which is small and close knit has been devastated by this. Although after a long time the community will heal, this horrible day will never be forgotten by the residents of Newtown. It is truly sickening. But there is a bigger picture to think of here, mass murder is not uncommon in the US, already this year there have been several events in which multiple people have been killed by a firearm. In Oregon just the other week two people were killed at a shopping mall, in Aurora Colorado earlier this year a man walking into a cinema and shot twelve people, unfortunately I could list dozens more.

Of the other OECD nations, the only one to have a higher rate of firearm homicide is Mexico, which is currently enthralled in a drug war. Every other OECD nation has a lower firearm homicide rate, far lower. So why is it just America? Well many people would point to the high gun ownership rate, America has the highest ownership rate of any country on the planet, rich or poor, 88 out of 100 people own a gun! For comparison, the next highest rate is Yemen with 55 out of 100 people owning a gun. What type of guns people can get access to is also part of the problem, many of the weapons used in mass shootings are semi-automatic or have extended magazines allowing the shooter many shots before reloading. These weapons used to be illegal, under the assault weapons ban of 1994 but when it expired in 2004 (under a Republican congress and President) it was not renewed, and has not been since.  Although you can make a self-defence argument when talking about the general legality of guns, you cannot make a legitimate argument for the legality of assault weapons. A weapon that has been designed for use in battle really shouldn’t be easily available in Wall-Marts across America.

If the Democrats decide to take this issue up they will find it extremely difficult, the NRA is the most powerful lobbying group in Washington and has massive funds to put behind candidates that support its wishes. Passage of a bill will not occur in this lame duck session nor the congress elected to take its place in February, as both have a Republican-controlled House, it depends how well Democrats do in the 2014 mid-terms. But the next time the Democrats take control over everything, re-introducing the assault weapons ban would seem like a sensible move.

North Korea Launches Rocket

The world condemned North Korea this morning after it successfully launched a rocket into orbit. This has terrified South Korea which shares a hostile border with its northern neighbour and Japan which is also in close proximity. Both nations are aware that North Korea has nuclear weapons and with this successful satellite launch, may have a means of delivery.

Under UN sanctions North Korea is banned from launching rockets, immediately Japan called on the Security Council to hold meetings over the event. Morocco, which holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council, announced that that there would be closed door discussions today. The US was swift in its condemnation of the launch, the White House made the following statement this morning: “The international community must work in a concerted fashion to send North Korea a clear message that its violations of UN Security Council resolutions have consequences.” We won’t know for a while what those consequences will be yet. It will be important to watch what China does in this situation, China is North Korea’s closest ally, and although it warned North Korea strongly against launching the rocket, its response has been noticeably tamer than those of the other Security Council members. China will likely be angry at North Korea for following this path; this launch will likely cause North Korea, Japan and the US to increase military cooperation in the area which could weaken China’s position. Getting a resolution past China, which has a veto, could still prove difficult.

This is all happening in the context of starving North Koreans who have been brainwashed to believe that the North Korean state, and in particular its leaders, are saints. The rare glimpse we get of North Korea from the outside world is truly shocking, people praise their leaders for their guidance but unbeknownst to them their leaders don’t care about them. With the knowledge of widespread brainwashing, the type Hitler tried in Germany; it’s hard to see a revolution occurring in North Korea for a long, long time. With that in mind the West, and in particular South Korea and Japan, must prepare for a world in which North Korea can wipe out whole cities in its neighbouring countries. Would the US placing nuclear weapons in South Korea or Japan be out of the question? North Korea may be less likely to use a nuclear weapon frivolously if it thinks Japan or South Korea could launch an immediate counter strike. Could we see a revival of the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) Doctrine in North East Asia? It is early days yet, but the craziness of the North Korean regime should not be underestimated, the West’s reaction needs to be swift. Very swift.  

Morsi Bows to Pressure

Early this month I posted about Egypt’s democracy being on a knife edge, the President Mohamed Morsi had issued a number of decrees with massively expanded his authority. This sparked massive protests, the biggest since last year’s revolution, under pressure Morsi has cancelled some of the controversial decrees. Morsi has cancelled the decrees which block judges from challenging his authority and give him the ability of pass ‘emergency laws’. Yet this does not mean that the protests will end and everyone will go home happy, the opposition protests also want the constitutional referendum cancelled. The constitution is not very popular with the opposition; they claim that it ignores the needs of women, secularists and the country’s significant minority.

The protests have resulted in seven deaths and over 700 injuries, the Cairo headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood (Morsi’s party) have been set on fire and protesters have threatened the Presidential Palace. Morsi has been forced to retreat behind barbed wire, police, militias and tanks as the protests have become increasingly violent. Some of the protesters have begun calling for Morsi to resign.

Egypt’s powerful army has warned against the country entering a “dark tunnel” and have called for the two sides to meet and broker a compromise. Despite Morsi’s repeal of a decree, a compromise is looking increasingly unlikely. Just today an opposition group has announced that they will boycott the referendum, which is scheduled to take place next Saturday. This doesn’t seem like the best idea, in boycotting the referendum they will not register a vote against it and therefore make the constitution more likely to become the law. It is a dangerous game they are playing, both sides argue that they have the ideas of the revolution at heart but they seem unable to agree on anything.

The events of the following week will be extremely important for the future of Egypt and the chances of its democracy surviving.

Syria Crisis: Day 716

In the 716 days that have succeeded the 15^th of March 2011 roughly 40,000 Syrian civilians have been killed in the Syrian Civil War that threatens Bashar Al-Assad’s regime. Despite set-backs in the early parts of the War, more recently it would seem that in recent months the Syrian opposition has been slowly gaining ground and possibly the upper hand. On the international stage the Syrian opposition is continuously gaining ground over the Assad regime, with the formation of the ‘National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces’, the revolution gained on a key diplomatic front. Since then 11 countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, France, Turkey, UK and Italy) have recognised the National Coalition as the ‘sole legitimate representative of Syria’, most of the rest of Europe and the United States have given the NC at least some recognition.

Inside Syria things are looking darker for the regime; rebel forces have taken a number of military bases, including an airport, in the eastern province of Deir Ez-Zor. The rebels have also made some significant advances in Syria’s second city of Aleppo, capturing at least five army bases in the past few weeks. Capturing these bases not only provides the rebels with good morale, but with crucial tanks, heavy weapons and anti-aircraft missiles. High profile defections seem to happen every couple of weeks, this helps to weaken Assad politically.

Yet it’s not all over for the Assad regime, international allies in the form of Iran and Russia are proving vital for the regime. There have been reports that Russia has been supplying Assad with tonnes of banknotes to prevent the economic collapse of the Syrian government. Russian made weapons have also allowed the regime to gain a significant advantage over the rebels in technology.

Despite this, the odds are stacked against Assad, what worries many people are the possibility of the use of chemical weapons. The international community does know that the Assad regime has many chemical weapons; if Assad chose to use them they would devastate Syria. Releasing just one chemical weapon in a densely populated city such as Aleppo would kill thousands of civilians in one fell swoop. Although the Assad regime has promised never to use them, we know he is not a trustworthy person.

If Assad did choose to use chemical weapons, it would be the end for his regime. There is no way Russia could justify supporting his regime if he used this form of attack. It would spark such an outrage in western countries that military intervention could become a possibility, President Obama and David Cameron have both spoken about how the use of chemical weapons would be a red line. If Assad chooses to use chemical weapons, his end would be swift 

Petraeus Scandal No. 2

David Petraeus has been engulfed in scandal again, only weeks after the details of his affair destroyed his career. The scandal only came to light when the Washington Post released a tape that had been leaked to it, the tape consists of David Petraeus speaking ‘off the record’ to Fox News contributor, Kathleen McFarland in early 2011.

In the tape McFarland is passing on some information from her boss, chairman of Fox News Roger Ailes. She explains to Petraeus that Ailes wants him not to accept any position the Obama administration offers him, except chairman of the joint chiefs, resign in six months and run for President (as a Republican). As the conversation continues Petraeus reveals that this is not really new information, the owner of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, had already approached Petraeus about running for President against Obama and promised him to ‘bankroll’ Petraeus’ campaign! At one point McFarland says the following:

“The big boss [Murdoch] is bankrolling it. Roger’s going to run it. And the rest of us are going to be your in-house.”

This should prove to everyone, what many people already believe, that Fox News is a media wing of the Republican Party. Simple as. You can argue whether that is good, bad or it doesn’t matter, but you can’t argue whether it is a wing of the party.

Regardless of the fallout from this case, we should take note of this in the UK. When speaking to Lord Justice Leveson Murdoch claimed he never asked a politician anywhere for anything, anyone could tell that he was lying. This proves it, Murdoch meddles in politics wherever he is, he is dangerous and he must be stopped, he simply has too much power. 

Democracy in Egypt on Life Support

When Hosni Mubarak was ousted as dictator of Egypt last year there was a wave of hope that change was coming. In the past year and a half there were the first elections to Egypt's parliament and the position of president was actually elected. Yet Egypt's fledgling democracy now lives on a knife edge. Riding on a wave of praise due to his involvement in the Gaza-Israeli ceasefire, Morsi decided that it would be a good time to give himself radical new powers and issue other decrees that infuriated Egyptians. The resulting fury spilt into protests across Egypt and the largest (as always) was in Tahrir Square, Cairo. The protests, which are the largest since the 2011 Revolutionary Protests, should remind Morsi that he only has weak support. Although Morsi did win the Presidential election, he only received 51.7% of the vote and the only other candidate was a Mubarak ally. Many Egyptians chose Morsi, not because they liked him by because he was the lesser of two evils. Ordinary civilians aren't the only ones angry at Morsi, frightful investors cause the stock market to plummet by 12%, Egypt's judges have gone on strike an basically every Christian, secularist and female representative in parliament has resigned.

For many Egyptians the decrees prove their extreme suspicion of Morsi and his party, the Muslim Brotherhood. One of the more controversial decrees is to put the president above the law until a constitution imposes a limit! Morsi had also decreed that there can no longer be any legal challenges to the body that drew up the constitution. Not all the decrees have caused anger, the decision to fire the public prosecutor, a Mubarak appointee and allowing the retrials of Mubarak's allies were welcomed.

The constitution going forward to a referendum could easily be defeated by a coalition of secularists, Christians, women and trade unions. Many fear the constitution puts too much power in the hands of the executive and the military (a combination which ruled with an iron grip for 40 years). The decision that the defence minister must also was be in the army had worried many that without civilian oversight, the army will be as powerful as ever. If Egyptians reject the constitution it gives hope that a new one will be fairer and less Islamist. The opposition needs to form a strong coalition to fight back against the powerful Muslim Brotherhood.

Leveson Report

In a move that has angered much of the public, the Prime Minister David Cameron had rejected proposals put forward by Lord Justice Leveson. To make matters worse for Cameron, he looks set to experience another humiliating defeat in the House of Commons as Labour will force a vote on the proposals. The vote should get the support of most of Labour and the Liberal Democrats as well as about 70 Conservative backbenchers. Unfortunately the vote will be non-binding as Labour does not have the power to introduce legislation.

So what is in the report causing such political angst? Well basically, Leveson calls for the setting up of a regulatory body that would be independent of both government and industry with the ability to fine organisations up to £1 million! The report castigates much of the press for their activities Leveson wrote that they have "wreaked havoc on the lives of ordinary people." Throughout the months that Leveson was listening to hundreds of testimonies, there were a number of specific stories that stood out. When Joanna Yates disappeared in 2010 her landlord, Christopher Jefferies was, in Leveson's words "the victim of a very serious injustice perpetrated by a significant section of the press". Leveson described the hunger of news organisations for stories on Madeleine McCann and her family as "insatiable." In most people's minds, it was the revelation that Milly Dowler, a murdered schoolgirl, had had her phone hacked by News of the World that started the avalanche of public anger that led to the Leveson inquiry. In July last year it seemed that barely a day went past when more people weren't added to the list of hackees. The families of 9/11 and 7/7 victims were hacked as well as those of dead soldiers and murder victims. The public revolution for the tabloids grew everyday.

The report was also critical of Jeremy Hunt and his handling of the BSkyB takeover bid. Hunt was at the centre of wider criticism of politicians' closeness to the press, particularly Murdoch titles. Leveson said that the huge amount of contact between Hunt's special advisor Adam Smith and News Corp lobbyist, Frédérick Michel was a serious problem that Hunt failed to address. Yet overall politicians were not heavily criticised notably Leveson cleared the government of being unfairly influenced by News Corp during the BSkyB takeover bid.

What happens in the next couple of moths will be of paramount importance to the nature of our press for the next generation. Parliament has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stop the unethical and unnecessary excesses of the British press without harming free speech and with the support of the public. If Cameron rejects the idea, it will only be a matter of time until the 2011 press scandal returns in a new form.

Fiction Marauding as Fact

Everyone lies. Lying is a simple fact of being human, some people lie to protect others' feelings, some people lie to protect themselves and others just like to lie. Everyone is also guilty of being ignorant, to varying degrees. Some are ignorant when it comes to politics or science or any other area of life. The fact is we all think we know things when we actually don't.

This post is about a website that combines lies and ignorance into one stupid mess, the website is called Conservapedia. Conservapedia was founded by a Tea Party activist, Andrew Schlafly in 2006 as he believed that Wikipedia was biased towards Liberals. Just like Wikipedia anyone can edit, the only difference is you have to register to edit Conservapedia. The website is rife with inaccuracies and opinion presente as fact. It is incredibly biased, for much of the past four years Barack Obama's birthplace has been listed as "Honolulu, Hawaii or Kenya", even after Obama released his birth certificate. The first line of the article of global warming reads "Global warming is the liberal hoax...", no debate, just a lie. The fact of the matter is global warming is accepted by 99.9% of climate scientists, the debate over its truth is in politics, not science. According to Conservapedia, evolution is another lie and homosexuality is a choice, oh and gays molest children. Stupid, right? But the most bizarre page I have found so far is the one on the London Olympics. Rather than focussing on what actually happened at the Olympics such as medal tables, the preparations or the athletes; editors chose to focus on atheism. Seriously. Atheism. One of my favourite lines in the 'article' is this: "Underachievement by atheistic nations will be particularly evident in team sports, where spiritual motivation is virtually non-existent." Throughout the whole piece I was laughing at the sheer stupidity of what I was reading, I don't think I've read anything more unintelligent in my entire life.

On a more serious note, it's ok for me to laugh. The people who edit this website are mostly American, Tea Party, Republicans, they have zero influence over politics in my country. It is more worrying for Americans, these editors really believe what they are writing, all facts on the contrary. And these people have power in the US, they control governorships, state legislatures, federal House and Senate seats. They even have their eyes on the Presidency. The fact of the matter is something needs to be done about fiction marauding as fact. Conservapedia is far from the only website spewing this hatred and lies, there are thousands of blogs, talk radio shows and the king, Fox News. Although Fox is not as extreme as Conservapedia, it still contributes to the conservative bubble in America. Never have I seen a better argument for investing in education.

Palestine state no. 194

Palestine has succeeded in upgrading its position in the UN to 'non-member state' in a historic vote I. The UN General Assembly. The measure was passed 131 votes to 9, with 41 abstaining. What is particularly notable is the way in which countries did (or did not) vote. Importantly, old allies of Israel such as Germany, Australia and the United Kingdom all decided to abstain rather than back Israel. Other allies such as France, Spain and Italy actually voted for the measure!

Although this does not go as far as many Palestinians would like and create a fully fledged state with all the same rights and responsibilities that its neighbour Israel has, it is still hugely important. The vote will strengthen the hands of the Palestinians in future talks and will allow for Palestine to join some UN institutions. One of the more direct benefits, that even Israeli supporters can agree is advantageous, is the boast it will give to the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas has been losing support to the more militant Hamas, a group the US and Israel label as terrorists. The successful vote in the UN should bolster support for him and help avoid a radical government.

In many way this vote can be viewed as the world's increasing frustration with Israel. It is losing many countries that were once steadfast supporters. Of the countries who did support it, the only two with serious power are Canada and the US. It's not hard to believe that without the unconditional support from the US to Israel, that Palestine would already be a UN member. One of the most contentious Israeli tactics is the building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which the UN has condemned as illegal. Even the USA has grown tired of Israel on this front, during his first term in office Obama said that the settlements must be stopped

As I've said before, there is a long way to go until peace is achieved in the Middle East, but this is a step in the right direction.

Surprise Choice for Bank of England Governor

George Osborne took the financial and political worlds by surprise yesterday when he announced his decision for the next Governor of the Bank of England. The two perceived frontrunners were current deputy governor, Paul Tucker and chairman of the Financial Services Authority, Adair Turner. Instead Osborne decided to look outside the UK for his choice, turning instead to the leader of Canada’s central bank, Mark Carney. Although Carney is hardly a household name here, the decision to appoint him was welcomed by much of the political world, including by the Labour Party! In a rare glimpse of unity amongst the parties, Ed Balls, Labour’s shadow Chancellor, greeted the decision to appoint him with warmth saying he is more than qualified for the job.

When Carney took over as Governor of the Bank of Canada in 2008 the world was about to enter the ‘great recession’ in which Canada emerged largely unscathed, an outlier amongst Western nations. The success of Canada was credited to two things, the regulations Canada had placed on its banks before the crisis and the actions of Carney during the crisis. This is why Carney’s appointment was greeted with much happiness. It is also important to note that the Bank of England is being given new powers of regulation to help prevent a repeat of 2008. Carney will be tasked with helping create structural reforms to help the system cope with the massive irregularities in the British financial system.

Carney’s job will be far from easy, Britain’s economy was one of the worst damaged by the recession of the major economies. Our massive dependence on the financial sector helped destroy the economy, if we were in the Eurozone we could be in the position of Greece. Unfortunately we’re haven’t begun repairing, the country has just come out of a double dip recession and could enter into a historic triple dip! Our output is still below what it was in 2008, that’s five years of declining living standards. Carney will have to get banks lending to help stimulate the economy whilst making sure they don’t take stupid risks. We don’t want Casino banking anymore.

No Deal on EU Budget!

European leaders failed to reach an agreement on the EU budget as tensions flared over whether to increase or cut the budget. Originally the European Commission wanted an increase in the budget to €1025 billion, David Cameron was less than pleased with this as he wanted a cut to €825 billion. This did not bode well for Cameron who, when it comes to EU proposals, tends to struggle to find allies. Yet on this occasion he may have found some friends, the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland are all firmly on the British side and Germany is sympathetic to the British viewpoint. Incidentally all of them contribute more than they get. Under this pressure, Herman Van Rompuy, the President of the European Council offered a new budget of €973 billion, still above what Cameron had hoped for.

The debate over the EU budget focused on a number of areas, spending on developing poorer areas of the EU seemed to be largely a non-issue and an agreement seemed closer on the issue of the farm subsidies. The lack of progress on cutting EU administration costs angered Cameron the most, although cutting the sky-high pay of some ‘eurocrats’ would make no meaningful dent in the budget, for Cameron it is important symbolism: European taxpayers should not have to suffer austerity at home whilst paying for ridiculously high EU civil servants’ pay. Britain’s rebate was not brought up, which is surprising considering the strong feelings of certain leaders. It could prove to be a flash point in the next round of debates as France’s President, Francois Hollande, is determined to have it reduced whilst David Cameron says that the rebate is non-negotiable.

A deal will be difficult to formulate as a budget needs to be approved by all 27 member states, with the wide range of opinions this will not be easy. David Cameron is under immense pressure back home, with Conservative backbenchers demanding a cut or a rebellion. They could succeed if Labour also opposes the budget proposal, at the moment Labour seems intent on opposing whatever the government suggests.  Yet blocking a budget could produce more problems that it would solve. The nature of EU budgets is that if a budget is not agreed then the old budget would roll on, with added spending. The results would be the budget rising even higher than what the EU Commission asked for in their original proposal. An agreement must be reached or the UK will much more than it wants. 

Israel-Gaza Attacks

Violence has returned to Israel and Palestine after the Israelis killed Hamas’ top military official, Ahmed Jabari, in a rocket strike last week. The situation turned from bad to worse when both sides pounded each other with rockets and missiles. Many feared an escalation was possible when rockets from Gaza managed to reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, both cities are usually safe from rockets. Yet the reality is that this situation is much worse for Gaza, already 130 Palestinians have been killed, the vast majority of which have been civilians. This is significantly lower than the number killed on the Israeli side, the figure is still in single digits. Until today a ground invasion by Israel appeared imminent with Israel amassing tanks and troops on the border as well as calling up over 70,000 reservists. With the world watching the situation seemed completely out of control. Then today good news began to roll in with both sides announcing talks towards a ceasefire that would take place today or tomorrow. Unfortunately that ceasefire has not come and both sides continued shelling each other throughout today, with far more devastation occurring on the Palestinian side of the border.

The President of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, has been an important mediator in the past few days, attempting to get Israeli and Palestinian officials talking over a deal to end the violence. Although he is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organisation with many links to Hamas and he is very pro-Palestinian, he does not want to appear confrontational. He is trying to show support for Hamas whilst respecting the treaty with Israel, in trying to broker a peaceful solution he has invited regional players such as the Qataris and Turks to negotiate with the Israelis and Palestinians in Cairo. The ceasefire may not come for a while yet, but the most important thing he can do is to try and stop a ground invasion occurring. It would turn the international community against Israel, cause the death of hundreds, maybe thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians, and make it impossible for Egypt to maintain a relationship with Israel. The latter could further destabilise the Israel-Palestine relationship further and bring the whole region crashing down.

Nobody knows how long this conflict will last for; hopefully a ground invasion will be avoided. Regardless of when a ceasefire does happen, the situation in that region will not improve until Palestine is recognised as a sovereign state with all the protections and international recognition that nationhood affords. Peace in this region may be several centuries off, but it can never come if we never work for it. 

Israeli rockets land in Gaza
Source: Guardian

What is the Petraeus Scandal?

If you have been watching the news recently you have probably heard of a scandal in the US involving a man named David Petraeus, the CIA and an extra-marital affair. The short (short) story is that General David Petraeus resigned as head of the CIA after his affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, was made public. The reality is, the episode is much more complex/

We do not yet know what date the affair began between Petraeus and Broadwell, although this might seem like an uninteresting detail, it could be very important. The reason: it’s illegal for a member of the US military to be involved in an extra-marital affair! So if the affair began before 31^st of August 2011, when Petraeus retired from the military, he could face trial in a military court! This is pretty straight forward, the rest is like a spiders web of connexions and people extending across various arms of government. Let’s start with Paula Broadwell; she sent threatening emails to a friend of Petraeus, Jill Kelley, telling her to back off from Petraeus feeling they were getting too close. She sent the emails anonymously under the pseudonym, ‘KelleyPatrol’. Kelley was worried about the threatening letters in these emails and asked a friend at the FBI, Frederick Humphries II, to investigate. Humphries got an investigation going, but did not get assigned to it. Growing increasingly impatient as nothing was moving, he phoned two House Republicans, Eric Cantor and Dave Reichart, in the (false) belief that the Obama administration was trying to cover something up due to political intentions. As the FBI began to probe into the emails, they found another individual was in this complex web, General John Allen, Petraeus’ successor as commander of the US forces in Afghanistan. It was discovered that he had sent 20,000-30,000 emails to Jill Kelley; these emails were supposedly flirtatious and inappropriate in nature. Despite these emails, both parties deny any affair taking place! Allen wasn’t the only person Kelley was getting attention from; the FBI agent had sent her topless pictures of himself to her!

That is a summary of what happened before the information went public, what came next was a storm.

As soon as the election finished and Obama was declared the winner, the scandal fell out of control and turned into a full-blown crisis. The White House received word of the looming crisis on the 7^th of November, the day after the election. Obama’s National Security Advisor, Tom Donilon, decided to wait to inform Obama until the next day. Once Obama heard of the situation he said that he was not ready to allow Petraeus to resign and that “he wanted to sleep on it”. It wouldn’t be long before he was forced to accept the resignation, on the 9^th of November CIA director, General David Petraeus resigned. It was also immediately clear that the career of General John Allen was also in jeopardy when he was implicated in the scandal. To make matters worse, Allen was scheduled to appear before the Senate as he was going to become the top US military official in Europe. The discovery of the excessive volume of emails between Kelley and Allen caused the hearings to be suspended.

Naturally the politicians were furious; Obama had no chance to formulate a response before the public knew, nobody had even told him about the investigation being conducted or anything related to it. Many Republicans found it suspicious that the revelations occurred immediately after the election, was the Obama administration hiding something? The relevant Committees in Congress were also angry about being kept in the dart for so long about the FBI investigation. The whole mess is far from sorted, Obama has to draw up a new cabinet, sort out this mess in the military/CIA/FBI and he’s going to try and broker a deal with Republicans regarding the fiscal cliff; all in the ‘lame duck’ session of Congress. There doesn’t seem to be anything ‘lame’ about this current session.

If you still are struggling to understand this situation, I hope this spider's web of information will be of help.

UK Election Results

It won’t come as a surprise that the elections for Police and Crime Commissioners had the lowest turnout of eligible voters in UK history! The lowest turnout was in Staffordshire where only 11.6% of the voting population turned out to vote, the highest turnout was still extremely low, 20% in Northamptonshire.

The election turned out surprisingly well for the Conservatives, despite trailing the Labour Party in all polls of a national general election, they managed to win 16 of the PCC posts to Labour’s 13. Unfortunately for the Liberal Democrats the result was even worse as none of their candidates were elected, yet the surprise winner of the election were independents who won in 12 of the races!

Although Labour will be disappointed with the PCC election results, they should not read too much into them. Firstly turnout was historically low, and there was apathy even amongst those who did vote. More importantly is that many people did not vote on party lines (this is likely the reason for independents doing so well), people felt that it mattered less what party they were from and more about what history they had with the police and crime. Despite this disappointment there were more important posts available, three by elections took place on the same day and Labour managed to win in all three. The most prominent was the Corby by-election; the seat had been left open by Louise Mensch when she resigned earlier this year, Labour took back the seat with a massive 21.8% margin! This election bodes well for the next general election, but a lot can change in three years!

Leadership Change in China

In China, a once in a decade change of leadership is taking place. Today the Chinese Communist Party selected a new Central Committee; tomorrow it will reveal who will lead China for the next decade. The Chinese economy has expanded rapidly over the past ten years, its economy has increased over fivefold from $1.5 trillion in 2002 to $8.3 trillion this year! It has overtaken France, the UK, Germany and Japan to become the world’s second largest economy. Despite all this success, the future is far from certain. China has a terrible track record on human rights and democracy and the growing middle class there is getting increasingly upset at the lack of control over their government. The new Chinese leadership will have two options, introduce some reforms to appease the middle class or crush dissent lack they did in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The problem with the latter is that crushing dissent is harder to do in the internet era and could slow China’s rapid growth.

One of China’s major problems is the high level of corruption in government; the fact that the leaders’ families have become extremely wealthy does not sit well with the poor and middle class. In his address to the Communist Party last week, the outgoing leader, Hu Jintao, brought up the problem of corruption and said that the new Chinese leadership would need to tackle it. The issue of corruption was flung into the centre of Chinese politics earlier this year when Bo Xilai was accused of rampant corruption and his wife, Gu Kailai was convicted of murdering British businessman Neil Heywood.

Hu Jintao speaking to the Communist Party

Nobody really knows what the next decade holds for China, ask ten different ‘experts’ and you would end up with ten different answers. Some are predicting that growth will remain at its current stratospheric levels; some predict that it will begin to slow due to problems in its two main export markets, Europe and the USA. Others predict total economic and/or political collapse. One thing everyone agrees on: The next decade will be extremely important China. 

The Future is Bright for Gay Rights in America

Last Tuesday’s election was important for a whole range of reasons, one of the less discussed is gay marriage. For the first time in American history, gay marriage was legalised in a referendum, and it happened in three states, Washington, Maine and Maryland. Voters in Minnesota also rejected adding a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage. There are a number of advantages that gay marriage had over the other referendums held previously.

1.       All four referendums were held in blue states

2.       More time has elapsed (support for gay marriage seems to continuously rise)

3.       They were the first referendums in which President Obama’s support could affect the result. Obama’s support particularly affected black voters, this could have proved divisive in Maryland where black people make up 30% of the population.

Supporters of gay marriage should pay attention to the above three reasons. Undoubtedly Tuesday a success, but what does the future hold? Well currently gay marriage is being discussed in four state legislatures; Illinois, Rhode Island, Delaware and Minnesota, all four are blue states with Democratic control of the state legislatures and governorships, bar Rhode Island which has an Independent governor. In Colorado and Wyoming the legislatures are discussing civil unions and in Ohio the gay rights side is trying to collect enough signatures to put marriage on the ballot in 2013.

If I was a gay rights organisation in America, I would try to get gay marriage on the ballot in as many states as possible for the 2016 Presidential election. I say that for two reasons, firstly presidential elections have the highest rates of voter turnouts which should favour legalisation and secondly four years will have passed. If the growth in support for gay marriage continues at its current rate most people in most states should support it. Before 2008 only Massachusetts had legalised it, since then it has been joined by eight states and DC. By 2016 the gay rights movement should try and get gay marriage on the ballot in every state that voted for Obama in 2012 that has not yet legalised it.

Prior to this year gay marriage had usually been defeated by massive margins when on the ballot. In fact the average margin of defeat was a whopping 35%! It was so badly defeated that in only two circumstances was the margin less than 10%; in South Dakota in 2006 and California in 2008 the margin was 4%. You might think with this historical precedent that it’s amazing that gay marriage actually won. To fully understand why this was the case you need to delve into the figures, of the 32 states that voted to defeat gay marriage, 22 voted for Romney whilst 10 voted for Obama. Of the ten Obama states, six are swing state and the two that rejected gay marriage by the highest margins held their referendums in 1998 and 2002. A lot of progress has been made in the last ten years.

The gay rights movement know it has a long way to go before LGBT people are given the same rights as everyone else; women are still fighting for equality despite the suffragettes beginning their campaign over 100 years ago! And they represent 51% of the population! Despite that the movement knows that progress is coming thick and fast, within the next decade I predict a majority of American states to have passed gay marriage, as well as a majority of countries considered to be ‘Western’. It’s a tide of opinion that the conservatives cannot, and will not, defeat.

The Collapse of the British Establishment

It has been over two months now since the Jimmy Savile abuse scandal was first made public, yet its affects still dominate news headlines. Accusations that senior politicians were involved in paedophile sex rings have been swarming on the internet for over a week. Yesterday one of those accused hit back, Lord McAlpine called the speculation “wholly false and seriously defamatory”. The rumours started as a result of a BBC Newsnight investigation into abuse in north Wales children’s homes. In the broadcast a man stated that he had been abused by a senior Conservative from the Thatcher era, although McAlpine was never named. On Twitter however, his name was banded about as the abuser, and it is true that Steven Messham (the victim) did believe that McAlpine was the abuser. He has since reversed his accusation after being shown a photograph of McAlpine and has apologised for falsely accusing him. This has led Newsnight into some serious trouble, what sort of shoddy journalism was at work when they didn’t even both to confirm that McAlpine was definitely the abuser?

It would seem like this scandal is intent on destroying the BBC and Newsnight’s reputation. Although I have no doubt that the BBC will continue as the world’s largest broadcaster, I fear for Newsnight’s future. The programme usually has excellent journalism and to cancel it would be a travesty.

If we move away from this scandal alone you begin to realise something: The British Establishment is collapsing. It really began back in 2007/2008 when the economy went into freefall, the institutions that had caused the crash saw their reputation plummet: Banks. Yet it also tarnished politics, why had the government massively deregulated the financial sector? And why did the opposition say nothing about it? Move alone to 2009 and politics has a scandal of its own, this time over expenses. Many MPs and Peers had made unfair, and sometimes illegal claims for expenses. Since then a number of politicians have gone to jail, destroying politicians’ already abysmal reputation. In 2011 the police, press and politicians all got caught up in one massive scandal. It all started with revelations that the News of the World had hacked the voicemail of murdered schoolgirl, Milly Dowler, in 2002. Soon it became clear that thousands of people had been hacked, the families of dead soldiers and victims of 9/11 and 7/7. The public’s complete revulsion of what was discovered resulted in the News of the World being closed. The scandal turned to police when people questioned their relationship with journalists and the possibility of corruption. Public anger also erupted over the closeness of senior Tory politicians with the press, particularly PM David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt.  Since then numerous branches of the press have shown to act unlawfully, particularly Murdoch papers; the Sun, the Times and News of the World all being implicated. As well as that, senior executives within Murdoch’s company News Corporation have been arrested surrounding the scandal. Then you move forward to this year, banks saw their reputation further damaged as three British institutions were found to have dodgy, and sometimes illegal dealings. The current abuse scandal threatens to further destroy the establishment’s reputation. The public are at record low levels of trust with banks, politicians, police, the press and now the BBC. The only nationwide institution still standing on high approval ratings is the NHS, let’s hope it doesn’t find a scandal of its own.  

Obama Wins!

Barack Obama has been re-elected as President of the United States of America. There were scenes of jubilation last night at Obama HQ in Chicago as the networks called Ohio, and therefore the presidency, for Obama. The scenes at Romney HQ in Boston were much quieter with some people even crying. Many were expecting a very close night; one which kept Americans up to dawn as they waited for a network to call the election. The reality was surprisingly different, at 11:15pm EST (4:15am UK time) NBC called the entire election for Obama.

On Twitter I called the election much earlier, after the networks declared Pennsylvania so quickly I believed that Obama’s chances were very, very high. The only electoral votes that Obama won in 2008 and lost in 2012 were Indiana and Nebraska’s Second Congressional District, both of which were expected results and North Carolina, which Romney won by 2.2%.

Florida was extraordinary again last night; both candidates were basically tied the entire night! At one point just 3,000 votes separated them despite over 6.4 million votes already being declared. People began to wonder if Florida would be the controversy that it was in 2000 when just 500 votes decided who won Florida and therefore the presidency. Either candidate could still win as provisional ballots still need to be counted, after this happens if the margin of victory less than 0.5% then an automatic recount occurs.

At the beginning of the evening a lay person may have thought that Romney was running away with it in Virginia. For the first couple of hours after Virginia’s polls closed Romney was leading by up to 17 points! The reason for this massive margin? Republican counties were releasing their results much faster than the Democratic ones. This explains why the networks called Wisconsin for Obama despite Romney leading at the time, simply it was down to which counties had reported their votes thus far.

Here are the swing states and their margin of victory for the winning candidate:

State	Margin	% reporting
Colorado	O - 4.7%	95%
Florida	Not called
Iowa	O - 5.6%	99%
Nevada	O - 6.6%	99%
New Hampshire	O - 5.7%	99%
North Carolina	R - 2.2%	100%
Ohio	O - 1.9%	99%
Wisconsin	O - 6.7%	99%
Virginia	O - 3.0%	99%

Yet Romney did make a bit of history, although it’s not something he’ll be telling people: He lost his home state by the largest margin that a Republican or Democrat has ever done. He lost Massachusetts by 23.2%, his nearest rival is Herbert Hoover who lost Iowa by 18 points in 1932!

Yet the presidential race is far from the only election that occurred last night, 10 governorships, 34 Senate seats and 435 House seats were up for grabs as well as positions in state politics and numerous ballot initiatives and referendums.

The Senate turned out very well for the Democrats, considering they were expected to lose control of the Senate at the beginning of this cycle. They managed to flip Indiana and Massachusetts from red to blue as well as pick up a seat in Connecticut which had previously been held by an independent. The open seat in Maine went from a Republican to an independent, Angus King. He is expected to caucus with the Democrats. The only piece of good news for Republicans here was the gain of Nebraska from the Democrats. The makeup of the Senate will go from 51 Democrats, two independents (who caucus with the Democrats) and 47 Republicans to 53 Democrats, two independents (who are expected to caucus with the Democrats and 45 Republicans.

There was excellent news for the Republicans in the House; they managed to retain their majority. In fact, there is barely any chance from 2010, currently there are 193 Democrats called, the same number as the current congress; so not a great night for Democrats in this area.

In the Gubernational Elections there has only been one change so far, North Caroline flipped from Democrat to Republican. Indiana, North Dakota and Utah all stayed red whilst West Virginia, Delaware, Vermont and New Hampshire all remained blue, Washington is still undeclared.

The election was a good one for left-wing ideals, both Washington and Colorado legalised Marijuana for recreational use. In Maine, Maryland and Washington gay marriage was legalised or upheld whilst Minnesota voted not to ban it. Considering that before this election gay rights had only won one referendum (which was later overturned in another referendum), a clean sweep of all four is a major victory.

This election was undoubtedly a success for the Democrats, yet the results have meant that there is going to be barley any change in Washington DC. The Democrats still control the Senate and presidency; the Republicans control the House and can filibuster in the Senate. In fact things could get even less bi-partisan in the Senate, the three Republicans being replaced by democrats or independents are all ones open to compromise; Olympia Snowe in Maine, Dick Lugar in Indiana and Scott Brown in Massachusetts. With fewer moderate voices on the Republican side, it is easy to see how this Congress could actually be worse than the last. And there’s nothing Obama can do about it.

What About a Tie?

The results of the presidential election are likely to be extremely close, in both the Electoral Colleges and the popular vote. To become president of the US you need a majority in the Electoral Colleges. The problem here is that there are 538 college votes, which is an even number; so a tie is at least theoretically possible.

It is unlikely that a tie will occur in 2012 but it is far from impossible. Of the nine swing states, if Obama wins Wisconsin, Ohio and New Hampshire whilst Romney wins Nevada, Iowa, Colorado, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida then they both receive 269 votes and the race is tied.

So what happens next? Any normal person could reasonably assume that you would defer to the popular vote! If you though that then you would be wrong, instead a complex system kicks in where the presidency could be temporarily be held by Joe Biden, Paul Ryan or even the Speaker of the House, John Boehner.

When the race is tied, the House of Representatives gets to decide who is President. You might expect that each of the 435 Representatives gets one vote each – an odd number so no chance of a tie! Yet, once again, the American electoral system departs from sanity. Instead of 435 Representatives voting, they have to vote as 50 states. This is extremely disproportionate, consider this; California has a population of 38 million people and has 53 Representatives, yet only gets one vote in a tie. On the other hand Wyoming has a population of 560,000 people and has one Representative in the House, yet it gets the same amount of votes as California in a tie. To make matters worse, 25 states have an even number of Representatives so the process could be slowed if their internal voting is tied.

You might have thought that the insanity would stop there, but you’d once again be wrong. So whilst the House picks the President, the Senate gets to pick the Vice-President. This could result in the President being a Republican and the Vice-President being a Democrat, or vice versa. Now, unlike the House the Senate is already disproportionate in how seats are allocated; every state gets two Senators regardless of population.  This also causes more problems as there are 100 Senators, which means that there is (again) a risk of a tie. Great.

If the House is having trouble picking the President and the Senate has already picked the Vice-President then he/she becomes acting President. But if both branches of Congress are having trouble then the Speaker of the House becomes acting President until someone gets chosen!

So how would things work out for this Presidential election? To an outsider you would think that the elected members of congress would vote for whoever won the most of the popular vote. To someone who has an understanding of what American politics is like now, I wouldn’t be too sure. Bi-partisanship is dead in America, particularly on the Republican side. In primaries across the country incumbent Republicans were chucked out by the party base in favour of those who promised to end compromise. This is most notable in the case of Indiana Senator, Dick Lugar. The Republicans in Congress are being held hostage by their base; a Republican would know that they risk losing their party’s nomination if they were to vote for Obama: a man the Republican base hate vociferously. If Romney wins the popular vote, I could see some Democrats voting for Romney out of respect for democracy, but many would vote against him.

So suddenly if becomes very important as to who wins Congress. In the House it is highly likely that the Republicans will maintain control and in the Senate it is likely that the Democrats will maintain control. As each state gets one vote, individual congressional races become very important on a Presidential scale! Polling is quite scarce for individual House races, so it would be easy for some states to go either way. It’s easier to predict the Senate as there are only 33 Senators up for election and polling is more common for Senate races.

If we were to take the polls as definite for the House, then you see Republicans having a majority of representatives from 31 states, the Democrats taking a majority in 16 states, two states are impossible to tell and one (New Jersey) is expected to be split.

Blue for Democratic Majority
Red for Republican majority
Orange for Tossup
Purple for Tie

In the Senate if we take the polls as definite and combine them with the Senators not for re-election you would find a Democratic majority of four or five. The following map indicates what it looks like (red for two Republican Senators, blue for two Democratic Senators and Purple for states with one from each party).

So if there is a tie, the House will likely vote for Mitt Romney and the Senate for Joe Biden. That could make some interesting meetings… 

Democrats will Control the Senate

The Republicans seem determined to make sure the Democrats continue to control the Senate. At the moment Democrats have 51 seats, Republicans 47 seats and there are two independents who caucus with the Democrats. At the start of this year it looked like the Republicans were going to win back the Senate. Since then things have changed.

In North Dakota and Nebraska the Democratic senators decided to retire, many viewed this as an easy opportunity for the Republicans to flip both seats from blue to red. In Missouri, the incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill was becoming increasingly unpopular. Scott Brown is the Republican senator for Massachusetts; it was believed that he had a strong chance to keep his seat considering his moderate credentials.  Republicans were also expected to put up strong performances in Wisconsin (where the current Senator is retiring) as well as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Montana and Connecticut, all these states currently have Democratic senators. Indiana was regarded as safely Republican due to the extremely popular Richard Lugar; in fact he is so popular in the state that in his last re-election in 2006, the Democrats didn’t even bother to run an opponent. The only disappointing news before the primary season began was the when Olympia Snowe announced her retirement, Snowe represents liberal Maine; her retirement gave Democrats a chance to flip her seat.

Despite all indicators pointing to a return to a Republican majority in the Senate, things have gone less well for the Republicans in 2012; much of this damage was self-inflicted. In Missouri they chose the weakest candidate available, Todd Akin, and in Indiana they chucked out the popular Richard Lugar and replaced him with a Tea Party radical. Although Nebraska is certainly going to the Republicans, North Dakota has been surprisingly competitive with the Republican, Rick Berg basically tying Democrat, Heidi Heitkamp in most polls. Republicans have also been disappointed with their candidates’ performances in Wisconsin, Connecticut, Ohio and Pennsylvania; all four states are likely to remain Democratic. There is bad news in Maine for the Republicans and Democrats, currently an independent candidate, Angus King, is leading both parties by up to 20 points. Although this may appear bad on the surface for both parties, it is a lot worse for the Republicans; the seat is currently held by a Republican and King is expected to caucus with the Democrats for Senate leadership.

There are a few states that need looked at specifically; Massachusetts, Missouri and Indiana. Of those three states, by far the most liberal is Massachusetts; in 2010 Scott Brown was elected senator in a special election to replace the recently deceased, Ted Kennedy. It was expected that he would experience a struggle to hold on to his seat, yet for most of the year he was ahead in the polls. He has attempted to portray himself as a moderate, he has distanced himself from much of the Republican leadership and was one of the first Republicans to condemn Todd Akin after his rape comments. In recent weeks his lead has completely evaporated and his Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Warren is leading by good margins.  Part of this can be placed on the perceived racism of his campaign, against Native Americans. Warren has Native American blood in her, yet Brown claims that this is not possible! Just look at her, she’s clearly white!  Since then a number of Brown staffers have been seen making fun of Native Americans, something that has not gone down well with Massachusetts voters.

In Missouri, the Republicans were expecting to beat the unpopular Democratic incumbent, Claire McCaskill. This was, of course, before Todd Akin got himself mired in scandal. Akin was leading in every poll, until he went on TV and said the following on the issue of women getting pregnant as a result of being raped and whether they should be allowed an abortion:

“If it’s a legitimate rape, then the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Naturally this caused a major up-roar across the US, Republicans across the country called for him to quit the race. He did not, since then he has trailed McCaskill in the polls by 7%.

Todd Akin isn’t the only candidate to ruin his chances due to his stance on abortion, in Indiana Richard Mourdock said the following in a recent TV debate:

“Even if life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that is something God intended to happen.”

Shocking right? Implying that God intended a woman to be raped is never a good thing to say, regardless of what your views on abortion are. In an attempt to salvage his election chances, Mourdock later tried to clarify what he meant by that comment saying that God didn’t intend the rape to happen, but whilst you were being raped God decided to give you the ‘gift’ of life. That, naturally, just made things worse.

With the Presidential race as close as it is and the Republicans likely to keep the House, the Democrats can at least take comfort knowing they will likely keep the Senate. If you look at the poll averages over on the Huffington Post, you can clearly see that the Senate races are going the Democrats’ way.  If each state that is deemed lean or strong Democrat votes Democrat and every state that is deemed lean or strong Republican votes Republican, then the Democrats have 50 seats and the Republicans have 43. This leaves one independent and six seats that could still go either way. Since polling is sparser in Senate races, Indiana is still deemed tossup but we should expect Donnelly to win this seat with relative ease. The other tossup races are Nevada, North Dakota, Arizona, Virginia and Montana; even if all these states vote against the Democrats it would not be enough for the Republicans to control the house.  

Who Will Control Congress?

All the talk about who will be President has meant that much of the other races have been left unmentioned, particularly internationally. There are many different elections underway across America. The entire House of Representatives is up for election as well as 33 Senate seats, 11 governorships and numerous state legislators. As well as this many states will hold a range of referendums, four states (Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington) are deciding the future of gay marriage.

The House of Representatives – All 435 members to be elected

In 2010 the Republicans took control of the House in a huge way. The Democrats lost 63 seats in the election, the most for any party in a mid-term since 1938! To re-gain a majority the Democrats would require a net gain of 28 seats. Although they are expected to make gains, they’re not expected to get this many! If Obama does get re-elected then this will cause major problems for his administration. The split control of congress (Democrats controlling the Senate and the Presidency whilst the Republicans can filibuster in the Senate and have control of the House) and the unwillingness of Republicans to compromise in a bi-partisan way have meant that the 112^th Congress has been grid-locked. Unfortunately for Obama (predicted to win narrowly) the polling for the House would indicate a repeat of this nightmare Congress.

The Senate – 33 of the 100 members to be elected

At the beginning of this year pollsters had predicted that Republicans would have the better chance of controlling the Senate, causing further problems for the Democrats if Obama was re-elected. They were certainly expected to make at least some gains; neither of these predictions are likely to come true. Current polling in individual states would indicate the Democrats increasing their majority in the Senate! This is due to highly-publicised and serious gaffes by the Republican candidates, most notoriously Todd Akin of Missouri and Richard Mourdock of Indiana. I will write about the Senate in more detail later.

Governorships – 11 of 50 governors to be elected

Considering this year’s Republican nominee is a one-term governor from Massachusetts, any one of these people could have presidential aspirations! Currently Democrats have 20 governorships to the Republicans 29; it is very likely that the Republicans will make some gain over the Democrats. North Carolina currently has a Democratic governor, but that is likely to change. Montana, New Hampshire and Washington both have Democratic governors right now; current polling would indicate all three races to be complete tossups.  North Dakota and Utah are both Republican and are certain to stay that way along with Indiana. Delaware and Vermont will certainly retain their Democratic governors; likely so will Missouri and West Virginia.

Although the Presidential race is the centre of attention, for obvious reasons, we should not forget some of the smaller races. It’s no good having a Democratic president if Congress is completely red, or vice versa.  With the Republicans likely to hold the House and the Democrats likely to have the Senate, we should expect a repeat of the second-half of Obama’s term. America will be the victim here.

Obama Vs. Romney Round III

Last night Romney and Obama sparred for the last time in Boca Raton, Florida attempting to put on their best show to woo the nation. Although I do believe that the debate was very close, with Obama having the edge, a CBS instant poll put it much more pro-Obama. These are the results: Obama 53%, Romney 23% or a tie: 24%. This is far larger than I would have thought, but it may not have much of a lasting effect. Most Americans care about the economy more than anything else; Bill Clinton didn’t say “It’s the economy stupid” for nothing!

Although the debate was built to be about foreign policy, it was basically a discussion on the Middle East. America’s close allies in Europe never got a mention, the special relationship never came up, the BRIC countries (bar China) didn’t get discussed. Latin America was largely ignored, the drug wars in Mexico didn’t even get mentioned despite the escalating violence and instability. Sub-saharan Africa was not even mentioned as well as America’s alliances in the South-East Asia and Pacific region. Another big miss was the economic crisis in Europe, considering its potential to send the world economy into freefall, its absence was notable. So basically the whole 90 minutes was spent on the Middle East, in particular Iran and Israel. Iran was mentioned 47 times, Israel 35 and America’s (supposed) closest ally, the UK was only mentioned twice.

The issue of Iran last night was an interesting topic, Romney accused Obama of going soft on Iran. He said that Iran saw America as being weak. What an absolutely ridiculous statement to make, Obama easily took this fabrication apart. The fact that Iran is the most isolated and the weakest it’s ever been is a testament to Obama’s leadership on the international stage. Iran’s currency has lost 80% of its value since the new sanctions came in place and its oil exports have plummeted to record lows. The main discussion around Iran centred on its nuclear programme and how to stop it. Neither candidate fully  told us quite how they’d stop Iran getting nuclear weapons. All we know is just how bad it would be if they did get WMDs. Obama said that the current sanctions were working very well, having caused the Iranian economy to collapse.

On the topic of Israel, Romney was very critical of Obama, when Obama took his first foreign trip as president he went to the Middle East without visiting Israel. Romney said that had emboldened Israel’s enemies and made America look weak. For some historical context no Republican president has ever visited Israel during their first term, not even Ronald Reagan. Obama’s main reply to the claims are the fact that America and Israel are sharing an unprecedented amount of military technology and information.

Beyond Israel and Iran, other Middle Eastern topics included Libya, Egypt and Syria. If you were watching last week’s debate you will remember the Benghazi question, the one Romney totally botched. This week the focus on Libya was not on Benghazi, rather the revolution that had taken place in 2011 that overthrew Gaddafi. Both candidates, last night, agreed that the administration had done the right thing in Libya. Yet Obama to time to remind Romney of how, during the Libyan intervention, he had accused Obama of ‘mission creep’, suggesting America should pull out. In regards to Libya’s neighbour, Egypt, Romney criticised Obama for not reacting to the revolution faster. This is despite Obama being one of the first world leaders to call for the dictator, President Mubarak, to resign. When they spoke on Syria Romney seemed to have the same position as Obama! They both support the rebels, they both would consider arming rebels (but they both worry about arms falling into extremists’ hands) and they both ruled out the prospect of an intervention which involved a land invasion. Although Romney declared it a disgrace that Assad was still in power and that Obama should do more, he failed to articulate what Obama should be doing. The discussion on Syria turned downright stupid when Romney said the following:

“Syria is Iran’s only ally in the Arab World. It’s their route to the sea.”

If you have a basic understanding of the geography of the Middle East you’ll know that this is an extremely bizarre statement. Firstly Iran has no border with Syria at all; Iran would need to go through Turkey or Iraq if they wished to take that route to the sea. Yet more importantly is the fact that Iran has 2,440km of coastline (according to the CIA World Factbook). Just take a look at the following map!

 

Just let that sink in, Romney doesn’t even remotely know the geography of the Middle East. This is something every Congressman and Senator should know, never mind the President.

Somewhat surprisingly, an important part of all three presidential debates is the issue of what to do about China! For Obama this would be a relatively easy area to score some points, Obama has doubled exports to China, as well as this he has brought twice as many cases to the WTO of Chinese trade malpractice as Bush did in eight years. More importantly, he has won every case that has been decided. When Obama brought one particular case to try and save 1,000 jobs, Romney called him “protectionist”. Yet despite these facts Romney continues to try and attack Obama on the issue.

Overall I feel that Obama probably did slightly better, but it will not be foreign policy that decides this election.

Romney and Obama in the Midst of the debate