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The late Harold Wilson, former Labor Prime Minister, once said that a week was a long time in politics meaning that the fortunes of a politician can be transformed in a blink of an eye by a turn of events. Take for example Barak Obama; his recent approval rating among the American electorate had dropped to 42%. He couldn’t even make the guest list to the Royal Wedding; joining other notable absentees in the shape of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Sarah Ferguson.

The omissions of Blair and Ferguson merely highlighted the vindictiveness of the Queen. She has never forgiven Blair for coercing her into agreeing to a State funeral for Diana. Neither was she amused when Blair’s Government banned fox hunting which was a favorite past time of the nobility. Sarah Ferguson has behaved foolishly on several occasions; none more so than when caught on camera sucking the toe of some nondescript American banker. Nevertheless, she is the mother of two of the Queen’s grandchildren who were guests at the wedding and consequently Fergie should have been included in the wedding party.

Sorry, I digress. No sooner were we recovering from hangovers celebrating the Royal Wedding, news broke on the 1^st May that American Navy Seals had broken into Osama Bin Laden’s heavily fortified compound and killed him; nearly ten years after 911. Bin Laden’s body was quickly removed and dumped into the Arabian Sea arousing questions in my mind of why it was necessary to dispose of the body so hastily. Twenty fours later, Obama’s approval rating rose by 11 points thus confirming Harold Wilson’s hypothesis.

The whole concept of the raid raises many concerns.  The hunt for America’s most wanted man was conducted over many years. Bin Laden was found through one of his personal couriers. Following investigations by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies, the courier was identified in 2007. In mid-2010 he was tracked down to the large compound in Abbott Abad, home to Pakistan’s leading military academy, north-east of the capital Islamabad. In February 2011 it was determined that there was “sound intelligence” that bin Laden was holed up in the compound and the rest is history.

With his approval ratings continuing to fall, is it a coincidence that Obama authorized the strike with less than 19 months to go to the presidential elections?  He has failed to generate economic recovery or lower gas prices. Unemployment rates are increasing once more not to mention his unpopular health reforms which have yet to take effect.

Only twenty four hours after attempting to projects himself as a strong commander-in-chief he shot himself in the foot with ill considered contradictions of how the raid unfolded. Initially the White House claimed that bin Laden had participated in a firefight using his wife as a human shield when he was shot dead. Then they corrected this by admitting bin Laden was unarmed and was not protected by his wife. They still maintain he resisted capture but it is unclear how he did so. The White House then decided to place its own spin on events by explaining that the initial confusion was the result of trying to provide a great deal of information in haste and they were a victim of the “fogs of war.”

The fact that the Navy Seals disposed of bin Laden’s body so quickly into the sea coupled with the double speak emanating from the White House leads many understandably to claim conspiracy theories. Requests to produce pictures of bin Laden’s demise have also been denied on the premise that the body was badly disfigured and another old chestnut, in the interests of national security.

Now you naturally assume that the Republican Party would be rubbing their hands in anticipation of pitching their candidate against the hapless, fork-tongued chump in the White House in next year’s Presidential election. Romney, Huckabee, Paul, Pawlenty and Palin, Gingrich have been mentioned as potential early runners.

The first two are admirable men but lost the Republican nomination to lame duck John McCain in 2008 and they have done nothing since to convince me they could win an election 4 years later. Paul is a loose cannon, Pawlenty lacks charisma, Palin sounds like a broken B side record, and twice divorced Newt Gingrich will not appeal to the Bible belt voters even though he has the best credentials.

So we have a dyed ginger double comb over, alternatively known as Donald Trump, arrogantly striding along the parapets, and leading in the polls to win the republican nomination. Donald Trump is a very successful real estate mogul with an ego the size of the Big Apple. He is currently the host of a reality show “Celebrity Apprentice” where he engages in considerable nepotism by using his two sons and daughter as his assistants on the show.

He has been involved in the political scene these past few weeks by demanding that Mr. Obama discloses a legal birth certificate to prove he is qualified to hold office. Obama eventually produced a birth certificate to satisfy all concerned but Trump remains in the headlines and more significantly maintains his lead in the polls.

One wonders if his posturing is to be taken seriously. Let’s take a look at his track record as it relates to politics. He has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrats, showered praise on Bill and Hillary Clinton and suggested that Ronald Reagan was a con man with little “beneath that smile”. He once favored Canadian-style single payer healthcare and abortion rights.

His policy stances – “With respect to Libya, I’m interested in Libya if we take the oil. If we don’t take the oil, no interest”, applying a 25 per cent tax on Chinese products – are calculated to grab headlines and little else. Next month he will announce his decision on whether to run for the republican nomination on the season finale of his show which ultimately reeks of a publicity stunt. Significantly he favors the brash, loud mouthed contestants on his show and appears diametrically opposed to the softly-spoken variety.

Who is the loser in all this egomaniacal posturing? The American people as usual. I cannot understand why the Republican Party cannot produce a serious candidate with appropriate credentials to offer a serious alternative to solving the real issues affecting the country.

 Some would suggest that Donald Trump is a serious candidate if you consider Ronald Reagan was originally a second rate actor in Hollywood. But let’s not forget that Reagan served 8 years as Governor of California, the most populated state in American, and thereby had served his apprenticeship for office not merely hosting a show called “Celebrity Apprentice.”

Barak Hussein Obama’s State of the Union address to the Nation reminded me of the Emperor’s new clothes. You must know the tale by Hans Christian Anderson about two weavers who promise an Emperor a new suit of clothes that are invisible to those unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. When the Emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, a child cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all! He’s as naked as the day he was born (sic Danny Kaye.)”

I don’t care what your political leanings are, but Obama is not a liar. This guy is delusional! Unfortunately the American voting public bought into his rhetoric; hook line and sinker. Ironically it is virtually impossible these days to find someone who will admit voting for him . The buzz word throughout Obama’s election campaign was the need for “change.” The primary change appears to be image and no substance.

Declaring in his State of the Union address that the United States is “a light to the world,” President Obama joined the pantheon of presidents who, in turbulent times, wrapped their political agenda in the comfortable cloak of “American exceptionalism.”

The term, first used with respect to the United States by Alexis de Tocqueville, refers to the notion that America differs qualitatively from other developed nations because of its national credo, ethnic diversity, and revolution-sprung history. It is often expressed as superiority: The United States is the biggest, most powerful, smartest, richest, most-deserving country on earth. In times of great change and tumult, presidents seek to inspire beleaguered Americans by reminding them of their national identity.

This is how Obama expressed the sentiment at the opening of his address, while reflecting on the shooting spree in Tucson, Ariz.: “We are part of the American family. We believe that in a country where every race and faith and point of view can be found, we are still bound together as one people; that we share common hopes and a common creed; that the dreams of a little girl in Tucson are not so different than those of our own children, and that they all deserve the chance to be fulfilled.”

The trouble is, for too many Americans the dream is slipping away. The unemployment rate is nearly 10 percent and even before the recession, real middle-class incomes fell from $58,500 in 2000 to $56,500 in 2007. Even as Republicans clamor for budget cuts and voters grow weary of the nation’s mounting debt, Obama called for more investment on new technologies, new energies, education, and infrastructure. What he requested isn’t really new—Obama and other Democrats have made similar requests in the past—but the frame was: Rather than a blunt appeal for money, Obama challenged the country “to sacrifice and struggle and meet the demands of a new age.” He dared Americans to turn their backs on the American dream. He really meant oodles of more spending but investment sounds more amenable.

After going through a series of measures he put under the category of freezing or limiting domestic discretionary spending, Obama told us with great enthusiasm that these measures would trim $400 billion off the deficit over the next ten years which in reality is a drop in the economic ocean.

This is so ridiculous when you realize that the deficit this year alone is $1.5 trillion. Even if Obama found a way to reduce the deficit by $400 billion all in one year, it still would leave us with a deficit nearly three times as massive as anything we ever saw before Obama took office.  He admitted that the spending areas he mentioned are not the key drivers of the deficit, and asked Congress to come up with “bipartisan solutions” to the things that are which means entitlement spending (social security, Medicare, Medicaid) and defense spending.

 But last year, Obama asked a bipartisan commission to come up with ideas of the very same kind. They did, and he hasn’t asked Congress to implement a single one of their ideas. So now he’s asking another group of people to come up with a new swathe of ideas. Obama has been president for more than two years, and he still hasn’t taken a single action to get entitlement spending under control.

All he has offered is supposed deficit reduction of $400 billion over 10 years. Even if Obama’s proposal resulted in the savings he described, we would be trimming $2 off every $75 of deficit. Applied to this year, it would mean the $1.5 trillion deficit dropped to $1.46 trillion.While he’s basking in his $40 billion in annual deficit savings, and not taking entitlement reform the slightest bit seriously, we’ll see the national debt soar during that period from the present $14 trillion to nearly $30 trillion in one decade.

Two days after Obama’s speech, we learned that Social Security has gone into permanent deficit. George W. Bush warned about these six years ago and proposed a solution. Democrats made light of the issue and insisted Social Security was in no danger whatsoever. Now it’s reached the crisis stage, and all Obama can do is ask Congress to give him some ideas, because the last group of ideas he asked for and received actually represented serious action – raising the retirement age, means-testing, cutting benefits – and Obama isn’t interested in that. How does anyone take this man seriously?

Fear not, for this is a glimmer of home on the lost horizon. On January 31^st. Judge Vinson, a federal judge in the northern district of Florida, struck down the entire health care law as unconstitutional; though he is allowing the Obama administration to continue to implement and enforce it while the government appeals his ruling.

In ruling against President Obama‘s health care law, Judge Vinson used Mr. Obama‘s own position from the 2008 campaign against him, when the then-Illinois senator argued there were other ways to achieve reform short of requiring every American to purchase insurance.

“I note that in 2008, then-Senator Obama supported a health care reform proposal that did not include an individual mandate because he was at that time strongly opposed to the idea, stating that, ‘If a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house,’” Judge Vinson wrote in a footnote toward the end of his 78-page ruling Monday.

The footnote was attached to the most critical part of Judge Vinson‘s ruling, in which he said the “principal dispute” in the case was not whether Congress has the power to tackle health care, but rather whether it has the power to compel individual citizens to purchase insurance. Other states that joined the suit are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Turning to international issues, in the wake of the outpouring of protests in Egypt against President Mubarak’s 30 year regime, Mr. Obama meekly suggested in a recent speech that there should be a smooth transition to Mubarak’s successor but failed to mention who that should be. In reality, The Muslim Brotherhood, dominated by Iranian Islamic fundamentalism, will doubtless emerge as the winner should the government of Egypt fall. The Obama administration, in failing to throw its weight against an Islamic takeover, is guilty of the same mistake that led former President Jimmy Carter to fail to support the Shah, opening the door for the Ayatollah Khomeini to take over Iran.

The danger lies with the sobering fact that America provides Egypt with upwards of $2 billion a year in foreign aid, and the Egyptian military, the tenth largest in the world, receives $1.3 billion of this money. Clearly, America needs to send a signal to the military that it will be supportive of its efforts to keep Egypt out of the grip of the Islamic fundamentalists.

 It would be catastrophic for the Middle East, and indeed for World peace, if the Egyptian military armaments fell into the hands of the Islamic fundamentalists. Instead, Obama has placed our military aid to Egypt “under review” to pressure Mubarak to mute his response to the demonstrators and has given top priority to “preventing the loss of human life.” Perhaps I should change the title of my blog to “Obama fiddles while Egypt burns.”

 Following an extremely close-run election campaign and ballot, Ed Miliband pipped his media favorite elder brother David in the Labour leadership race by a 1.3 per cent margin. Sons of Jewish immigrants, the political pair were both educated at a North London comprehensive before winning places at Oxford University where they gained first class degrees in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. In 2007 they became the first brothers to serve simultaneously in the Cabinet since Edward and Oliver Stanley in 1938. The Labour leadership election of September 2010 was largely expected to be won by David Miliband (born 1965) but his younger brother Ed, had different ideas!

Under the Electoral College system employed by the party, voting power is divided equally between three sections: MPs and MEPs, affiliated organizations including trade unions and ordinary party members. Because Ed Miliband owed his selection as leader to the support of the trade unions and the left of the party, many observers quickly jumped at the chance to label Edward, “Red Ed”; also obviously they were assisted in this because his father was Ralph Miliband, the Marxist theorist.  

Red Ed has made an amazing advancement; from writing speeches for the then future Prime Minister Gordon Brown in the 1990’s and advising him whilst at the Treasury, he has made a spectacular rise to prominence. Mr. Miliband was Gordon Brown’s adviser/counselor from 1994 to 2002, at which point he left the Treasury to secure a safe parliamentary seat in 2005. Mr. Brown then appointed him to his Cabinet. He therefore does not represent a break with Labour’s past: he helped shape Labour’s past.

With such a close contest, one could perhaps anticipate some animosity amongst members and the Miliband clan. It could be difficult to unite the Labour party behind the young Miliband when virtually half of those in the party arguably would have preferred his brother. This remains to be seen. Mr. Miliband joked about his “Red Ed” nickname, yet the abiding impression left by the new leader was that, under Labour, the big state will be back

The new leader – who was elected as an MP two years AFTER the Iraq war – told the conference the conflict was “wrong because that war was not a last resort, because we did not build sufficient alliances and because we undermined the United Nations”. David’s extraordinary outburst over his brother’s statement confirmed that he would NOT be standing for Ed’s Shadow Cabinet – and will walk away from frontline politics.

Like the outpouring of grief following the death of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, the decision by David Miliband to leave politics has a great deal to tell us about the nation that we have become. Many commentators have spoken of the event as a “tragedy”. Almost all have praised the “courage” of the former foreign secretary. The refrain has been: “David must do what’s right for him.”

Very few have urged that David Miliband should have put his own preferences aside – and done, instead, what was right for the Labour Party and for the nation. Nobody told him to put wounded pride behind him. Nobody talked about stoicism. His wife burst into tears when the result was announced: she’d have done him a favor if she had given him a sharp slap and told him to pull himself together.

For the party faithful, the fact that the new leader’s speech was fundamentally dishonest will be of little consequence; to the country, it should be. Red Ed set out to create the myth that he leads a new political “generation” – he used the phrase at least 40 times – that represents a complete break with Labour’s past. This simply will not wash. The new leader appears to have learned from his mentor, Mr. Brown, not to place too great a store on clarity or principle.

In concluding his acceptance speech Red Ed called for a New Politics – a cliché that has been uttered by every freshly minted progressive leader since John F Kennedy. It is doubtful whether he had the faintest idea what he was talking about. So how about a return to an old politics which respects experience and fortitude, duty and service? Meanwhile we urgently need to turn our back on the empty, shallow, meretricious narcissism on display at the Labour Party Conference the other week. Labour may yet rue the day they picked the younger Miliband to lead them.

11 May 2010 turned out to be a great day for me, a fairly good day for David Cameron and Nick Clegg, but a hannus horibilus one for the surly Scotsman Gordon Brown. My daughter gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Emilie Kate, weighing in at a handsome 8lb 4 oz. My son-in-law called her a little bruiser because he knows no better since he is English. I was just coming to terms with my daughter marrying an Englishman but I now have to deal with the temerity of my granddaughter being born in England. I tried to persuade my daughter to slip over the border into Wales for the birth, but her husband had her chained to the bed post for the last couple of weeks of her pregnancy. However, all is not lost. I’m planning to smuggle her into Wales when I fly over to visit and she can claim her natural birth right. She looks more like a Celt than Anglican with a shock of jet black hair, and I’m so grateful for my web cam and skype which provides me with the opportunity of tuning in to see my granddaughter from 4000 miles away.

 Meanwhile while I was basking in my good fortune, Gordon Brown announced his resignation as Prime Minister paving the way for a peacetime Coalition Government for the first time in British politics since the 1930s. Following the General Election on May 6^th Britain experienced its first hung parliament since 1974 with no party having a clear majority. The Conservatives won the most seats with 305, Labour won 258 and the Lib Dems finished with a disappointing 57. Nevertheless they held the balance of power and boy did they take advantage.

  For five days, Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader indulged in horse trading with the two other parties. Clegg spoke to Brown on the phone and suggested an alliance may be possible providing Brown stepped aside as Prime Minister. It is rumored that Brown threatened Clegg with a Glasgow Kiss (a head butt) and told him in no uncertain terms “to shut the front door.” Meanwhile negotiating teams from the Tories and Lib Dems feverishly continued to arrive at a consensus acceptable to both parties.

 The day before, Brown had resigned as leader of the Labour Party but was determined to soldier on as Prime Minister until the Party Conference in October. However, senior members of the Cabinet had made public statements overnight stating that it would be wrong for the Country and the Party to prolong the agony any longer than was necessary. Brown, realizing the game was up, quickly resigned paving the way for a Conservative/Lib Dem Coalition Government. Cameron was ushered into a Daimler and rushed off to inform the Queen he was forming a Government.

 Now there’s been a load of garbage espoused about Clegg’s dalliances with the two major parties. My brother, God bless him, claimed that Clegg will be forever remembered as the man who killed the Lib Dems, and described him as a man without a shred of integrity and  a lust for power. Hello! He’s a politician for God’s sake! The “bedwetters” and “tree huggers” melodramatically claim that Cameron will cut, slash and burn. If he manages to substantially reduce the national debt and eradicate wasteful spending on the welfare state, he can add pillaging to his manifesto if he so chooses.

Labour supporters cried foul and  claimed that historically the Party has its roots in the trade union movement. They argued that the union represents many thousands of people and their donation are upfront and visible. Most of Lib Dems are left of Center with perhaps a purer view of ideology than most so they would be a more natural bed fellow. I don’t remember Labour supporters bleeting when Tony Blair abandoned socialist principles and claimed the left of center ground as his own to get elected. Blair was no more a socialist than the former Conservative Prime Minister, Edward Heath.

 Cameron said that we have a duty and obligation to look after the most vulnerable and the poorest of Society and the world. But we are not there to prop up those who opt out of society but still expect that society to support them. Membership of a union can take away an individual’s rights to choose and have union donations withdrawn from their salary or wages regardless of whether they support The Labour Party.

 From a different perspective is it morally acceptable for the two losers from this election to form a coalition government? Conversely, if you believe in democracy doesn’t it make sense for the two parties who represent 60% of the votes to share power? This political marriage was not made in heaven and indeed there are key policy differences between the two parties which require compromises from both sides:

• Constitutional Reform: Lib Dems wanted a referendum on proportional representation and an immediate bill on introducing  the alternative vote system (AV.)
• Foreign Policy and Defence: principally UK’s relationship with the European Union and Lib Dems’ demands for Trident (nuclear war head) to be scrapped.
• Deficit reduction and taxation: both parties will take the flak for severe cuts, but where these cuts will fall is open to speculation.
• Education, children and families: the parties have agreed to proceed with a pupil premium which will be targeted at supporting the poorest children
• Environment: Both parties have agreed to work towards a low carbon economy with the Lib Dems dropping their opposition to nuclear power stations.
• Home Affairs: Lib Dems will drop their call for amnesty for illegal immigrants and a regional system for employment, while the Tories will work with the Lib Dems to modify a point-based system for immigration.

 Clearly this is a marriage of convenience and both parties have made major concessions in attempt to get this Alliance airborne. There are already signs that Cameron has alienated certain factions of his Party. Clegg on the other hand has managed to have five of his MPs appointed to top ministerial jobs while several more will earn minor jobs in Government. Over half of the Lib Dems will serve in the Government with Clegg awarded the title of Deputy Prime Minister. Better half a cake than no cake at all.

 Let me give you a piece of advice: fasten your safety belts because you could be in for a bumpy ride

Footnote: Congratulations to Blackpool for reaching the premiership by defeating our arch enemy Cardiff City in the Championship Playoff Final. I’m  a Swansea Jack and naturally support Swansea City who narrowly missed the playoffs by one point. Summer will be far more relaxing now that the Bluebirds suffered the same fate as the Swans.