Category: Politics

  • US Election Night #5

    Bugger. You drop off despite your best efforts to stay awake, and it’s still undecided, but looking distinctly Bushwards. It’s all down to Ohio, and that’s a state that doesn’t look like declaring any time soon. And what’s more, it’s not looking good there.

  • US Election Night #4

    I can’t help but keep clicking refresh on this page.

  • US Election Night #3

    So what happens on NBC with those strange ten minute segments done by another team entirely? Do local stations drop in during those minutes? Or do Americans get a really long commercial break? Incidentally, NBC’s election coverage is SPONSORED. That’d never happen here – well it’s illegal for a start. But I’m not sure about…

  • US Election Night #2

    It’s still looking tight but none of the key states have been called. I’ve just been on the phone to my sister in Texas, where she of course isn’t watching the election. Then dad called from Norfolk where he is watching like me at gone 2.00am. So far my biggest question is why Americans seem…

  • US Election Night #1

    Well I’m starting my marathon election watch this evening, despite the fact that nothing’s likely to happen until around 8.00am tomorrow morning at the earliest. But I’m not alone. The Guardian’s Newsblog is up all night. In the meantime, there are already reports of broken voting machines (via Boing Boing).

  • Election Watch Day 6717

    The most credible analysis of Bush’s “bulge” appears today in Salon. Up until now I’d thought that people were properly making a fuss about nothing. Now I’m with Gary Trudeau and this week’s Doonesbury on this one. He did have some kind wire down his back. And this week, The Economist has grudgingly backed Kerry.

  • So How Hard Is It To Hold An Election?

    Because sometimes you get the feeling that Florida is making a real fist of it. Now 58,000 postal votes have “gone missing”.

  • US Elections on the BBC

    BBC Four had an excellent debate with first class speakers on Sunday night. Even Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly wasn’t as obnoxious as usual. Then there was last night’s Newsnight featuring a Greg Palast report on dodgy goings on in Florida. Is it just me, or does the US really need consistent rules and regulations across…

  • Psephology – US style

    What a wonderful word psephology is! It’s defined as “the study of elections and voting, and their statistical analysis in the prediction of results.” Thanks to The Guardian’s Newsblog (the comments are hilarious – as a result, I suspect, of Operation Clark County) I today discovered MysteryPollster, a wonderful website put together by Democratic pollster…

  • Gordon Brown is a Busy Man

    It’s the Labour Party conference in sunny Brighton, and this morning Gordon Brown was really doing the rounds. At 7.34am he was live on GMTV. At 7.45am he was live on Five Live. At 7.52am he was live on BBC Breakfast News And although I didn’t hear it, he was, of course, the 8.10am interviewee…

  • Fun Day In Parliament

    The fox hunting lobby have been up to their tricks, invading the Commons while the bill to ban hunting was being debated. I suspect that Tony Blair is using this to appease a country who don’t see him in a great light just now. Look at his new found environmental slant with a speech yesterday.…

  • Gun Law in the US

    A great piece by Carl Hiaasen in the Miami Herald about the failure to extend the ban on assault weapons in the US. It’s not like they could be used by terrorists or anything is it?

  • A Reason to Vote For Bush…

    Billionairesforbush.com!