State of Britain

Tom Griffin (London, OK): The Wall Street Journal suggested last week that Barack Obama was the 'Anti-Thatcher'.

In the Independent today, Steve Richards offers deeper reasons why that title might be a realistic aspiration for today's politicians. The nationalisation of Northern Rock in Britain, and of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the USA, have shown the limits of Thatcherite market fundamentalism, he argues:

Over the next few weeks, during the party conference season, you will read and hear a lot about who is up and who is down in British politics. When I come to think of it, you will read much on the theme in this column. But the long-term future belongs to the politician and party that come to terms with the ending of one global era and the beginning of another, one in which a new relationship will be required between governments and markets, subtler than the flawed models from either the 1970s or the 1980s.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): I have been snowed in in Athens! Airport closed, three inches of snow on the lemon tree outside our friends house is very pretty but not good for the fruit - or the tree - or coming back to the UK. Meanwhile Northern Rock will be nationalised. What nation is that then, you may well ask. But let's leave that question aside. It shows the strength of judgement of Vince Cable and the weakness of the Conservatives. John Redwood's ten reasons why Labour is utterly mistaken strike me as shrill and one-sided. Where was the private bidder willing to take on the losses he accuses the government of taking on, and what about the possible gains to be made by taking it over now? As oD's Ed-in-Chief says below, the government is right the nationalise as it is making legal what is already the reality. Ands what this country needs is real not fantasy government. Where James Forsyth makes a strong argument is on Darling and Brown's procrastination. So we have one of those strange situations where what the government has done is right but it seems wrong, and what the opposition says is wrong but it has a point, and what the Lib-Dems say is spot-on but not seen as relevant. We have been here before, a general sense of decline and drift. Oddly enough there seems to be a similar situation here in Greece, though I don't have the language and can't read the press. The government is tangled in corruption but Pasok, the socialist opposition party is not dominating the scene with a new way forward despite the quality of its leader.