No-one like being told what to do and we can all be a bit bloody-minded when someone repeatedly tells us that something's in our own best interests. Even if we know they are right, we can be inclined to do the exact opposite.
That's why it might be wise for Europeans to shut up about the American election. For most Europeans, the choice is simple... Barack Obama represents an opportunity for America to renew itself after eight years of misrule under a President seen by many to be a ridiculous figure. Opting for Obama would suggest that America could once again become the beacon of liberal progressiveness that made the cause of freedom worth fighting for. (Bush frequently accuses his enemies as fighting against ‘freedom’ but this has long been incompatible with his administration’s illiberal policies and their absolute contempt for human rights and International law.)
A vote for Obama would also suggest America’s democracy has reached a new more mature phase because the white majority were willing to elect a black President and that too would send a positive message to the rest of the world.
But Europeans have a different experience of the Bush presidency than most Americans. We didn’t vote for him so there is no self-criticism in coming to terms with his administration’s failures. It’s easy to dismiss Bush as a buffoon if you never thought he was anything else... but if you elected him President then you have to confront what that says about you and your country.
It’s also important to bear in mind that political parties play a less significant role in American politics. Throughout most of Europe, John McCain’s task would be almost impossible as he would not be able to distance himself sufficiently from the failures of an unpopular incumbent. But politics doesn’t work like that in America... although, McCain’s links to Bush are certainly unhelpful they are not nearly as damaging as one might suppose.
Even so, it’s very tempting to assume that the only thing standing between Obama and an election win is the colour of his skin. Is it fair to surmise that Obama would be in an unassailable position if he was Caucasian? Well, not necessarily. Barack Obama’s bid for the Presidency has drawn a lot of comparisons with John F Kennedy’s 1960 election. Then as now, a young, good-looking and charismatic Democrat was seeking the keys to the Oval Office. The incumbent Dwight Eisenhower was not nearly as unpopular as George W Bush, but his approval rating had shrunk during his second term.Kennedy’s opponent was Richard Nixon who had already developed a sufficient reputation for underhandedness to gain the nickname Tricky Dicky. Nixon was closely associated with the outgoing administration as he had served as Eisenhower’s Vice President.
Nonetheless, the Presidential election was one of the closest in America’s history. So if the result next week is closer than many might hope, we shouldn't assume the worst... it may merely suggest that the American electorate is still mistrustful of charisma, idealism and good looks in a Presidential candidate and it won’t necessarily have anything to do with the colour of Obama’s skin.
Watching Gordon Brown and David Cameron clash during Prime Minister’s Question Time is unedifying at the best of times and, as everyone knows, these are anything but the best of times. Watching Cameron trying to adopt the right tone in the current financial crisis is like watching a drunk trying to regain his footing after losing his balance on an icy pavement... every time he finds himself upright, the momentum that got him there begins to bring him down again.
Initially Cameron’s approach was to signal his intention to adopt a non-partisan posture because the severity of the crisis required political unanimity. Cynical observers thought this was a ploy to appear statesmanlike and to avoid accusations of opportunism if he overtly criticised the Government. But any hope he could watch passively from the sidelines as negative public opinion engulfed Gordon Brown has proved seriously wide of the mark. Perversely, the crisis appears to have given Brown’s public standing a boost and Cameron’s dignified support did not achieve the result he was seeking.
This created a dilemma for the Leader of the Opposition... would the cost of reneging on his promise to adopt a non-partizan approach be greater or lesser than the cost of watching his party’s lead in the poll drizzle away as the Prime Minister was seen as the sole provider of ideas and solutions? Cameron has plainly decided that there are no votes in dignified support and in today’s PMQs, he gave the strongest signal yet that it was politics as normal regardless of the gravity of the circumstances.Sadly, this resulted in an entirely unproductive exchange between Cameron and Brown in which the former accused the latter of breaking commitments on Government borrowing and the latter accused the former of inconsistency because he had previously acknowledged that greater Government borrowing was now inevitable. It was a tetchy and pointless debate that hung entirely on the strange importance politicians place on never being seen to adapt to circumstances... something the rest of us regard as pretty sensible.
As ever, the rules of PMQs defined the emphasis of the exchange... Cameron saved the soundbite he and his advisors wanted on the news bulletins for his sixth and final question and Brown reserved his most dismissive remark for his sixth answer when he knows there is no opportunity for a comeback from Cameron because he is not allowed a seventh answer. In truth, both men looked mightily relieved to reach the end of the exchange suggesting that they too are aware of the pointlessness of it all.
It's thirteen years since Nick Leeson became the most notorious banker in the world by managing to lose £862 million through a series of risky financial manoeuvres. The consequences for Barings Bank - his employers - were enormous... they collapsed. The consequences for Leeson were pretty dire too... he was sentenced to six years in a Singaporean prison (he was released after four when it was discovered he was suffering from colon cancer).
While in prison, Leeson wrote an account of the affair which was entitled 'Rogue Trader' which The New York Times described as "a dreary book, written by a young man very taken with himself, but it ought to be read by banking managers and auditors everywhere."
Looking at the current crisis, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that the banking managers and auditors who read the book believe that Leeson's only mistake was to get caught.
No-one appears to have regarded Leeson's story as a portent of what could happen if the regulations were loosened so much that it was no longer necessary to commit fraud in order to take enormous risks. Consequently, Leeson's wildly speculative approach has gone from being exceptional to being the norm... indeed, it seems to be institutionalised.
It's hard for many of us to even understand the core purpose of the stock market. The trading of stocks and shares operates in a sphere whose aims seem murky... we are constantly assured that they are oiling the wheels of capitalism but the motivations are so obviously self-serving that it's impossible to see any of the practices as necessary... and even harder to see how anyone outside the circle of greed can benefit from their machinations.
The most disturbing aspect of the current financial crisis has been the tacit acceptance by governments that it’s perfectly acceptable for trading institutions to invent ever more risky ways of seeking profit. Not content with speculating on the vacillations of publicly-traded shares, traders have found ways of gambling on ever more risky propositions. The danger this created was that these speculations would become more important to the market than the activities of the companies themselves.
Yesterday, for example, the share price of Volkswagen rose by 500% and for a few minutes the German car manufacturer became the biggest company in the world. Was this because they had announced a new model which ran on fresh air and produced no emissions? No, it came about because a huge number of stock market gamblers speculated that the value of Volkswagen’s shares was bound to fall and they were dramatically wrong.
How did the value of shares in a company become so disconnected from the financial health of the company itself? And who does this benefit other than those gambling on the huge swings in share price that the speculation itself generates?
The bankers and stock market traders are, like Nick Leeson, architects of their own destruction. But unlike Nick Leeson, they will not be made to pay the price. Already they are being bailed out of their predicament by governments using our money and there is every indication that governments are willing to continue doing this until there is no money left and we appear powerless to prevent them.
The price of not bailing out the bankers, we are told, is a risk that the whole financial system will collapse. But hasn’t it already collapsed? It isn’t being kept afloat... our governments are face down over its bloated corpse desperately trying to revive it with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. As they say in the medical dramas, it's time to “call it”... that variety of capitalism is dead and it’s time we moved on and learned to live without it.
With one week to go until election day in the United States, many believe that the poll lead held by Barack Obama over John McCain may be insufficient for an Obama win because of the tendency of polls to underestimate the number of voters who switch their allegiance from a black candidate to a white candidate in the privacy of the booth.
'The Bradley Effect' is caused by the most reprehensible racists of all... those who know their prejudices are unacceptable but indulge them nonetheless. These people are so ashamed of their behaviour that they opt to keep their decision secret which makes them very hard to reach with rational argument. Ironically enough, it is precisely the kind of thing that 19th Century opponents of secret ballots feared might happen... one South Carolinian said at the time of its introduction that voting secretly would “destroy that noble generous openness that is characteristic of an Englishman" and Virginian John Randolph pronounced that it “would make any nation a nation of scoundrels.” They may have been on to something.
Plainly, the evils of intimidation that would result from open ballots are a greater mischief than the tendency of a small minority to exploit the secrecy of the ballot booth to cast their vote in a fashion they cannot justify to their peers. But isn't it disappointing that this phenomenon occurs most markedly when there is a candidate in the field whose skin colour is different from the majority of voters?
This time around though, it seems possible that another underestimation may offset The Bradley Effect... and that was the underestimation of the American public contained in the decision by The Republican Party to select Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate. Even many of those who initially admired Palin's unconventional approach now seem to be recognising that she is not even close to possessing the qualities required for such an important office.
There may even be a recognition that the decision to select Sarah Palin was an insult to the intelligence of the American public. It seems perfectly valid for wavering voters in the US to respond to Palin's nomination by asking: "just how stupid does the Republican Party think we are?"
John McCain's acquiescence in the selection of Palin and his failure to block the more extreme criticisms of his opponent have soiled his reputation as an honourable man. He could still partially redeem himself by stating publicly that he does not want the votes of those inclined to vote for Obama who are reluctant to do so because of his race.
Such a move would inevitably boost his standing as a political figure and, ironically, it would probably also boost his chances of causing an upset as it might demonstrate to some undecided voters that he is not the reactionary bigot some assume him to be. This certainly seems to have been what happened when Boris Johnson asked BNP supporters not to select him as their second-choice in the Mayoral election in London earlier this year.
It’s seldom the case that the right thing to do is also the politically expedient thing to do... but it is in this case and John McCain would go up in many people’s estimation if he took the opportunity to reject the support of America’s bigots.
Just as we digest news that bankers running amok have managed to break the world's economy, it seems that another arena of life has come undone because of a lack of effective regulation. Broadcasters Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross badly overstepped the mark when they made a series of phone calls to Andrew Sachs in which they teased him with the possibility that Brand had had sex with the actor's granddaughter.
Amazingly, this horseplay did not take place during a live broadcast... it was recorded. It is not enough to say that Ross and Brand got carried away (although they unquestionably did)... their shenanigans were signed off by someone senior within the BBC's hierarchy.
You'd think from the media's coverage of this episode that the official who authorised the broadcast was guilty of failing to notice something that was entirely out of character for Ross and Brand... that the rest of the programme was a real-life facsimile of Smashey and Nicey - the fictional DJs created by Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse. In fact, both the salaciousness and the nastiness were typical of Ross's and Brand's broadcasting output.
It's also interesting to note how inoffensive this content was to those who listen to their programmes. Only two people took the trouble to complain when this show was first broadcast and it was only when Andrew Sachs brought the matter to public attention through a statement issued by his agent that anyone paid any attention.
The real story here is that no-one noticed anything out of the ordinary until the victim of the prank complained. Andrew Sachs deserves better treatment... as does every victim of practical jokes of this nature since they are, in essence, exercises in public humiliation.
The real shame is that both Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross are genuinely witty... but both are submerging their talents in a continuous bid to show that they are unafraid to pay attention to taboos and are unwilling to show deference even when it is very obviously required.
Ross and Brand have both apologised to Andrew Sachs and rightly so... but if we allow ourselves to believe that this incident was atypical then we will miss the opportunity to recognise that there is an endemic tawdriness within broadcasts aimed at a younger audience which constantly suggests that showing respect is passée.
That's why it might be wise for Europeans to shut up about the American election. For most Europeans, the choice is simple... Barack Obama represents an opportunity for America to renew itself after eight years of misrule under a President seen by many to be a ridiculous figure. Opting for Obama would suggest that America could once again become the beacon of liberal progressiveness that made the cause of freedom worth fighting for. (Bush frequently accuses his enemies as fighting against ‘freedom’ but this has long been incompatible with his administration’s illiberal policies and their absolute contempt for human rights and International law.) 
