Congratulations, Mr Cameron. Now Learn the Lessons of a Dismal Campaign
THE GUARDIAN: David Cameron has finally got to the steps of 10 Downing Street, but the vast majority of Conservative activists believe he should have been there a week ago, elected with his own stable majority.

Ahead of last week's election, everything was set up for the Conservative party. The British economy was weak. Gordon Brown's reputation was in tatters. The Labour party was divided. In contrast, Cameron was the most popular Tory leader for a generation in mid-term polls. The party was twice as well-funded as Labour and was able to afford the most professional marginal-seats operation ever seen in UK politics.

And yet, the Tories fell short. The result was not a disaster, but it was much less than it should have been. Cameron should not have had to make deals with the Liberal Democrats and spend the next few months worrying if his government will survive. Quickly learning the lessons of an inadequate campaign is essential for the Conservative party. There is talk of fixed term parliaments, but it remains more than likely that Britain will be backs at the polls within the next year. It is vital that the Tories run a much more professional and focused campaign at the second time of asking. >>> Tim Montgomerie | Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Brown’s ‘Bigot’ Blunder Plunges Labour Campaign into Crisis
TIMES ONLINE: Gordon Brown prostrated himself as a “penitent sinner” yesterday after a brush with a voter triggered a calamitous chain of events that threatened to derail Labour on the eve of tonight’s pivotal TV debate.

The Prime Minister spent an unscheduled 45 minutes inside the terraced house of Gillian Duffy apologising to the Labour-supporting widow for insulting her behind her back.

His muttered description of her as a “bigoted woman”, picked up by a microphone as he drove off from their combative but apparently friendly encounter, plunged Labour’s high command into its most serious crisis of the campaign. >>> Roland Watson, Political Editor | Thursday, April 29, 2010

Related links:

’Bigotgate’ = Duffer Brown + Mrs Duffy >>>

”That Bigoted Woman”: Prime Minister Brown Apologizes for Comment




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Brown Apologises Over 'Bigoted Woman' Jibe
YAHOO! NEWS: Prime Minister Gordon Brown has apologised "profusely" after he was caught on microphone branding a woman who spoke to him on the campaign trail "bigoted".

The PM's comments came as he was driven away from an event in Rochdale at which 65-year-old widow Gillian Duffy tackled him in front of the cameras about Britain's financial problems, taxes, student financing and immigration.

Unaware that his radio mic was still connected, Mr Brown told an aide that the encounter had been "a disaster" and said he should never have been made to speak with Mrs Duffy, adding: "She was just a bigoted woman."

Labour has changed its campaigning tactics in recent days to expose Mr Brown to ordinary voters more, after complaints that he had been appearing only in carefully controlled conditions in front of Labour supporters.

Immediately following her discussion with Mr Brown, Mrs Duffy said she would vote Labour and thought the PM was "nice".

However, in his car, a clearly angry PM was telling his aide: "That was a disaster - they should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that? It's just ridiculous..." Asked what Mrs Duffy had said, he replied: "Everything, she was just a bigoted woman." >>> ITN | Wednesday, April 28, 2010

German Tabloids Campaign for Greece to Leave the Euro
Public transport employees on strike demonstrate outside the Greek Finance ministry in Athens. Photo: Times ONline
TIMES ONLINE: The crisis in the eurozone turned today into an extraordinary duel between Germany, Europe’s largest economy, and Greece, the euro’s weakest link.

A populist campaign in Germany, gathering force before regional elections on May 9, is urging Greece to leave the euro of its own free will rather than place a further burden on its northern partner.

“Why are we paying the luxury pensions of the Greeks?” asked the front-page splash headline of the mass circulation Bild. “If Athens goes broke then German and EU aid will flow into the Greek pension funds.”

German tabloid newspapers have sent teams to the country to hand out old drachma notes and encourage them to abandon the euro. One editorial said Greece had tricked its way into the euro. “With all respect to the oldest democracy in the world: you don’t trust someone who has lied to you once before.”

The Greeks, in turn, are blaming Germany for forcing unacceptably tough conditions on them. Civil servants today became the latest to join the rolling protest against Prime Minister Papandreou’s outstanding measures. Each demonstration lampoons Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, and bemoans the lack of solidarity from the northern eurozone members. >>> Roger Boyes, Berlin | Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Iran: Campaign Launched to Annoint Neda Agha-Soltan Time Magazine's Person of the Year 2009
THE LOS ANGELES TIMES: The flickering images of Neda Agha-Soltan’s last moments in a Tehran street on June 20 before she died from gunshot wounds gripped the world, galvanized the nation and made the 26-year-old music student the face of Iran’s recent protest movement.

Five months after an unknown assailant took her life at a demonstration in the Iranian capital staged by pro-reform activists, supporters across the world have spearheaded a grassroots initiative in a move to immortalize her.

Through the use of various social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter, they are pushing to make Agha-Soltan Time magazine’s Person of the Year 2009.

Each year, the U.S.-based magazine grants the title to one or several persons who "most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year."

Administrators of the more than 1,000-member strong Facebook group "Nominate Neda Agha-Soltan as the Time Woman of the Year" say she deserves the title because she has become “the symbol of the recent Iranian movement towards democracy and freedom" through her tragic death that shocked the world.

Members of the group are encouraged to send letters to Time magazine to vote for Agha-Soltan and spread the word to their friends.

The campaign is also triggering traffic on the micro-blogging service Twitter, where supporters of the initiative are "tweeting" their thoughts on why Time magazine should choose Agha-Soltan as its Person of the Year and calling on fellow Twitterers to give her their vote. >>> Babylon & Beyond | Thursday, November 19, 2009

Fighting for Women's Rights in Iran
THE GUARDIAN: How the One Million Signatures campaign, winner of this year's Raw in War Anna Politkovskaya award, aims to change Iranian society

Watch Guardian video here | Mustafa Khalili and Emily Butselaar | Thursday, October 08, 2009
Petition: One Million Signatures Campaign

The Campaign to Undermine Obama Has Begun
THE TELEGRAPH: Republicans have begun to emphasise Barack Obama's middle name Hussein in an attempt to spread doubts about his patriotism and raise fears among voters that he is a closet Muslim.

The unofficial smear campaign is a foretaste of what the Illinois senator would face if he becomes the Democratic Party's candidate for November's presidential election.

This week the Tennessee Republican party issued a press release with the headline "anti-Semites for Obama", which claimed that "a growing chorus of Americans [are] concerned about the future of the nation of Israel, the only stable democracy in the Middle East, if Sen Barack Hussein Obama is elected president of the United States".

The release said that Mr Obama had pledged to set up a "Muslim summit", referring to his idea of holding a Middle Eastern meeting.

It also tried to link the senator to Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam, as well as to fundraising events for alleged pro-Palestinian extremists.

The release was illustrated by a picture that began circulating on the internet a few days ago of Mr Obama dressed in ethnic Somali garb, which he wore on an official visit to Kenya.

Mr Obama's father was Kenyan and his mother was a white woman from Kansas. He spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, a largely Muslim country.

"My grandfather, who was Kenyan, converted to Christianity, then converted to Islam," he explained recently. "My father never practised; he was basically agnostic. So, other than my name and the fact that I lived in a populous Muslim country for four years when I was a child, I have very little connection to the Islamic religion," added Mr Obama, who began worshipping at the Trinity United Church in Chicago 20 years ago.

Right-wing broadcasters such as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter have, however, regularly use his middle name, while never openly stressing its obvious echo of the nation's greatest recent enemy, Saddam Hussein. Name calling campaign to undermine Obama >>> By Alex Spillius in Austin

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)