Third Avenue

US and UK blogging - size matters

Washington, DC is abuzz today with the fallout of a momentous week's news. Harriet Miers is toast. Lewis Libby suddenly finds he has a lot of time on his hands. And Karl Rove is still left sweating.

And who frames this debate? Who to a large extent drives it, shapes it, boosts it? The blogs. Blogging in the US is huge. To take one example, the Daily Kos, one of the leading liberal blogs, gets a daily readership of nearly 850,000. Well over three quarters of a million. Adjusting for population, a UK blog would need to get a daily readership of around 200,000 to compete. And yet how many British blogs get even one percent of that figure? Even half of one percent? Precious few.

What is the matter with us British bloggers? Where are we going wrong? Is it that:

• we are just not as clever as the Americans (surely not)

• we are stymied by the Official Secret Acts

• we spend too much time trashing each other or writing posts on the lines of: X wrote this in a newspaper today, X is an idiot, hurrah

• the British mainstream media does a better job than its US counterpart, thus reducing the need for blogs

Or is there some other, deeper national malaise that we need to crack?

Answers please.

Also posted at The Sharpener.

Oh I wish it could be Fitzmas every day...

American politics has never been so fascinating. Like most second-term presidents, Bush is finding the going rough. But he's not making life any easier for himself.

Over the last few weeks, there's been Katrina, where Bush misjudged the mood and the needs of the nation and stood around making embarrassing jokes about his friend Trent Lott's porch while bodies floated down the flooded streets of New Orleans.

Then there was Harriet Miers. This time Bush managed to annoy his political allies as well as his opponents by proposing someone for the Supreme Court whose only qualification for the post seems to have been that she was a good friend of Bush. The president claimed that she would be the same person in 20 years time as she was now, while it soon transpired that over the past 20 years she had flip-flopped to such an extent that in 1988 she had donated money to the campaign of a certain, er, Al Gore. The unfortunate Miers, who shocked even some conservatives by saying that Bush was the smartest person she knew, has fallen on her sword. The last straw may well have been this press release last night from the Concerned Women for America who found that Miers had committed the unforgivable sin of defending, in pretty vague terms, a woman's right to have an abortion (no matter than on an other occasion, in a striking display of inconsistency, she seemed to call for the striking down of Roe v Wade).

Tomorrow (Friday), political Washington may well wet itself in a frenzy of commentary, as Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor investigating the leak of the name of CIA agent, will announce whom, if anyone, he will indict. This evening, the finger seems to be pointing at none other than Karl Rove, the president's closest political adviser.

So exciting has this become that tomorrow is being referred to as Fitzmas by many in the blogosphere. Given the enormous influence of blogs here, the term is now being widely bandied about by the mainstream media, too.

But it doesn't stop there. Now we learn that Vice President Cheney withheld some vital documents from the senate for its investigation of the use of intelligence in the run up to the Iraq war. Via the Daily Kos:

Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to Bush administration and congressional sources.

Among the White House materials withheld from the committee were Libby-authored passages in drafts of a speech that then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell delivered to the United Nations in February 2003 to argue the Bush administration's case for war with Iraq, according to congressional and administration sources. The withheld documents also included intelligence data that Cheney's office -- and Libby in particular -- pushed to be included in Powell's speech, the sources said.

The new information that Cheney and Libby blocked information to the Senate Intelligence Committee further underscores the central role played by the vice president's office in trying to blunt criticism that the Bush administration exaggerated intelligence data to make the case to go to war.

Where will this go from here? It's not use denying that Bush is a very skillful politician, and that he may come out of this smelling of roses yet. But the degree of animosity meted out against him, from the left and, increasingly, from the right, makes that task a very tricky one.

Merry Fitzmas everybody.

Miers steps down

So, Miers is gone. President Bush's nomination for the Supreme Court couldn't take the heat of the conservative criticism of her. Clearly, not a good day for the president, whose second term is looking increasingly threadbare.

But neither should Democrats rejoice too quickly. Miers' departure may well compel Bush to nominate someone far more fundamentally conservative to the Supreme Court in order to bolster his dwindling base.

This is a victory for Bush's opponents from the right, not his opponents from the left.

Confusing smoke signals

The government seems set to fudge its proposals for a partial smoking ban in public places in England: smoking will be allowed in separate, empty rooms in pubs. Sounds to me like a bureaucratic and regulatory nightmare of definitions and policing.

As I've said before, the best option here would be follow the lead of my adopted city and just ban the whole thing outright.

Choice in education

Ruth Kelly, the education secretary, has published the government's latest plans for schools in England. With a title like Higher Standards, Better Schools for All, who could argue with such a vision?

Ah, the devil and the detail. First, there's choice. Choice is the great secular god of modern British politics: a word so holy that no politician seems able to argue that it is anything other than one of the supreme virtues. But I am continually frustrated in the education debate that no-one seems able to define the cursed word. Whose choice are we talking about? Schools' or parents'?

Choice is all very well in a world where well-meaning parents with intelligent, perfectly adjusted children choose between a bevy of wonderful local schools. But what about parents of an unruly child who want to 'choose' to send him to a school that prides itself on its calm? Or the parents of an underachiever who want their child 'stretched' by being placed among children of much higher academic ability? Who is to choose in these cases? The schools? The parents? One cannot have choice for both in education.

Then, and this is a more general point, there's local authorities. One of the central tenets of the White Paper is that it will 'free' schools from the implicitly pernicious grip of local government. I'm not blind to the frequently dreadful failings of local authorities, but it speaks volumes for the government's attitude to local government that it wants to deprive it of one of its last major responsibilities. How long before every last power is removed from local government and handed over to Whitehall?

La Cenerentola at the Metropolitan Opera

You start with the classic Cinderella story. You remove the fairy godmother, the enchanted dress, the carriage, the clock striking midnight and the search to find the girl whose foot matches the shoe, and what do you end up with? Rossini's La Cenerentola, currently playing at the Metropolitan Opera.

Once you get over the disappointment that Rossini has decided to dispense with all the favourite pieces of the Cinderella story, however, you can settle down to a charming, at times exhilarating, if not particularly profound evening of opera.

The star of the show is the Russian mezzo Olga Borodina in the title role. While her technical skills are unquestionable, the rich lustre of her voice seems to me ill suited to the effervescence of Rossini's music. Her prince was played by the British tenor Barry Banks, with a voice that was both strong and sweet, although he was trapped in a costume that was seriously unflattering to his short stature. The rest of the cast was of the high standard that one expects from the Met.

The production, by Cesare Lievi, was something of a departure for the Met. This was no hyper-realistic period drama. Rather, the stage picture was of distorted perspective and frequent surreal touches, such as the highly-stylised men's chorus. While not everything about the production worked - the hapless tenor was left high-and-dry on a wedding cake for much of the final scene - it is still very welcome to see the Met trying to be at least a little adventurous in its production. I fear my next outing, to Verdi's Aida, will be nothing if not conservative.

Clarke is out

I suppose it's not much of a surprise, given the way the campaign was going over the last few weeks.

David Davis         62
David Cameron    56
Liam Fox             42
Ken Clarke          38

David Davis won, but with fewer votes than had actually pledged for him in advance, which must be seriously worrying for him.

Hard one to call here, but my money, if I were a betting man, would be on Cameron.

The special relationship - medium rare

Am I overly cynical, or am I correct in thinking that were the French or the Germans to reject a British offer of beef to aid the victims of a natural disaster, the right-wing British blogosphere would be apoplectic?

The Americans turn their nose up - and not a peep.

UPDATE: Actually, the Pub Philosopher, no leftist he, makes a similar point.

Ariane et Barbe-bleue at New York City Opera

Even the most ardent opera fan may be tempted to ask, Ariane et Barbe-who? The New York City Opera is currently putting on this extremely rare 1907 opera by Paul Dukas (whose only well-known hit is the Sorcerer's Apprentice - think Mickey Mouse and broomsticks). I had never come across the opera before, and considering the quality of much of the music, the fact that this work has been so neglected is something of a mystery.

True, the plot is hardly Rigoletto. Ariane, the sixth wife of Bluebeard, arrives at his castle, frees his five former wives from their dungeons and, when these decide to stay on despite their liberation, takes her leave. That's it.

But the music, heavy with the influence of both Debussy and Wagner, is often marvellous - the cries of the imprisoned wives off-stage in the first act being the high spot for me.

It was a shame that the quality of the singing was not always as high as the music deserved. Renate Behle in the title role certainly had the strength and the stamina for the part, but her voice lacked both beauty and tenderness. Ursula Ferri, as the nurse, was either having a very bad night or she simply was not up to the task. Her big number in the first act, as she opens the first six doors of the castle, was frankly embarrassing. The other, smaller parts were all competently executed.

The production of this elusive opera was suitably symbolic, with no attempt made at realism - quite right too, given the deliberate lack of realism in the libretto.

Ariane may well never become totally mainstream, but it certainly could give many a more established opera a run for its money. Full marks to the New York City Opera for taking the commercial risk of putting it on.

More Tory leadership views

I rather enjoyed this pro-Cameron article in this week's Spectator by Vernon Bogdanor. It contains some choice quotable passages, such as:

[The Conservative party] seem to be engaged in a permanent quarrel with the British people. In that quarrel there can be only one victor, and it will not be the Conservative party.

More worryingly for the party is this analysis of its fortunes, which is more depressing than even I had thought:

They have lost support both among graduates and among the young. Such support as they have gained since 1997 has come mainly from the over-65s and from the geographically and socially immobile. Significantly, the three seats which the Conservatives gained in 2001 — Castle Point, Romford and Upminster — contained a lower than average percentage of graduates and members of ethnic minorities, and a higher than average percentage of older votes. In 2001 there were actually swings away from the Tories from their already low 1997 level among the professional and managerial classes, 25–34-year-olds and the ethnic minorities. The 2005 election, although it led to a few more Tory gains, did little to reverse these trends; and among university students the Conservatives are now the third party, behind even the Liberal Democrats. The party has actually lost ground since 1997 in constituencies where the proportion of university graduates is above average. It is a myth, therefore, to believe that the Conservatives can regain power simply by mobilising their existing voting base. The current Tory voting profile is that of an unelectable party. ... No doubt many voters might, in the saloon bar, sound off on Europe or asylum-seekers, but they have enough sense to regard any political leader who mistakes saloon-bar musings for policy as weird and out of touch. The core vote strategy, therefore, can do little more than energise an increasingly ageing and unrepresentative group of old faithfuls. It cannot serve as a springboard for revival.

Over at Once More, where you can get some excellent inside views from the young (well, I somehow imagine they're quite young - they're blogging, after all) Tory faithful. There, the news for Cameron is not nearly so favourable. Andrew (who also writes with me at the Sharpener) finds Cameron to be 'Blair redux' and everything the Tories should not be looking for: Eton, Oxford and no real clue what firm policies he will introduce. Andrew sums up:

Do we want to spend the next few months basking in sunshine of positive media while Cameron is given all the space he needs to start creating that compelling narrative that the journo's ache to report, only to find ourselves a few years into government being led by a man whose only principle seems to be the Blairite 'whatever works', even when 'whatever works' is anything but what gets implemented? Or do we want to tough it out for a few years under Davis, working hard to sell our message into areas we simply haven't been able or willing to in the last decade or two, but then finding ourselves in government with a real agenda, a mandate, and a commitment to see it through?

Well, the Blairite 'whatever works', however mealy mouthed, got Labour into power and seems set to keep it there for some time. As for Davis, I still feel the three letters I, D and S reverberating through my brain whenever I hear him or of him.

Clarke is probably a busted flush; Fox would be, I'm quite convinced, such a disaster for the Tories that it would make them want John Major back. That leaves the two Davids. Either could work. Either could be dreadful. But, if I were Labour, Cameron would be the one I would fear the more. If I were Cameron, though, I would probably not want to be elected quite yet. Leave it another five years. The risks of a bad defeat in four years' time, whoever is the leader, are just too great.