low road

I've been trying to work out who is taking the lowest road at the moment. Is it Hilary Clinton's scare tactic campaigning in Pennsylvania or some of the strange twists by Gordon and Alistair with the UK taxation adjustments?

Hilary seems happy to win ugly; its about winning at any cost - which presumably carries through to the subsequent real election of the new President.

Here in Britain, the replacement of Gordon seems to be more optional. It could have been via an election last October, but voting is probably now not until May 2010. Unless there is some good luck for the Labour Party and he decides to go for an earlier general election.

As wheels fall off the economy and decision making on things like taxation is being botched by Chancellor Darling we see the last minute rescue attempts around the 10p tax debacle. No-one from Government really knows how much the repayment of the tax would cost. My guess is if it affects 5 million taxpayers at maybe £300 per head, then its £1.5bn. A mere drop compared with some of the other decisions. Of course, I've made those numbers up, but thats because no-one from the Government will release any figures (even after they claim to have been working on this for 2 months). Suspicious or what?

So the scene could be set for some instability in the UK leadership as the chain of events which includes: the management of the big picture finance, the civil service inefficiencies, the dithering on decisions, the botched recent US visit and now the taxation 'corrections' all start to stack up.

I can't see Gordon giving in easily, but I wonder if he now needs to see someone else get replaced as a sign of strength. I'm sure Hilary would know how to be ruthless in the interests of holding power.