Across the pond

Day 26 of the Daily Telegraph revelations picked off another Cabinet minister, Geoff Hoon, the Transport Secretary. In his zeal to get the most out of the expenses system by flipping his second home, he managed, like Alastair Darling, to charge for two homes at once, for a short period. He learnt something from yesterday’s debacle over the Chancellor. He immediately wrote out a cheque for £384 and apologised for what he called ‘an inadvertent admistrative error’. But, if Brown chops Darling, can he keep Hoon, who appears to done the same thiing?

Most of the political correspondents this morning don’t agree with me. They think that Brown will manage to tough it out as leader right up to the next election. But Darling has been written off and several are talking up Ed Balls, the schools secretary, to succeed him. But the political correspondents spend even less time talking to voters in the constituencies than do ministers. They are almost certainly under-estimating the anger of the voters against Brown, who has been the captain on the bridge, while the parliamentary ship has been sinking into the sleaze.

The Daily Mail’s business editor, Alex Brummer, stands alone this morning in suggesting that Balls is a bad choice for chancellor. He reminds us, that Balls was the special adviser to Brown when he was chancellor, and was with him, the joint architect of the policies which got us into the worst financiial crisis since the 1930s. Continuing Thatcher’s policies of leaving the City to regulate itself. Down-grading the regulatory function of the Bank of England. Finding £5 billion to fund youth un-employment by raiding defined salary pension schemes.

The best man for Chancellor? You must be joking, Gordon.

How much longer can material from the stolen disk dominate the newspaper headlines and main television news? Yesterday and today have been dominated by the second shots at Darling and Hoon, which were pictured in the Rouge’s Gallery on Day One of Drippygate. What we are seeing is a second trawl of the material by the Telegraph.

Yesterday the rest of the media slavishly followed. So last night the expenses saga got more prime television news time than the first major interview with President Obama by the BBC’s Justin Webb. Which was a great pity. I listened to the full version on the BBC Radio’s Today programme this morning. It helped to restore my faith in politicians.

While British politics is fiddling about fiddling, Obama is behaving like a statesman. Considering how to regulate the banks and businessmen. And dealing with the nuclear threat from North Korea and Iran. Not by sending in the calvary. But by talking to them. And by setting an example. Reducing by far the biggest nuclear arsenal held by the US and Russia.