Yes, another one of those who is unaware a World exists outside of America and that things exist which are not American.

He seems like a very articulate, well educated, intelligent man.

Yet at the same time, a complete muppet.

Seems to be an American thing.

Atlee sent Keynes to the USA immediately after the war when the UK was in a much worse state financially than it is now. The father of a friend of mine was a civil servant whose job it was to produce a plan to close schools and put children to work in the fields as there was a major threat that there would not be enough to eat in this country.

Keynes was highly intellectual and all he had to do was to put the case to American politicians that this sudden dropping of financial aid to the UK straight after the war was over was crippling. Easy enough one might have thought given the degree of sympathy from our light allies. However Keynes used long words and assumed a certain intelligence amongst his listeners. Both of these things were mistakes. He had I remember reading difficulty coping with their difficulty of understanding.

It seems he was mistrusted because he was an intellectual. Britain managed to secure a loan, and on preferential terms, but it was much lower than those in the UK thought appropriate given the circumstances. Later the American president agreed. The UK made the last payment in 2005.

A number of Labour MPs pointed out to Atlee that Keynes was wrong person to send but, in what Atlee admitted later was an error on his behalf, he refused to listen.

Later histories have suggested that in affect it was a bonus to this country that we didn't get anywhere near the amount of money we are asking for. It meant that the government could not indulge in any great nationalisation projects other than those that were seen as absolute necessities. Further, businesses were not subsidised, there were no funds available, so it was a case of having to make the best of a bad situation. Rationing stayed for some items for eight or 10 years and this formed a strong basis for the swinging 60s.

Just when we thought the English aristocracy had that market covered.
(I am English btw)

Do Yale admit to that?

That may be slightly inaccurate because they'd probably take to an educated candidate on their own side, but using the example of Al Gore, the college he went to and the way he speaks suddenly becomes an important issue when running against somebody like George Bush. They do like to portray the educated Democrat as a 'snob' while portray the Republican as a sort of 'everyman' character. It was silly in the case of Gore because there so many other valid reasons to not back him.

I'm not the sharpest on American history but am I right in saying 2008 was the first time two sitting Senators contested the Presidential election? JFK became President after being a Senator I believe and so did somebody else in the 20s. Nixon was a Senator about 15 years before becoming President I think?

Nothing wrong with delivering car parts for a living, somebody has to do it. I can respect the principle of a gamble because one of my ex employers took a gamble on me once to run the places finances despite no experience of doing so and no University education.

I just couldn't get behind a Republican candidate because by British and European political standards, the GOP is an out of date party. If it existed here it'd be split up into three parties by now. The god-bothering-anti-abortionists would be in a party all of their own by 2012.

Or just concerned that the next president of the US could believe that Jesus visited America and wears magic pants, basically he will be from one of those doorstep visiting evangelist religions that most people hide from if they see them coming up the drive.

Are we supposed to be impressed by the fact that he "bothered" to visit? Even the bloody French do that. Probably not a good idea to criticise your hosts. Or, on your next stop, bring up the leader of a terrorist organisation responsible for murdering British troops.

From an UK point of view, there doesn't appear much difference in "sympathy" between the two parties - both had/have their fair share of IRA supporters (since you brought it up).

Clearly Mitt Romney is not somebody who is terribly media savvy, however he is the US's best bet for President as he has a track record of running things successfully. Like a company, a state, a Winter Olympics. There really is only one issue in the US - the economy, and right now it is in deep trouble with little to show for the trillions spent in the past few years by the Federal government. I would expect Romney to find the right Treasury Secretary, find a way to cut Federal spending, balance the books, cut the deficit and generally turn things around.

At a state level, there are a number of states with Democrat governors who were in deep trouble financially, where they have been replaced with Republican governors their fortunes have improved for the better. The expectation is that this would also be the case at a Federal level.

Mitt Romney's wife is of Welsh extraction and the Romneys have visited the UK on many occasions. This serves the UK's interests far better than somebody with an anti-UK bias. So treat his visit as a positive, not a negative.

As regards Mitt's Olympic comments, most were centred on the G4s shambles and echoed the scathing comments made by many MPs. It should hardly be a surprise it was commented on, given that Mitt ran the 2002 Winter Olympics. Clearly Salt Lake City isn't as busy as London, but this is basic Project Management and whoever was managing G4s did their job poorly.

I think we also need to recognise that academic brightness isn't necessarily something that translates to a guaranteed success story for a political candidate. Numerous Labour politicians have been extremely academically gifted yet that did not prevent them running the economy into the ground every time they have taken the reigns of power.

I'm pretty certain Mitt Romney is actually going to turn out to have been Sasha Baron Cohen all along.

From the BBC:


That seems to be quite a divisive set of policies.