Richard Spring MP
Member of Parliament for West Suffolk

Hillary Clinton has bounced back in a wholly unexpected way but according to Dick Morris the political commentator and author, with whom I had breakfast this morning, Barack Obama will win. He believes the combination of the Democratic popular vote and number of delegates will inevitably secure this. 

He believes that Obama has been a brilliant candidate in refusing, for example, to take money from special interests, and attracting a wide range of individual financial contributors via the internet. He has through his age and attitudes touched a core with the younger generation and those who have felt disconnected from American political influence. So the traditional low turnout at the Presidential elections will be higher. Also, he believes that the Republican mission on lower taxes, lower crime and lower welfare rolls has been fulfilled. What remains in areas like health, education, transport and social care, are issues where the Democrats, for good or for ill, have something fresh to say. 

If he is right, therefore, we will be looking forward to having to deal with President Obama in the White House, after a landslide victory. 

Of course this will have implications for our relationship with the United States which by common consent is not widely popular in many parts of the world. It is crucial for us to be close to the policy development process in international affairs with any new President, to the extent that this is possible. We have moved from appearing to be slavish towards the United States, to now having a too cool relationship. 

It is an unfortunate legacy of Labour in government.     

Most commentators covering the US primaries suggest that whoever wins will want to engage with the outside world differently from the Bush Administration, and that in this pursuit they would have the support of most Americans.   

We are at a difficult juncture. Mr Obama wants to withdraw US troops from Iraq as soon as possible, which may well be problematic if a constitutional re-balancing in Iraq has not by then taken place. However it is to Afghanistan that more and more attention is being paid. Many depressingly believe that the war against the Taliban is being lost; clearly relations between President Karzai and NATO are difficult. Whilst most commentators recognise the need to contain the Taliban, and destroy Al-Qaeda, the unwillingness of Europeans to engage militarily is both undermining NATO and causing concern in Washington.   

However willing an incoming President might be to recalibrate relationships with allies, there has to be reciprocity. Afghanistan is something of a litmus test, and the omens are not good. 

We should carefully consider the possible long term consequences. For all the strategic misjudgements of the Bush Administration, the US still has the political will to make military commitments. Most of our European neighbours do not. We should do well to recognise what a mirage a pan European defence capability actually would be. We simply have to keep any new US President engaged and involved; it is crucial to our own national security and self interest. This must be a cornerstone of our world view.   

President Truman was never expected to win. Ted Heath, critically labelled ‘Selsdon man’ by the media, astonished the commentators by winning in 1970. Michael Portillo never ever expected to lose his seat. The list could go on. Yet the story in the U.S. is not over, so that dramatic Obama photograph on the front page of yesterday’s Independent may re-surface. Even the Republicans may revive nationally and win.

Some commentators have tried to draw a parallel with the situation here. It is noteworthy that women voted extensively for Hillary Clinton, perhaps a mixture of simply wanting a woman to be successful and her clear emotional vulnerability in the last few days of the New Hampshire campaign. Poor old Gordon fails on both counts -  no Blairite choking with emotion would work for him.

When I was introduced to Bill Clinton last summer at a conference in Ukraine, he told me how much he would like to meet David Cameron. When I told him that my son was at his old Oxford college, he wrote him a personalised note. It was a Republican senator who once told me that Bill Clinton could see a Ford to a Chevrolet dealer. And, yes, he does play the saxophone very well.

There is now real passion in American politics. People feel deeply about social and moral issues from different viewpoints; many feel deeply concerned that this most open and generous country is now so unpopular abroad.

People power indeed produces surprises for all of us engaged in politics, a veritable roller coaster ride of success and failure. It is all very humbling.

When we see the rapturous reception accorded to the Queen in the United States this week, we can all give thanks for the fact that we have a monarchy.

To have a Head of State who is above party politics has actually been hugely advantageous. The thought of some retired politician being elevated to the position is truly alarming. They would carry the baggage of office. For her, it is an incredible personal achievement never to have put a foot wrong, or been indiscreet, or indeed partisan in any way at all.

What on the face of it is an anachronism has worked brilliantly for us, and is recognised as such in the United States and elsewhere. When modern history was trumpeted to have begun in 1997, with Cool Britannia, the “young country” and all the other New Labour babble, we now can recognise that it was going to disappear like every other fad and fancy before it.

By total contrast it is good to have somebody of such enduring qualities and character, who has watched politicians, with all their pretensions, come and go. For all his communication skills, Tony Blair disappears into the sunset with a reputation of being unable to distinguish between fact and fiction.

If the Queen ever stood for office, she would win by a landslide. Happily for us, however, she never needs to have such an endorsement.

Has North Korea been persuaded to abandon its nuclear ambitions because it realised that it was getting nowhere or because after its missile testing other countries became really very anxious to talk? Perhaps we shall never know the answer, and as yet do not know if the eventual outcome will be a sustained success for the dialogue and agreement.

Yesterday, the Korean ambassador laid out the whole series of actions which are occurring under the agreement; it includes denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, normalisation of relations with Japan, and with the USA, economic and energy cooperation. The South Koreans are supplying fuel and fertiliser to the North.

Why did the Americans change tack and become more accommodating too? Pressure from the Chinese, or was it the trauma of Iraq? Whatever the reason, if we have moved back from the brink, this says something about patient diplomacy and persistence of objective. The moral of the story is clear elsewhere. 

Being in the USA last week, it was even in Florida quite cold. The most appalling weather had gripped wide swathes of the country, with people stuck at airports, and with massive disruption of travellers’ plans.

Yes, it was rather more centimetres of snow that paralyses this country, but the biggest casualty was a low cost airline called jetBlue, whose organisation fell apart. Passengers dressed for visits to the Caribbean sat shivering in aeroplanes for hours on frozen runways, their communications to aircrews failed too.

Here we range from laughter to fury at excuses like leaves on the line, but I have never seen such chaos. It was good to return, even if cancelled flights meant it was a day late. 

Having just been in the United States, the universal anger and disappointment directed towards President Bush is just astonishing. The savagery of the criticism of his conduct of the war, either privately or in the media, is so much greater than criticism of Tony Blair here. The drawdown of British troops from Basra will be greeted, however dressed up, with horror in parts of the Administration, as the US bolsters its own troop numbers.

Republicans are currently very pessimistic. All the current candidates like Giuliani, Romney and McCain are seen by many to have their drawbacks: most seem to think that the Democrats will win irrespective of whether it is Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. A number of Republican commentators now even look back on Bill Clinton’s presidency with greater regard.

As Harold Wilson observed,however, a week is along time in politics……….