First McCain falls, now Guiliani stumbles

With a two year campaign, the US Presidential race keeps throwing up some changing trends particularly on the Republican side. First, McCain had a big lead and now he's toast. Then Guiliani was out front, but now he is stumbling.

Pollster.com asks whether Guiliani will be the "next McCain":

Since early March, Giuliani's support has fallen by an estimated 8 percentage points. McCain's fell by 10 points since January. And the rate of decline has been a bit steeper for Giuliani than for McCain. The saving grace for Giuliani has been that he started his decline from a higher point, around 33%, while McCain's slump started down from 25%.""Giuliani's national slide is also mirrored in the early primary states, as is the case with McCain... Were it not for the fundraising success of the Giuliani campaign, and its cash on hand ($15M), the analysis of his situation would be far more pessimistic than recent accounts have made it sound. In part the recent intense focus on McCain may have distracted analysts from the similar trends for Giuliani...

Meanwhile, Fred Thompson is doing well. For example, he leads the field with a 14 point margin in Georgia, according to Insider Advantage.

Thanks to Political Wire.

Thoughts and best wishes for the Norfolk Blogger's son

I know I said I was suspending blogging for today, but this is important and I am just having a breather after delivering three big bundles of tabloids in Ealing Common starting at 4am.

The newly born son of the Norfolk Blogger is in the neo-natal intensive care unit of their local hospital, where he has been for nine days (as Nich mentioned in a comment here).

I am sure this bit of the blogosphere will join me in sending our sincere thoughts and prayers (the latter optional of course!) to Nich, his wife and their son, plus heartfelt wishes for a speedy recovery of the young lad.

If the son has half the tenacity of his dad, he'll sail through this and write a blog about it!

Blogging suspended...

...Until well into Thursday night. I will be in Ealing Southall before sparrows' methane emission time tomorrow morning.

Tories in court battle to get £8 milion donation

Leaving £8 million to the Tory party has been described as the act of someone with "insane delusions".

Never!

Opt-out organ donation is illiberal, immoral and repellent

Iain Dale's Diary used to be the blog which some of us LibDems read avidly to disagree with. I don't bother with him anymore as his credibility has evaporated and he has become a self-parody. Perhaps he will get better after July 19th.

So the Norfolk Blogger now seems to be fulfilling the role of the blog you read avidly to disagree with. Bless him. It's so much nicer for this role to be performed in-house.

Making organ donation after death an "opt-out" rather than an "opt-in" procedure is practised in many countries. Stephen Pound MP made a very sound case for it last night on Radio Four's PM. But it is fundamentally illiberal. It means that the state owns your body upon death and can remove organs from it. The idea that someone may be too embarrassed or too busy to fill out an exemption form, then die, then their relatives see their body "carted off" by the state, is disgusting.

Britain has one of the highest family refusal rates for organ donation of 47%. A presumed consent system is an insufferably blunt instrument to override that current "spur of the moment/after the death of a loved one" resistance. But:

John Oliver, of UK Transplant, the organisation that oversees organ donation, said: “Britain’s high relative refusal rate is the single biggest barrier to more lives being saved. Four out of ten people identified as suitable donors do not go on to donate because their relatives refuse. One of the main reasons is because the family, at a traumatic time, say they have never discussed it.”

Perhaps we have some work to do, to break down the taboo here before introducing draconian measures?

And don't go round waving the shrouds of 1,000 people a year to get this through chaps! My son died and we would have loved to have given his organs, but none of the medical staff brought it up. (When we brought it up I seem to remember it was explained that organ donation wasn't possible due to the need for a post-mortem, which is a shame because it didn't need a genius to work out that my son had died from Meningitis.) There should be more asking about organ donation by medical staff and more encouragement of discussion amongst families before death.

I've been there holding a loved one's dead body - actually giving their organs strikes you as a wonderful way of making some sense of their death. But if you've never discussed it with the deceased I suspect you don't want to presume what they would have said on the subject.

Only 25% of people carry a donor card in this country. The rate is 44% in Holland, which suggests there is great scope for improving our card carrying rate without bullying. More asking and more advertising, more pushing and more discussion of the card system is needed, not an illiberal and repellent practice.

And its nothing to do with religion! Opt-out organ donation is immoral.

PS. I have carried an organ donation card for seven years. But then, I am an anorak and take care over these things.

Is there an element of Galtieri in Brown's tough action on Russia?

I was watching Gordon Brown on telly last night about the Russian diplomat expulsions. He looks good when he's being tough. He's no good at the touchy feely stuff like Blair. But he can do the 'rock of Fife act' very well in a crisis.

I just wonder if there is perhaps an element of this crisis playing well for Brown underlying the government's actions. As Galtieri found, if you want to look good, create an enemy pronto.

Don't let potential blogitis build up a non-existent crisis

I was very taken by Chris Black's posting entitled "Why this week won't change my view of Ming at all". Well said, Chris.

If you think about it, in a week of two by-election campaigns what is the impact of the leadership on a party? On the one hand they can really mess things up - e.g forcing a candidate with an interesting recent history on the local party. On the other hand they can be measured by the extent to which party members rally to the party flag. After all, that is often what wins elections.

So, Ming can be proud that the two LibDem by-election campaigns are going extremely well in terms of deliveries, canvassing etc - i.e "feet on the street".

Building this all up as 'a week to prove the leadership' could be a self-fulfilling prophesy if the person or people making the prediction doesn't/don't actually help in the campaign. (Fortunately, I don't think this is the case as I am sure all good LibDem bloggers who can't go to either of the by-election sites have been phone canvassing and/or making donations to the campaign like billy-oh.). It could be a result of a new strain of blogitis.

I was very taken by what Paddy Ashdown said on 18 Doughty Street. He forecast that towards the end of the year when Brown's honeymoon wears off due to "events, dear boy, events", Ming will be in a strong position.

Thanks also to Liberal England for highlighting this Daily Pundit piece which highlights that the editor of Political Betting fancies the LibDems to win amid forecasts of dire consequences for Cameron.

All so much straw in the wind, of course, so I will continue my focus on building up my energies for a fourth visit to Ealing Southall on Thursday.