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In a rather forced article, Times economist Anatole Kaletsky struggles to compare the political fates of Hillary Clinton and Gordon Brown:

What went wrong? This week two of the most successful centre-left politicians of their generation are asking themselves this question as their dreams of glory collapse. While Hillary Clinton at least has the consolation of carrying on her political career as a respected and powerful senator, perhaps even as vice-president in a Democratic “dream ticket”, Gordon Brown can only look forward to two years of parliamentary humiliation, internecine backstabbing and lame-duck impotence, followed by electoral defeat. At the moment, however, the common features of these two defeated politicians are more interesting than the many differences between their plights…

Doubtless there are many similarities. (Both are left-leaning politicians, for starters.) But Mr Kaletsky sees fit to claim initially that a good part of Sen Clinton’s and Mr Brown’s problems are with their personalities. They are, by Mr Kaletsky’s lights, maddeningly inarticulate.

Certainly there is an argument to be made on that score. Yet despite whatever problems both appear to have addressing us plebes from the rostra, when it comes to between Sen Clinton and Sen Obama, it might be worth noting that it is not Sen Clinton who appears to believe that speaking slo-w-l-y m-ean-s t-h-at I mu-st be s-a-ying some-thing pro-foun-dly ori-gin-al. [Cue applause, and the odd fainting spell. (Although that latter seems to have fallen off considerably of late.) ] However, Mr Kaletsky’s main focus is their both having disillusioned their respective left-wings particularly owing to their support for the invasion of Iraq.

Fair enough that point, on the surface. Yet while it may still be important to Mr Kaletsky and some on the far left, it doesn’t seem quite as high on the agenda in Britain for many other people, including on the left. Iraq is almost nowhere on the British daily reporting radar and hasn’t been very high up it for many months now.

We know the left — especially the white left — in the States still has its axe to grind with Sen Clinton over it, and so threw themselves behind Sen Obama (who inconveniently was in the Illinois State Senate at the time and didn’t have to make the choice she did). However, the left here has largely “forgiven” Mr Brown for his Iraq support. Which makes sense, for what choice do they have here electorally other than a Labour party in which 3/5 of its MPs supported the invasion? The Liberal Democrats? Respect?

Possibly that “cool down” of left tempers here has something to do also with British troop numbers also having fallen to only slighter better than token, and Mr Brown already having made clear that even those British troops will be withdrawn when possible (as well as the U.S. surge having made an impact, in concert with the new Iraqi security forces having — as was pretty much inevitable — finally developed some degree of capability, thus driving down violence and also thus driving the conflict off the front pages). In any case, even if one had backed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, that doesn’t appear to translate into support for Sen Clinton now either; as we know, she has since also changed her mind, saying she regrets her support for the invasion. Similarly, it doesn’t automatically win Mr Brown friends either; yet he has never wavered in stating that it was the right thing to do.

So the two clearly are not glued together on that major question. She’s thrown in the towel, but he hasn’t. Yet, then again, because the British military commitment is now so small in absolute terms compared to the American, Mr Brown has the luxury to take the stance he does, whereas Sen Clinton still has to deal with an electorate for which the large military commitment remains. As a consequence, we see partly how what appears a shared issue facing the left in both the U.S. and in Britain isn’t quite as similarly shared as seems at first glance.

A bigger divergence is racial; race plays a far bigger role in politics in the U.S., and not just on the left. Although appearing briefly to be nodding to that reality — “…media outlets decided that she had lost her integrity over Iraq - and also through her alleged racist insinuations against Mr Obama, which were for some reason considered more despicable than the many patronising and demeaning insinuations about Mrs Clinton’s femininity…” — Mr Kaletsky strangely has nothing more to say on the subject, despite the virulent racism much European (especially progressive leftist) media keeps telling us is rendering the U.S. asunder as the U.S. electorate is being asked to support for the U.S. presidency the son of a Kenyan Muslim immigrant. That in contrast, oddly, to the silence towards any self-examination as to when on this side of the Atlantic overwhelmingly white electorates might even possibly first be asked to consider empowering a European leader whose family roots are clearly from outside of Europe.

So Mr Kaletsky tries, but it is tedious goings. After paragraph upon paragraph of working “to compare” that which, as with Iraq, is often very hard to, perhaps most interesting is how towards his conclusion regarding Mr Brown, Mr Kaletsky aims to sum up by asserting Mr Brown’s troubles as prime minister to date are not owing maybe to his having been too leftist on a wide range of issues (besides, to Mr Brown’s credit, the War on Terror), but rather his not being leftist enough:

…He might still have kept some support among the liberal intelligentsia had he not embarked on an extraordinary campaign of illiberal measures this year - his campaign for 42-day detention without trial, his insistence on identity cards, his attacks on church schools, his veto against a pay rise for prisoners and now his irrational policy reversal on cannabis, which must make it almost impossible for any liberal-minded voter to support Labour. With all of these policies, Mr Brown appears to be pandering to the editorial columns of the Mail and the Telegraph, instead of The Guardian and The Independent…

…If Mr Brown thinks he can create a winning coalition for Labour from readers of the Mail and Telegraph, he will indeed turn out to be the greatest left-of-centre politician of his generation.

American readers probably know already that British newspapers have more overt political biases than do American papers. Unless someone’s checking the racing pages, one can probably gauge that person’s political persuasion pretty accurately by what paper you see being browsed — be it literally the paper in hand, or the web site you pretend not to notice as you walk by. (Unless the person’s reading the Independent, that is, in which case he or she really just deserves your pity.) Unsurprisingly for an economist, Mr Kaletsky appears to have trouble with that; but more troublesome is his apparent problem with the relative weights of whole numbers vs. percentages.

Aside from the Sun, the Telegraph (870,000) and the Daily Mail (2,300,000) are two of the highest circulation papers in Britain. So is also Mr Kaletsky’s own Times (620,000), which is yet another generally center-right paper. And there’s the rightist tabloid Express (730,000) also to consider.

In contrast, the Guardian (360,000) and the Independent (250,000) have far smaller reaches. The major left-wing tabloid, the Mirror (1,500,000), isn’t even close to the Mail. Ironically, the Guardian and Independent combined daily circulation is roughly that of The Times alone.

That that may mean — and this is obviously just a wild guess — that more British voters (at least those who read newspapers) tend to lean generally center-right of late than hard left, is apparently lost on Mr Kaletsky. Although, if Mr Kaletsky is to be believed, it isn’t lost on Mr Brown. Still all is not lost in another sense: another “real left” hero is arising, as Mr Kaletsky reminds us with a last sentence flourish:

Failing that, the future of progressive politics now rests with Barack Obama.

Time-s wr-iter, do-wn, here — has he fainted? — g-ive him som-e space, does he ne-ed a glass of juice or somethin’? Well, the future quite possibly does until November for sure anyway, when we will all learn again what the U.S. Electoral College means. It doesn’t function as a popular vote any more than Mr Kaletsky’s curious assumption that British newspapers’ influence equals “one paper, one vote”.

Or, put another way, if the Daily Mail is say, California in a U.S. presidential election, then the Independent is . . . Kansas.

(Apologies to any Kansan who might read this. Understand it isn’t aiming to assert your state is like the Independent. Rather, it is merely pointing to Kansas for an example of relative size in the Electoral College when compared to California.)

In religious “festival” anthropological mode, the BBC home page helpfully this morning highlights today’s Christian one:

Certainly a useful report. They sorta seem like okay people. Still, this festival’s focus on fire is a bit worrying, given we already know they get together in strange places, engage in cannibalism, drink blood and all vote for Bush.