As Brown's stock slides, Obama's is on the rise

It was firebrand British politician Enoch Powell who said:?"All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure." And he would know. But this is a sad truth, and one we are witnessing today in what is shaping up to be the inglorious death throes of Gordon Brown's Labour Government in the UK.

After weathering the worst of the financial crisis – indeed, he appeared at more than one point to be having a rather good recession – a torrent of allegations over MPs' expenses looks like the final straw.

Yesterday, a third Cabinet member in as many days, Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell, resigned. But rather than privately jump from office, his letter to the PM was also sent to the country's media, a letter in which he also called for Brown to step down.

"I now believe your continued leadership makes a Conservative victory more, not less likely," he wrote. Ouch.

"I am therefore calling on you to stand aside to give our Party a fighting chance of winning. As such, I am resigning from Government."

Defence Secretary John Hutton quit the government late yesterday.

This is not a pretty game, and one which will play out over the next couple of days. Personally, and I have been wrong in the past, I believe Brown's administration to be in its closing days.

But, happily, as a counterpoint to what is the ugly end to a respectable political career (Gordon Brown had waited for more than a decade to set up home in 10 Downing Street), we see a star in the ascendancy.

Barack Obama, now comfortably settled in at 1,600 Pennsylvania Avenue, is shaping up to be the global statesman the world was waiting for after too many years of Dubya's lethal fumblings.

The US President's landmark speech this week – his "overture to the Muslim world," as it was dubbed by one international newspaper – was stirring stuff.

And he must have said something right if he rattled the cages of Osama bin Laden, Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran and the Jewish settlers on the West Bank.

Critics will argue he did not go far enough, but he did do what he intended to do: Draw a line under the previous administration's detrimental relations with the Arab and Muslim words.

In an eloquent, intelligent and empassioned speech – replete with choice quotations from the Quran – with genuine intent he has paved the way for renewed dialogue, dialogue that in recent years and in relation to specific countries, has been reduced to name-calling.

Time will tell whether he delivers on his promises. But, thus far, he has been a man of his word.



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