Obama boost for Labour

12:31pm Thursday 6th November 2008

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By Rob Merrick »

THE day after the result we were all craving, it was being cheered in both Downing Street and Conservative HQ – but, in one of them, the cheers rang hollow.

The fascinating aspect of the US presidential race on this side of the Atlantic was that both Gordon Brown and David Cameron were shouting (quietly) for Barack Obama.

Labour’s yearning for the Democrat was no surprise. After all, the parties are closely linked and Tony Blair’s cuddling up to George Bush was simply a shocking aberration.

More interesting was the Tory leader’s enthusiasm because, if some of Mr Cameron’s alleged recent comments are to be believed, he has a big crush on Barack.

“He was just so incredibly cool,” the Tory leader is reported to have told a friend, after meeting the Democratic candidate a few weeks ago.

But, in the Commons yesterday, Mr Cameron was a bit too eager to portray himself as the ‘British Barack’, as he taunted Mr Brown that he could no longer claim it was “no time for a novice”. The Tory leader verged on the offensive, given that he is the Eton-educated son of a super-rich stockbroker, while Obama was once a community activist who has overcome centuries of racist bigotry to reach the White House.

Obama’s buzzword may be change – also Mr Cameron’s call to arms – but any Conservative claiming Obama as a political ally has not read his manifesto, because there is nothing in there that will feature in the next Tory offering.

Far from simply being a victory for “change”, Obama’s is surely a triumph for the sort of active government that is anathema to Mr Cameron’s “roll back the state” raw Thatcherism. The Democrat plans tax rises for the super-rich, tougher regulation of the financial system, an infrastructure bank to tackle decaying transport systems, job-training programmes in green technologies and much, much more.

Mr Cameron clearly wants to be green, but by “nudging” people into behaving more responsibly – not by the sort of state action that will see Obama force the worst polluting industries to pay billions for developing alternative energy sources.

And, of course, Obama opposed the Iraq invasion as a costly mistake – the one for which the Conservatives were even louder cheerleaders than the guilty men and women on the Labour benches.

No, it is Labour who should be cheered by the Obama victory, because it finally spells the end of the disastrous Reagan-Thatcher freemarket fundamentalism that has wrought such damage both here and there. America, the home of cut-throat capitalism, has picked a leader who believes the government must offer a helping hand, not get out of the way.

The Tories should be wondering whether voters here might yet decide to do the same.

HIS nickname is Geoff “Buff” Hoon (get it?), but – after last week’s U-turns on letting councils control bus services – it is time to reassess his reputation.

Buff is shaping up to be a great Transport Secretary. What a shame Ruth Kelly didn’t decide to spend more time with her children long ago.

LORD Mandelson’s newly-completed entry in the Register of Lords’ Interests makes no mention of meetings with that mysterious Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

But he did find room for this: ‘President of Hartlepool United Football Club’.