Shrewd Bill is still Slick Willy

A fascinating column from Clive Crook in the FT today, on Bill Clinton’s play of a joint Clinton-Obama ticket. After setting the context (Obama ahead in elected delegates after Pennsylvania but not enough to settle the nomination), he comments

This swirling uncertainty is the context in which Bill Clinton’s recent claim that a Clinton-Obama ticket would be unstoppable must be understood. It was an extremely shrewd political manoeuvre. It asserts a presumption, nothing if not bold, that Mrs Clinton is still the senior partner. It nominates Mr Obama as the Democrats’ presidential candidate in 2016 – and he is young enough for that to make sense. And it issues a summons, cynical as this may be coming from the Clintons, to party unity. This way, the Clinton campaign is saying, the party can come together, front both its favourite candidates (two for the price of one, three if you count Bill) and maximise its general election prospects.

Trouble in Tibet

Some things don’t change, and this remains true of China. However hard the West seeks engagement, and despite the clear importance of China in global economic terms (see this week’s Economist Special Report), we remain in different worlds. Nothing has pointed this up so starkly than the unfolding violence in Tibet, and the response of China, caught between what it probably would like to do (Tianmen Square Mk. 2) and still may, and what it can, given the Beijing Olympics. In FT.com, Richard McGregor reports:

A dispatch from Xinhua, the state news agency, over the weekend, called the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader a “master terror maker” who had willed his supporters in Lhasa to stage violent demonstrations.

“Now the blaze and blood in Lhasa has unclad the nature of the Dalai Lama, it’s time for the international community to recheck their stance towards the group’s camouflage of non-violence, if they do not want to be willingly misled,” the Xinhua report said.

Such hectoring missives typify the Chinese response, which has been to place the protests firmly in the context of the wider sovereignty dispute, the most sensitive issue for the ruling communist party.

With the Beijing 2008 only months away, and a US Presidential election campaign gathering steam, what is now happening in Lhasa and elsewhere in Tibet will have much wider repercussions, whether the Chinese like it or not. Meanwhile the Dalai Lama walks a difficult line:

“The Tibet nation is facing serious danger. Whether China’s government admits or not, there is a problem,” he said at a press conference at Dharamsala, India, on Sunday. “(But) the Olympics should not be called off.”

Ireland’s call

Not a good afternoon for Irish rugby fans (me included) yesterday at Twickenham. It is not so much the loss of the game to England (which was always on the cards) but that change is needed. The entire Six Nations campaign has been if not a disaster then a great disappointment. Whether the IRFU will have the courage to take the actions necessary, who knows. I am not convinced, notwithstanding the announcement that there is to be a detailed review.

Philip Browne, the IRFU’s chief executive didn’t look happy at the press conference, next to Eddie O’Sullivan, and rather too much management speak (what is an ‘optimal structure’?),

“The IRFU share in the disappointment with the outcome of this year’s RBS Six Nations championship from an Irish perspective and will be undertaking a detailed review of our performance. Our objective in this, as always, will be to ensure the Irish rugby team has in place the optimal structures to allow it to perform at the highest international levels into the future.”

There’s a lot to be done before the All Blacks in early June.

Why people struggle

Darling’s first budget has left me cold. Smug (see Oliver Hartwich’s post on Coffee House) and do-nothing (but see Tim Harford’s Undercover Economist blog on FT.com). I have been far more struck today by the statistic told me at supper this evening by my wife. There is apparently £2.5 billion of pension credit unclaimed. Why? Because the system is so complex people cannot understand it, even if they know about it (and many don’t); they cannot fill in the forms; many simply do not know they are entitled and there remains if not the stigma of welfare, the feeling that they have never claimed, they are able to do without it and are not going to start now. This is a truly appalling fact, and epitomises all that is wrong with this government.

The sophisticated client?

Show me the sophisticated client, and I’ll show you the opportunity to make some more money. As I wasn’t there, perhaps it is unfair to criticise, but I remain unhappy at the continuing pressure to widen the conflict rules, ostensibly to allow the sophisticated client to make the choice to instruct the lawyer who would otherwise be conflicted. Thus, from The Lawyer.com today

Clifford Chance general counsel and chairman of the City of London Law Society rules and regulation committee Chris Perrin has called for significant widening of client conflict rules at The Lawyer’s Strategic Risk Management Conference. The City of London Law Society has made proposals, which would effectively allow clients to consent to all conflicts of interest. Perrin said: “We’ve been talking about this possible change for some time. It gives sophisticated clients who know what they’re doing freedom.”

Ethics are ethics: except it seems when money is involved. It is a slippery slope.