Cocktails & apprehension

At the CNN party in Marylebone, Andrew Marr, James Purnell, Dame Sue Tinson, sundry BBC chieftains, Whitehall officials and Labour apparatchiks galore down cocktails, watch the huge screen, and dig in for a long night. The sense among centre-Left guests is one of superstitious apprehension. ‘It all looked safe in 2000,’ says one Blairite. ‘And then it all went wrong the next morning and we ended up with eight years of Bush.’

For the McCainites – a small band of brothers huddling in a corner – Palin looks like being the Fall Gal. But that won’t quite do. Conservatism in America has conspicuously failed to rise to the challenge of the new economic disorder. How will British Conservatives respond? They will, of course, claim Obama’s mantle of ‘change’ as their own. But that will only get Dave and co so far. At the Tory conference in Birmingham, Cameron said he was a ‘man with a plan’.