Immigration, Iraq and oil: a bitter brew for Bush

Don’t look to polling data to get an idea of what is going on in the minds of Americans. Only 29 per cent of Americans say they are satisfied ‘with the way things are going in the United States at this time’. Yet 85 per cent are satisfied with ‘the way things are going in their personal lives’. Three out of four say they are uneasy about the economy, but only one in ten thinks it likely he will be laid off, and consumer confidence is at its highest level in four years.

It is easier to read the mood in Washington. This is the time of year when the city is at its glorious best. Winters are dreary, autumns lack the riot of colour seen in the north-east, and the summers are so intolerable that before air-conditioning became available the British ambassador and his staff fled to America’s version of India’s Simla, in northern Massachusetts.