Politics | 30 August 2008

Denver, Colorado

Just as high street stores send spies to the Paris fashion shows in order to copy all the latest designs, so British political parties send agents to American conventions in search of ideas and inspiration. Several Brits were skulking around the Democratic National Convention in Denver this week, carefully noting the new soundbites and attack lines that were being unveiled on the world’s greatest political catwalk. Yet if these Labour and Tory emissaries were doing their job properly they’ll come back with bleak news — because the four-day convention showed both British parties how vulnerable they truly are.

All the excitement in the thin mountain air was underpinned by mild panic. Everything has, in theory, gone right for Barack Obama. Against initial expectations, he has defeated Hillary Clinton’s formidable election machine and drawn more adulation from the American media than any candidate since Bobby Kennedy in 1968. Yet what is glaringly, painfully and (for the Democrats) bafflingly lacking is a sustained opinion poll lead.