International politics

How rich is Mitt Romney? Wealthy enough to voluntarily pay $250,000 more tax than he needed to last year. That’s the most notable thing about the Romneys’ 2011 tax return released yesterday evening. Mitt and Ann reported income of $13.7 million last year, most of it from investments. They gave $4 million to charity (most of it through the Mormon church) but “only” deducted $2.25 million of that sum from their taxable income. The reason for doing so is obvious: this ensured that Romney’s “effective” tax rate was around 14% of the couple’s income and not, as it might otherwise have been, a politically-embarrassingly low percentage. This is, of course,

Put it this way: Mitt Romney’s route to the White House is perilously thin. He has little margin for error. Recent polls suggest Barack Obama has benefited from the Democratic convention much more than Romney was helped by the Republican party’s gathering in Florida. As always, it is worth recalling that polling advantages in late August or even early to mid September are rarely dispositive. Of course Romney can still win but that’s hardly the same as thinking he’s likely to. The map at the top of this post – compiled at 270 To Win – shows how Romney could squeak an electoral college tie and send the election to

Barack Obama is a great orator  – something of which we shall doubtless be reminded tonight – but Bill Clinton is the greater communicator. His speech to the Democratic convention in Charlotte last night was a masterclass. The old boy’s still got it. Of course, it helps to be speaking in his new role – assumed upon the death of Edward Kennedy – as the party’s elder statesman. It’s easier to appear above the fray as a member of the ex-Presidents club. Most of the time, it invests you with extra gravitas. Even so, this was vintage Clinton, making by far the best – and most comprehensive – case for

I’m writing a column about Mitt Romney for tomorrow’s Scotsman so more on him later. Suffice it to say that I thought his speech less impressive than it had to be but that, by the end of the evening, I was more impressed with and by Mitt the Man than I’ve been previously. This was because of the Mormons. Magic underpants and Missouri and all the rest of it be damned, Mitt should talk about his religion more. He may be reluctant to do so and that speaks well of him but this is an election and Mormonism is about the only thing discovered thus far that transforms Romney from

In a recent piece Stephanie Flanders, the BBC’s economics editor, pondered how the UK economy could be adding jobs while, according to the figures, shrinking by 0.7% during the second quarter of this year. As she put it, this is a conundrum that “Britain’s finest economic brains simply cannot explain”. Well, I can’t explain it either. But, perhaps because I’m not any kind of economic brain, I wonder if all this measuring and collecting of information now does as much harm as good. In one sense, of course, it seems obviously good that government collect data so it knows what’s going on. But that comes at a price: it encourages