Commentariat

Times Simon Jenkins

What are we waiting for? Where now is liberal interventionism? More than
100,000 people are dead after a cyclone in the Irrawaddy delta and the
United Nations has declared that up to 2m people, deprived of aid for a
week, are at risk of death. Barely 10% are reported to have received any
help. The world stands ready to save them. The warehouses of Asia are
crammed with supplies. Ships and planes are on station. Nothing happens.

Late on Friday evening 25 paddy wagons full of police officers lurked outside
London’s city hall. It looked as if there was a coup in the offing. There
was.

Can Hillary Clinton do it? Is it imaginable that the cup of nomination might
be torn from Barack Obama’s lips? Is it still conceivable that America could
elect its first black president, or its first female one? Or is it possible
that, after eight years of George Bush, the Republicans could yet retain the
White House in the eccentric shape of John McCain?

The Tory mayoral candidate, Boris Johnson, was announcing a wheeze. He would
remove free bus passes from unruly children but they could “earn” them back
through community service. Ken Livingstone, his Labour opponent, stepped to
the podium to reply and declared it a great idea that he would steal.