Guido would like to film something similar with a group of future German school kids laughing at the Irish…

Skip the intro and go to 1 minute and 40 seconds in:

Guido is intrigued at how the U.S. Tea Party and the Labour Party can prosper at the polls without a leader. Arguably the lack of a Labour leader for the coalition to attack makes them less vunerable to the likely onslaught that is to come – the next leader of the Labour party will have his record in government thrown in his face – hard.

The Tea Party in the U.S. is consciously leaderless, they talk about being a “Starfish organisation”, drawing on some of the ideas in the bestselling book The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations.

Some on the left see the Tea Party as a right-wing version of MoveOn.Org, the Soros-funded grassroots mobilisation campaign to support left-wing Democrats. Having met a few Tea Partiers, Guido thinks they are more about changing the political culture back from “Republicrat tax and spend”, to the limited government imagined by the founding fathers of the U.S. constitution. Jonathan Rauch has filmed this snippet on the organisational structure for the National Journal:

Rauch has done a serious investigation into the Tea Party that goes beyond the hysteria (“they’re rednecks!”) and looks at how they organise – the Monday night conference calls, the Ning online social network and the federated sister organisations. The Tea Partiers have very quickly put the fear of voters into the Republican Party.

Could it happen here? If the Coalition fails on the economy, if the VAT hike hits the consumer hard, the economy double dips, inflation and middle-class unemployment rises, you never know.  The Coalition is offering no prospect of tax cuts, people may not be willing to accept a permanently high-tax culture…

When the nation’s media and chattering classes woke up to the fact that the last Parliament was rotten to the core, that the Labour government were corrupt, lying, power-hungry incompetents and that Gordon Brown was a needle short of a moral compass, Guido’s mission was complete. He has to chuckle that the resurgent Republican Party have attempted a similar tactic in the US:

Faux outrage over “flirting with a 17th century British terrorist as part of a campaign” has spread through the American left. Guido is taking the GOP’s spin loathing, freedom lovin’ “Remember November” campaign as nothing short of a compliment.

Nothing like a bit of viral pyrotechnics to get some attention eh?

The Republican candidate in the Tennessee gubernatorial race seems to have got his viral campaign sorted:

Guido recommends putting the subtitles on…

It just gets worse for Liam Fox. After yesterday’s slamming from the Charity Commission for his farcical neo-con charity Atlantic Bridge, today he now learns that it is under investigation from the Inland Revenue Service. Apparently the Yanks are not overly impressed with the tax-exempt status the charity had if it was flouting the rules. This seems to have been the problem:

“Americans should look forward to May 6, after which Cameron and his government will likely assume power. He will be good for America and better for the Special Relationship.”

Another week and another headache for the beleaguered Defence Secretary. Neo-Con head-bangers the Atlantic Bridge have been slammed by the Charity Commission for their close ties to the Tories. Set up by Fox in 2003, like the Smith Institute and Labour, they never really made any attempt to hide their political affiliations. Quite how they thought could get away with endorsing the Conservatives and maintain their neutral status beggars-belief.

The “charity” has been given a year to play by the rules or lose that all important status and the tax break it brings…

Fresh from the news that Sarah Palin might be London-bound, the great and good of the right look to be gearing up for her autumnal arrival. It’s notable that today Dan Hannan has finally come round to the fact that he was way, way out with his endorsement of Barack Obama. The unlikely vocal advocate for the Democrat President is eating his words after witnessing a 30% increase in the size of the American state in just two years.

The full mea culpa is quite a read, bringing Hannan into line, entirely coincidentally, with a certain Obama-hating hockey-mum…