a concept than a practicality at the moment. There is still a lot of work to do if Labour is to reassemble a coalition of support wide enough to make it a majority government. The essential lesson from America is the same for all the parties and it is the more potent because it comes from a country in which politics is so polarised. Austerity may have changed many things, but it has not changed the basic law. Elections are still won and lost in the centre. As the more trogladite trolls on CIF are wont to suggest, the global economic crisis of 2008 was the personal responsibility of Gordon Brown, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the American subprime mortgage market. That dead meat like Cleggochio should choose to parrot this nonsense should surprise nobody. Is this true? The status quo won the election with an evenly divided US dividing along familiar lines and a handful of votes deciding the result - mostly the result of getting core supporters on the register and voting. There isn't a centre of US politics just two increasing polarised views. For all Labour supporters, remember that Obama is a genuinely inspiring personal story. The idea of Ed Miliband inspiring anything other than apathy is amusing. Obama's actions involve launching Drones which murder civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan, ordering assassinations, including of US citizens, and keeping open Guantanamo Bay. He also supports executing people. How is that "the centre"? One thing is for