Periscope

An American Spinmeister Comes To London. Beware.
Conspicuously absent from the U.S. 2008 presidential election campaign is one Bob Shrum, the über-consultant who worked on eight presidential campaigns between 1972 and 2004 before retiring to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. But across the Atlantic, Shrum, 64, is still quietly plying his trade for one of his political best friends, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Since Brown's ascension, Shrum has been working, unpaid, as a speechwriter and political strategist and sees the P.M. "once or twice a week"—a level of access comparable to that of a senior cabinet member.

Yet Downing Street downplays Shrum's role. Its fear is that exposing it will spotlight an unwelcome American influence over British politics and the return of spin to 10 Downing Street. Some prominent Labour figures are also grumbling over what has become known in the United States as the "Shrum curse": none of Shrum's clients ever made it to the White House. "The man is a klutz," fumes one of Tony Blair's closest former advisers, who like most others involved in this catfight insisted on cloaking his aspersions in anonymity. "He has a tin ear for British politics, and it shows." The problem, they say, is that Shrum is trying to transplant his ideological liberalism in a country where pragmatic centrists of the Blair school have won the last three general elections. Equally worrisome to one former senior Blair aide is "the strategic stress on the idea of character, which is a Shrum trademark. The reason Shrum always loses is that [electoral success is] not about character; in the end, it's about policy."

Shrum's role went virtually unnoticed until the Labour Party's conference in late September. At the time, Brown held a commanding position in the polls. For three months he had governed astutely, and was riding so high one set of advisers—including a "cautious" Shrum, according to a Downing Street source—urged him to call a snap election. Then along came Brown's conference speech, with language such as "sometimes people say I'm too serious" and "I will not let you down." London Times commentary editor Daniel Finkelstein, himself a former political speechwriter, heard a voice other than Brown's, Googled the suspect phrases and came up with Shrum as channeled by his client Al Gore at the 2000 Democratic National Convention: "Sometimes people say I'm too serious," and "I will never let you down." The speech was only part of Brown's undoing, but over the next 10 days Labour's poll lead vanished and the opposition Conservative Party got its highest ratings since 1992. The Shrum curse seems stronger than ever.

—Stryker McGuire

The Digit
Nearly 62% of 1.2 million downloaders did not pay for Radiohead's album "In Rainbows," which the rock band released online last month in a "pay what you'd like" experiment.

About Face
Last summer, Ichiro Ozawa stunned the world when his Democratic Party of Japan upset the dominant LDP in parliamentary elections. There was talk that Japan might finally become a two-party state with the tough-talking Ozawa its leader. Then, last week, he stunned again, by resigning as DPJ boss—and then, three days later, changing his mind. What happened? Turns out Ozawa was not so tough after all. Having sworn he'd beat the LDP, Ozawa recently entered coalition talks with them. When his lieutenants balked, Ozawa, judging he'd lost their confidence, quit. Ozawa blamed the about-face on miscommunication and mental fatigue. More likely, DPJ hacks couldn't face another bruising leadership battle. The DPJ still has a chance in the next election, since LDP Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is no more commanding. But many Japanese voters are expected to stay home. Who can blame them?

—Christian Caryl