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Will a climate change plan end the hot air?

• Justin Webb
• 14 Apr 08, 08:47 PM GMT

is an interesting suggestion - the White House might be planning some kind of global warming initiative. This would allow the candidates to tout their own plans (McCain is almost European in his dislike of carbon emissions) - which might make a change from small towns/religion/dotty preachers etc. Time for some meat soon, I feel.

The primary process has been wonderful so far - a reinvigoration of American democracy. But running in the wake of an unpopular president allows candidates to coast when it comes to uncomfortable messages - such as the need to reimpose the fiscal discipline lost in the Bush era. As the puts it, the thinking boils down to: "After George W Bush, everything will be fine".

How about McCain going all out for the flat tax beloved of Steve Forbes and - - of Europeans.

I find it odd that there isn't a stronger push for a flat tax in the US among Republicans looking for new ideas (alright, new old ideas), particularly given its obvious appeal in other serious free economies...

Meanwhile a very senior British diplomat based in Washington takes the afternoon off from his labours (even in the wake of a visit from Gordon Brown and the presidential candidates and goodness knows who else) to tell me that he too knew that Thunderbirds was British.

, he adds, was originally French:

"It was originally known as 'Le Manege EnchantΓ©' and was created in France in 1962. In the UK it was narrated by Eric Thompson (Emma Thompson's Dad).

"In the French version, Dougal was known as Pollux - he was an English character with a bad French accent (as also heard in the sitcom Allo Allo).

"You should add that the French Government were convinced that the character of Dougal was meant to poke fun at De Gaulle. I am told (but can't confirm) that the Elysee wrote formally to complain to the British Government at the time the programme was first transmitted in the UK."

Truly the British foreign service is staffed with all-rounders with time on their hands...

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American culture

• Justin Webb
• 14 Apr 08, 08:28 AM GMT

Wow Thunderbirds is British! Fancy that - and thanks to those who pointed it out. Our gain is America's loss. I seem to remember an episode at Heathrow airport, come to think of it, which would never have been made by an American company. Don't tell me now that the Clangers were American... Meanwhile,

On another subject, and without wanting to get into the whole anti-Americanism thing again, I think David Wearing raises an important point, and I agree, of course, that opposition to US policy is not anti-American. Anti-Americanism is something visceral and incapable of being altered by the facts - an example was the suggestion I read somewhere (it is in the book Why People Hate America) that American culture was to be compared to HIV! Of course, the person making this bright and sensitive suggestion lived in Los Angeles and doubtless enjoyed the beach...

If Barack Obama prospers in Pennsylvania - gets to within a few percentage points of Hillary Clinton - then the argument the Clinton campaign is making about his ultimate unelectability surely goes up in smoke. He has a few days to put the

Hope my Thunderbirds clanger (as it were) doesn’t reach the ears of Gordon Brown this week: I see he has hit a with the candidates travelling to see him, rather than Mr Brown having to make humiliating journeys to small towns (whoops) in Pennsylvania. Quite a coup for the new British Ambassador to Washington, Nigel Sheinwald, to have organised. No audience with the Pope though...

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