Legend Paulson is a ringer for Skinner

    

HENRY MERRITT PAULSON is sure to wake up with one hell of a headache this morning as he contemplates how on Earth he's going to rescue capitalism from the demons of debt, spivvery and socialism.

He can do worse than turn to his alter ego Walter Sergei Skinner, FBI assistant director in The X-Files and boss of Mulder and Scully. All he needs to do is keep muttering Spooky's mantra "I want to believe" over and over again.

But sadly for Hank, unlike Agent Skinner, he'll be unable to work off his frustrations by banging Gillian Anderson; all he's got to look at is Condoleezza Rice and Nancy Pelosi. And maybe Sarah Palin in the nip!

• The X-Files
• US Treasury

Unlucky number 777 as Dow suffers record fall after Congress rejects Paulson's $700 billion rescue plan

ANOTHER day, another catastrophe for the free world following the news this evening that the House of Representatives voted down President Bush's $700 billion bailout of Wall Street.

Shares plummeted by up to ten per cent within minutes of the vote, news of which broke around 2pm local time with the Dow Jones and NASDAQ in freefall upon hearing the unexpected result - the Dow ending the day 777 points down at 10,365.45, the biggest daily fall in its history.

In London, meanwhile, the FTSE is sure to hit yet more turbulence when markets open in the morning and traders have a chance to respond to events in Washington.

The FTSE 100 had closed down five per cent at 4,818.77 points even before news of the Congress vote, largely as a result of the nationalisation of Bradford & Bingley, Nat West owner Royal Bank of Scotland down 20 per cent at one point.

But it it is the United States where the fallout will be most keenly felt, not least in the race for the White House, with Democrat candidate Barack Obama quick to exploit the situation, calling on Democrats and Republicans alike to "step up to the plate".

He added: "Get it done - and understand that even as you get it done to stabilise the markets, we have more work to do to make sure that 'main street' is getting the same kind of help as Wall Street is getting.

"We cannot forget who this is for. This is for the American people. This shouldn't be for a few insiders."



Henry Paulson, US Treasury Secretary and architect of the plan, was adamant a deal would be reached. "We've got much work to do and this is simply too important to let fail," he said. "We need to put something back together that works; we need a plan that works.

"We need to work as quickly as possible and I'm going to consult legislators as soon as possible. We need to get something done. We're committed to working with Congressional leaders to get it done."

Dr Paulson also defended the failed rescue package: "We had a plan we worked very hard on, we gave them the tools they needed.

"Our banking system has been holding up very well considering all the presures. We're taking strong action, essential action to protect the economy. We will continue to work with what we have. We need it done as soon as possible."

"We put forth a plan that was big because we've got a big problem," added President Bush. "Our strategy is to continue to address this economic situation head-on.

"We'll be working to develop a strategy that will enable us to continue to move forward."

I can't wait to see what Robert Peston and Paul Mason have to say about it on The Ten O'Clock News and Newsnight in the next hour. For today's business journalists it must feel like the Anschluss and Great Depression all rolled into one; there's no news like bad news, eh boys?!

• Live coverage of tonight's breaking news from the BBC
• Robert Peston's blog

They've laced up their jackboots, donned blackshirts and set their sights, now they're ready for a

AFTER the treacherous Lib Dems and the back-stabbing Labourites comes the turn of the nasty old Conservatives as conference season reaches its dénouement in Boring-ham later this week.

It promises to be one hell of a letdown, devoid of any of the plotting which lit up Labour's conference in Manchester last week or the u-turns which shook up the Liberal Democrat knees-up in Bournemouth a fortnight ago.

Everyone will be on their guard, almost robotic in their parrotting of the party line, trying not to look complacement as they magic up an air of seriousness quite at odds with their pompousity and inexperience.

Look out for David Cameron telling delegates he knows how they feel, that he feels their pain and can relate to hard-working families struggling to pay their bills.

As if! He and George Osborne, though more competent than Gordon Brown, couldn't be more out of touch even if they tried; like an old Etonian has the faintest idea what it's like to live as an ordinary Briton.

• All the latest from the Tory party conference
• David Cameron on Sunday AM this morning

Probably the most insane leader in the world...

NOPE, not Gordon Brown but the tyrant's tyrant Robert Mugabe, lecturing the United Nations on democracy, human rights abuses and starvation.

It would be laughable if it weren't so damn serious.

As they say up in Yorkshire, e-ba-gum!

• Mugabe: number seven in the world dictators league
• The Daily Telegraph: profile of the despot

The relaunch

"Get me Balls and Darling. I want to see their drawings for 'Newww Laaabour on the Blecch!'

"And where's my fershluggen pastrami sandwiches?"

"Wow," the audience roared. "We'll never wash these eyes again!"

• Watch Gordon dazzle the Labour conference
• June 2007: Brown's inaugural address as Prime Minister

Unswerving loyalty, the assasin's smile and a firm embrace... Then Milliband shows his hand

DAVID MILLIBAND last night let out of the bag the worst-kept secret in politics, namely that he has his eyes firmly fixed on the impending vacancy at Number Ten.

In a move which ramped up the pressure on Gordon Brown on the eve of his do-or-die speech to the Labour conference, the Foreign Secretary likened himself to Michael Heseltine, who challenged Mrs Thatcher for the top job eighteen years ago.

Milliband's remarks to one of his aides - overheard by Newsnight snitches - is the clearest sign yet that the Prime Minister faces a near-impossible task to remain in his job, with the latest reports suggesting he's been given until Christmas to turn his fortunes around or face a Cabinet revolt.

Earlier, Milliband gave a wide-ranging speech in the conference hall, spelling out his vision for a fairer world, and outlining the role he sees Britain playing in the 21st century, throughout which he offered unstinting, over-the-top praise for his embattled boss, in a very public display of loyalty.

And with a little over twelve hours until he addresses Labour delegates and the world's media in Manchester, the man he hopes to succeed is assured of another sleepless night as he contemplates how to win over an increasingly sceptical public.

• Watch the Prime Minister's keynote address live at 2:00
• Watch David Milliband's speech from yesterday afternoon

"Cows to the left of me, jug ears to the right,

"Here I am stuck in the middle with you!"

A right old ding-dong on the Politics Show this afternoon as Labour heavyweights John Prescott and Charles Clarke kicked lumps out of each other while Polly Toynbee could do nothing but scowl in that annoying, preachy, feminist know-it-all kind of way.

What is it with these New Labour women that just rubs people up the wrong way? Toynbee, the hypocrite who lectures all and sundry on the dangers of global warming while jetting off to her holiday home every other weekend.

And how about Harriet Harman? Without doubt the most annoying woman in Britain.



As soon as she started spouting her half-baked drivel, Prezza and Clarke should have stood up, looked down on her with contempt and said "damn it, we're going home!"

But enough sexist wind-uppery, for it ain't only the Brownite babez who get on my nerves, it's the man himself, up to his old tricks again on Sunday AM, where he was given another easy ride from little Andy.

Lets see... from memory I think he blamed spivs, banks, Yanks, the Chinese, the oil companies, the electricity companies, the energy companies, supermarkets, backbencers, Blairites and Tories... in fact, everyone but himself.

It's always someone else's fault, isn't it?!

• Gordon Brown on Sunday AM
• Prescott, Clarke and Toynbee on The Politics Show

Laurel and Hardy to the rescue!

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL and John Prescott joined forces today to issue a rallying cry for Labour activists to get behind Gordon Brown, but not to stab him in the back.

The two, sworn enemies of Brown when he was Chancellor, demanded unity from MPs and party members in a New Statesman article published today, with Campbell all over the airwaves delivering his message.

All well and good, apart from the fact that Alastair is probably less trusted than any politician, even the Prime Minister, with his preachy holier-than-thou attitude sure to wind up more people than it wins over.

This is the man who bullied, badgered and brow-beat the press into adopting his message and his alone, ostracizing, humiliating and smearing anyone who got in his way.

Derek Draper and Alastair Campbell. Wow! Gordon must really have meant what he said about ushering in a new kind of politics...

• Campbell and Prescott's article
• July 1998: Draper caught out in cash-for-access scandal

Woke up this morning feeling fine...

Then I realised it was the end of the line

Last night my bank went tits up

Just like I knew that it would

Just like I knew that, I knew that it would

Oh, yeah

Something tells me I'm going to get the boot

Something tells me I'm going to get the boot

    

I phoned Brown up and I swore like mad

I never thought it would end up this bad

I asked to see him next week and he told me he would

Oh, yeah, he told me, he told me he would

Something tells me I'm going to get the boot

Oh, yeah, oh no, of dear, I'm screwed

Something tells me I'm going to get the boot

Something tells me I'm going to get the boot

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• All the latest on the global economic downturn
• Halifax Bank of Scotland
• Lloyds TSB

Won't somebody please think of the irony

WHAT a difference a year makes.

Twelve months ago he could do no wrong, was riding high in the polls and on course for a hundred-seat majority...

Then the public got to know James Gordon Brown, and the more they got to know him, the less they liked him.

A year of indecision, paranoia and imprudence later and the electorate now see him as a useless twat who should never have been allowed to become Prime Minister and must be disposed of at the earliest possible opportunity.

Some of us came to that conclusion a long, long time ago, most notably in September 2006, when a group of junior Ministers - led by the grotesque figure of Government whip Tom Watson - staged a coup against Tony Blair under direct orders from the then Chancellor.

How ironic, then, how utterly and delightfully apt it is that the Labour leader now finds himself being undermined by exactly those same tactics, following the revelation this weekend that two of his front-bench broke ranks and decided enough is enough.

    

Siobhan McDonagh, a whip just like Gordon's beloved little fatty Mr Watson, and Labour party vice-chair Joan Ryan have been sacked by Brown for demanding nomination papers ahead of next week's party conference.

Leadership and decisiveness at last! Oh, the irony...

And it's not just the relative unknowns who are clamouring for a contest, with Cabinet Ministers John Hutton and David and Ed Milliband sending out coded messages over the airwaves, the Business Secreatary's body language alone spelling doom for the embattled PM.

Hutton's eyeballs almost popped out of his head as he tried desperately to sound sincere in his defence of Brown on Sunday AM this morning while you get the feeling even David Milliband doesn't believe what he's saying any more, so staged and over-the-top is his praise for the Prime Minister, as witnessed on The Politics Show.

Another problem for Brown is that what little support he has comes from the kind of individuals any sane man would regard as an enemy, from paranoid, unintelligible nonentities and vulgar, self-serving hypocrites to unreconstructed class warriors, the latter a laughing stock amongst his peers and an embarrassment to his profession for his slavish toeing of the party line - the man's supposed to be a journalist.

As he wallows in his own cowardice, dithering and unalloyed failure, the one-eyed son of the manse can reflect on the old maxim do unto others as you would have them do unto you; what goes around, comes around.

• Siobhan McDonagh
• Joan Ryan

Back to the day job

FOLLOWING one of the most incredible fortnight's in English football history, attention returns to the Premiership this afternoon with all eyes on Theo Walcott, Dimitar Berbatov and Robinho.

Berbatov and Robinho - signed on transfer deadline day for a combined total of £65 million - will make their debuts in two eagerly-awaited contests as Manchester United travel to Anfield while City host Chelsea.

Also looking to open his account for his new club will be Berbatov's ex-Spurs strike-partner Robbie Keane, signed by Liverpool for £20 million in the summer.

At St James' Park, where neighbours Hull are the visitros, Newcastle owner Mike Ashley can expect a rough ride from the Toon Army following the resignation of Kevin Keegan, though rumours abound that Keegan could be about to make a sensational comeback with Dennis Wise getting the boot.

    

Wise's former Chelsea teammate Gianfranco Zola, conversely, will be assured of a somewhat more cordial reception from the travelling faithful as he takes charge of West Ham at The Hawthorns.

At Ewood Park, meanwhile, England's Zagreb Zeus Theo Walcott will receive a hero's welcome from all sides as he lines up for Arsenal away to Blackburn.

The day ends with the clash of the cash at Eastlands, where Manchester City will be looking to Sheikh, rattle and roll over Abramovich's
nouveau pauvres.

Let the games begin...

• Live commentary of United, Arsenal and Chelsea on 5ive Live
• Highlights tonight on Match of the Day on BBC One at 10:50

Is Brother Mason the voice of Big Brother?

PAUL MASON, the economics editor of Newsnight, has been stealing the show lately, trumping Michael Crick to become the must-watch reporter on the BBC's flagship current affairs programme.

Be it his unflappable chairing of the Newsnight economics panel - keeping a lid on the simmering sexual tension between Ken Clarke and Ruth Lea - his impeccable contacts in the unions or his devastating critique of US capitalism, his ability to connect with the common man marks him out.

His talents don't end there, however, with a career as a voice-over artist beckoning whenever he decides to hang up his notebook, his guttural Manc vowels sounding suspicously like the Geordie accent of the Big Brother narrator.

You half expect him to come out with lines like "day two of the TUC conference, and Brendan Barber has taken a break from meetings to come to the diary room to tell us why he thinks Alastair Darling's a
grey-haired, black-eyebrowed little ****".

    

But it isn't all Mason; there've been some classic episodes of Newsnight this week, including a quite breathtaking debate between the biographer of Cardinal Newman, Ian Kerr, and gay agitator Peter Tatchell, during which Father Kerr was seen talking on his mobile phone, to the obvious disgust of Jeremy Paxman, presumably getting orders from Rome on how to rebutt Tatchell's claims that Newman was a homosexual.

Yesterday witnessed the welcome return of Mark Urban, Newsnight's diplomatic correspondent, live in Baghdad, as well as a haunting,
behind-the-scenes portrait of US forces in action in Iraq, including testimony from Sergeant John Aragon, who died during filming.

Earlier, there was another old favourite returning to the show, as Michael Howard, seemingly recovered from his savaging at the hands of Paxo over the Derek Lewis affair, up against Roy Hattersly, winning hands down on the subject of Gordon Brown's leadership.

There was even time on last night's show for a discussion on the LHC project at CERN between the president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Sir David King, and former D-Ream keyboard player and professor of particle physics at Manchester University, the baby-faced 40-year-old Brian Cox.

The programme wound up with Paxman returning to Mason, who'd swapped Brighton for Washington to bring us the breaking news on the collapse of Lehmann Brothers, plus all the latest on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

They may have lost the legendary Charles Wheeler, head girl Stephanie Flanders and bright-eyed Evan Davis to death, The Ten O'Clock News and Today respectively, but with Mason, Paxo, Crick, Urban, Gavin Esler, David Grossman, Tom Carver and Susan Watts, Newsnight remains the current affairs programme nonpareil.

• Newsnight
• Comrade Mason's blog

CERN, baby, CERN, neutrino inferno!

FIVE... FOUR... THREE... TWO... ONE... the Hadron Collider is go!

At 8:30 this morning the world didn’t come to an end, as many had predicted, when scientists from around the world fired up the particle accelerator at CERN.

In recreating the big bang, physicits took a leap into the unknown to rival the moon landings, the H-bomb, Archimedes flooding his bathroom and that apple hitting Newton on the head.

Buried 175 metres beneath the Franco-Swiss border, the 27km-long ring took decades to build, costing £5 billion - £500 million of which came from Britain.

Physicists hope the experiments inside the collider and the data they reap will help to unlock the mysteries of the universe, a stagerring 96% of which is dark matter.

A huge magnetic field accelerates the particles - protons that form the nucleus of the hydrogen atom - to velocities approaching (up to 99.9999% of) the speed of light, which is approximately 300 million metres per second, before firing up to 11,000 particles a second clockwise and anti-clockwise into the collider, hurtling round the tubes and smashing into each other, releasing huge amounts of energy.

The resultant sub-atomic particles will then be collected by four detectors, Alice, Atlas, CMS and LHCb, akin to giant digital cameras whose 150 million sensors capture the images of the debris of the 600 million collisions every second, transmitting half a gigabyte of data a second to the Grid.

    

Working alongside the thousands of Frinkies and Calculuses from 111 countries, analysing the data and interpreting the results, will be 30 Indians, among them two siblings from Rajasthan University who helped construct one of the accelerators.

"We have designed the Photon Multiplicity Detector (PMD), which has been fitted in the LHC, in which small particles (protons) will be accelerated and made to collide at the highest-ever man-made speed," said Professor Sudhir Raniwala.

"The PMD is part of the ALICE project in the Large Hadron Collider, under which experts will try to generate quark-gluon plasma matter, which was present at the time of the creation of the universe.

"The idea is to study whether the lab can create what happened at the time of the creation of the universe."

The PMD, which will play a key role in the experiment, was developed at the Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre in Kolkata – a body of the Department of Atomic Energy – and transported to Geneva from February this year, with the machines being fitted into the LHC by June.

"Experts from IIT-Mumbai, Panjab University, Jammu University, Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, and Rajasthan University have all worked together to develop the PMD," added Sudhir's sister Dr Rashmi Raniwala.



Meanwhile, here in Britain, another Asian scientist, Simon Singh, will be helping to explain the project in layman's terms with a series of programmes on BBC Radio Four, telling the stories behind the Five Particles, each day this week at 3:45.

An author of several books on mathematics and physics, including Fermat's Last Theorem, The Code Book and Big Bang, the 44-year-old British Punjabi worked on the LHC project 20 years ago, before returning to England to educate the masses as a media scientist, picking up an MBE in the process.

Singh, like everyone else with a brain, was scathing of the Nostradamus-esque prophecies of the cretinous creationists who don't believe in evolution, the Sarah Palin-loving Bible-bashing flat-earthers running around screaming "we're doooomed, doooooomed I tell you" in their best Private Frazer impressions.

So, once the dust settles and the debris is analysed, when all's said and done, what does it all mean for us Earthlings?

Time travel, length contraction, black holes, worm holes, anti-matter, dark matter, Kang and Kodos... as Mulder said, the truth is out there...

• CERN
• LHC UK
• Details of Indian contributions to the LHC
• Five Particles

Balls talking bollocks

ED BALLS believes the "overwhelming majority" of the Cabinet, Labour MPs, Labour party members and members of the public believe Gordon Brown is doing "a great job".

The Schools Secretary shrugged off former Home Secretary Charles Clarke's warning that Labour was "destined to disaster" and faced "utter destrucion" at the next election.

In spite of a series of self-inflicted disasters, our flat-lining economy and the unprecedented unpopularity of the Prime Minister, his closest ally continues to parrot his master's voice, blaming "global economic conditions" for all the country's ills.

"It's not the first time Charles has made those kind of comments," smirked Balls. "I think it's Charles being Charles. I don't think that's where the debate will be when we get to the next general election.

"We face an unprecedented set of circumstances with rising food, fuel and energy prices. The public want us to get on with the job."



It's a measure of just how out of touch Balls is that he actually believes what he is saying, completely ignoring current opinion polls and the
by-election defeats in Glasgow East, Crewe and Nantwich and Henley, failures which followed the loss of the London Mayoralty and annihilation at the local elections in May.

Balls also conveniently ignores the fact that every other major economy is better placed to deal with the current crisis, with only Britain on the verge of a recession.

All this after Gordon Brown not too long ago said that Britain would be the best placed economy to deal with the global downturn.

As jug ears said, "we will not permit that to happen."

It's time to wield the knife; down with Brown.

• Charles Clarke's New Statesman article
• Gordon's stooges close ranks

Gazumped!

REJOICE, rejoice, rejoice!

Roman's empire is beginning to crumble!!!

Man City are now the richest club in the world, a thousand times richer than Chelsea.

Abramovich and his bitch, slap-head Pete, look like a pair of Siberian peasants next to the Abu Dhabi mafia.

How long before the dastardly double act are seen shivering outside Eastlands, begging bowls in hand, crying "spare a Kopek, effendi"?!

    

£32.4 million for Robinho, £30.75 million for Berba: the British transfer record smashed twice in one night, and much better value than the previous record fee of £30 million for Sheva, remember him?

And tonight, unconfirmed reports that Kevin Keegan's been sacked by Newcastle.

This is, without doubt, the wackiest 36 hours in Premiership history!

Now, I wonder what Roman and Pete are gonna do with all those Robinho shirts...

• Manchester City
• Newcastle United