Today's post will have something on each of the following:

1. UK politics
2. US presidential election
3. Pakistan
4. Business
5. & pleasure

All the talk of a crisis in Gordon Brown's premiership since the by-election defeat in Glasgow still seems to be whipped up by the media. A fully fledged leadership crisis, together with a fully fledged 'pretender' (if one can be found)would make for much better news stories than a long dreary winding down to an election defeat in (presumably) 2010. And we're going to get the long, dreary winding down in any case.

The Parliamentary Labour Party are just as much the problem as the Prime Minister. They look like a group of people who are tired and need to find some fresh ideas. The country wants a change and they won't be able to start regrouping properly until they're out of office. So, in a way, Mr Brown would be doing them a favour by holding that election in 2009 rather than the following year. The longer they put it off the greater the electorate's impatience with them is going to be , the more humiliating their defeat and the more likelihood that they will have more than one parliament in opposition.

That said, although it looks as if the Conservatives will win in 2009 or 2010 they still don't look like people with so many new ideas that they need 10 years to put them all into effect. In fact, what with the Conservatives lack of legitimacy in Scotland and the Labour Party being short of funds (and therefore reliant on the trades unions) neither party is going to cut a very fine figure.

On top of that there's talk of politicians being frightened of winning the next general election. The idea of leading the country being a job nobody wants is 'a bit worrying'. Actually, I don't think David Cameron is frightened of becoming Prime Minister; he seems motivated - though not perhaps as motivated as Harold MacMillan, Harold Wilson, Ted Heath, Margaret Thatcher (or Gordon Brown).

I think it was quoted in Andrew Marr's history of modern Britain; Sir Winston Churchill was quoted (in about 1950)as regretting that he wasn't an American politician because American politicians were going to be wielding real power - very disillusioning.

Maybe the prospect of being a British politician is less enticing than it used to be. Leaving aside the likely economic problems oof the next seven years or so, maybe politicians are beginning to realise that the political 'domain' is set to shrink in Britain. There's a sense in the air that people are beginning to suspect that knife crime or excessive alcohol drinking, for example, are not really political problems. If that's true, maybe an era of small government is on the way. And maybe that's what the Conservatives expect and want - but daren't say. Politicians are going to have to share the public forum more than they've been used to do.

Which takes me back to the Glasgow defeat and Gordon Brown's defeat. The current predictions of downfall may just be the media's reaction to the realisation that it's going to take more drama in politics to make people want to read about and hear about it. In which case, the Prime Minister might do best to assume that the public don't want to hear too much about him.

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My take on the presidential election had been that John McCain was going to be the candidate who would win support from voters who believe that foreign policy will dominate the next five years while Barack Obama would garner support from those who believed that domestic policy was more important - and that Obama would win. Now Obama's foreign tour seems to show him striking out in a new direction. But maybe he's just been cauterising a weak spot; he wants voters to believe he'll be competent at foreign policy but they'll still be sure that domestic policies will 'take up the top drawer' so to speak.

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The Telegraph last Sunday had an article by Con Coughlin about the threat to peace in Afghanistan by Al Qaeda operating out of Waziristan and how little the Pakistani coalition government were doing to counter this. Presumably, the government can't push the military very far and the Pakistani generals aren't too keen on losing soldiers fighting rebels on the frontier. Moreover, the rest of the world don't want to embarras the government by saying clearly how little they are doing to improve the situation.

And presumably, the lack of much news about Pakistan will come to an end in a few months because the current coalition will break down.

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The stock markets seem to have passed their lowest point for the time being and I'm not expecting as much drama for the next six or seven weeks. Maybe things will start to pick up in the autumn.

I'm dubious about the new interest in stock shorting that's made such an impression since the beginning of this year. To read some commentators you would think that shorting was a new kind of gold. But it could all end in tears. In particular the shorting that went on while the HBOS rights issue was proceeding doesn't seem to have had a lasting effect on the share price - almost as if the rights issue price - 275 pence - was a floor for the shares.

I'm sad to see Alliance & Leicester going the way of Abbey. My business bank account is with Alliance & Leicester (and seems very good value). However, having recently finished paying mortgage interest to Abbey, it took them almost two months to action the cancellation of the direct debit.

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I'm now half way through the current book and my head feels full of the subject. However, this week we took a day out for a family picnic at a place called Hinton Ampner (near New Alresford). I strongly recommend it - particularly the garden. The house burned down in 1960 but was rebuilt to look like a georgian mansion. It looks good but not too weighed down with its history. It's all got the stamp of the rebuilder - Lord Sherborne. It feels better engaging with what seemed to desirable to just one person than a 'stew' brewed up by generations.