However, at the last minute the two sides managed to come to an arrangement, and the bill was passed. Crisis over – for now.

What’s particularly interesting about the details of the Bill – not all of which are clear yet – is that the whole debate process has ended with what is essentially a victory for small government. There are no tax rises at all, a massive coup for the Republicans, and something that the Conservatives should take note of.

Whilst the financial situations in the UK and the US are inherently different, and there is no sense in simply replicating the American solution, the details of the negotiation and the will of the American people that tax rises are not always the best solution should be encouraging for the Tories. The traditional pattern of ‘raise taxes to create money’ is not necessarily the case, especially with the fragile state of economies worldwide.

Another key part of the deal is that there will be $900bn worth of domestic cuts over the next ten years. Rather than carrying on with Obama’s failed fiscal stimulus package, this deal put in place rules for serious cuts to spending, in a genuine attempt to reduce America’s debt rather than keep on spending in the hope that the economy will recover.

There is encouragement that the Tories can take from all of this. They can look at the change in opinion in American, and see the shift towards a small-government movement. Whilst there are big differences between what that means in America and in Britain, the principles are the same. David Cameron is keen to give more power to local communities, and have less coming from Whitehall.

There is also a lesson in standing up for your political principles. Whilst there is an argument that says the American debt crisis was mostly political posturing (which is not entirely wrong), the flip side is that both sides stood up for what they believed in. Granted, they were playing with the biggest hot live grenade that the world had to offer, but the basic tenet of sticking to your plan and knowing what you want is invaluable.

It would be especially helpful for the Tories to grasp some of that ‘stick-to-your-guns’ mentality. The Coalition has had a tough time, and has been accused of flip-flopping and being unsure of where it stands. Cameron has been accused of pandering too much to the Lib Dems, which is true. Rather than sticking to what he believes in, he has spent too much time worrying about perceptions and the approval of Nick Clegg and his party. Were he to learn from the Republicans, who have (generally) stuck to their plan and refused to move, he might see himself rising in the opinion polls again. People won’t always agree with him, but the electorate do admire a politician who is strong and sticks to what he believes in.

Whilst Parliament breaks over the summer, David Cameron should take the opportunity and do some reevaluating. During that process, he could do a lot worse than look at the last few weeks in Washington, and take some of those events on board. A rejuvenated Cameron in the autumn could be incredibly good. Only time will tell.

Today’s event was brought to you by the words “freedom”, “special” and “hope”.  “Freedom” in the sense that Ronald Reagan believed that there is this irrepressible spirit inside all of us; the desire to be free. This desire can be delayed but ultimately it will not be denied. Reaffirming what is “special” about the ‘special
relationship’. The USA and Great Britain have a shared history because of the values that bind us together, and the belief that these values should be available to all. At his core President Reagan believed that “hope” was a stronger force than fear.  In addressing the crowd, Condoleezza Rice reminded us that in the mid-80s it seemed impossible for the whole of Europe to be free and at peace. This memory should give us all the hope and optimism to achieve what may currently seem to be outside our reach.

On the really big call of his time Ronald Reagan was on the right side of history. Freedom is better than restriction, and a world where capitalism replaces communism is a much better place to live in. There may be those who fundamentally disagree with last sentiment but that’s fine. President Reagan wanted a world where it would always be ok to loudly diverge. The bronze statue unveiled today solidifies the fact that you can’t be considered to be an advanced nation unless you celebrate and promote freedom in all its forms.

Here are some quotes from the event:

“This statue is a memorial to a glorious past, and a call for a glorious future.” – Condoleezza Rice

“The great idealist, who were he alive today might well be saying now “it is morning again in the Middle East”, spurring us on to help those in the region seeking freedom.” – William Hague

“We have a long history of fighting together for freedom” – Kevin McCarthy

“The man of conviction, who knew it was right to go to Berlin and say “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall”, at a time when such a thing seemed utterly impossible and many advised him against it, and who simply would not forget or give up on those he saw enslaved by communism.” – William Hague

“The Special Relationship is indeed special” – Condoleezza Rice

“They (Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher) did not go to the centre to gather votes, the centre came to them” – Kevin McCarthy

“The peacemaker, who was prepared to seek reconciliation with the Soviet Union, but who never wavered in exposing its flaws and so hastened its demise.” – William Hague

Barack Obama listens to David Cameron during their joint press conference this week

The event is also highly significant because, for the first time in decades, a US President has crossed the Atlantic in an urgent quest for policy ideas. After years of British politicians and thinkers looking across the pond for inspiration, the UK has now become a well of inspiration for Americans.

At the heart of this lies the growing American crisis about the size of the US national debt and budget deficit. No longer is a US President able to take the relaxed demeanour of President Reagan when he suggested that, “I don’t worry about the deficit. It’s big enough to take care of itself.”

But the US national debt now stands at a staggering $14 trillion, by far the highest level ever. The US budget deficit is now at the highest level since World War II. The IMF has warned the US of the need to take decisive action to cut their level of debt, warning, in unusually decisive tones that, “the United States needs to accelerate the adoption of credible measures to reduce debt ratios.” When a ratings agency downgraded the US government’s debt last month, it was a further wakeup call to the world’s only remaining superpower.

Republicans and Democrats are engaged in a brutal battle over what spending to cut. Republicans in congress launched one plan. President Obama tore into it last month, proposing a completely different plan. Both sides are miles away from agreement. In fact only a last minute deal reached between the President and the Republican leadership averted a shutdown of the federal government.

How can the divide be bridged, and what can Obama learn from the UK? Here the government is trying to get our galloping debts under control with a mix of tax rises and spending cuts.

The government has also moved to put the public finances on a more sustainable basis by changing the way that the state pension works, and how benefits are uprated in line with inflation. The UK is also introducing a series of innovative reforms in schools, hospitals and the police, which will allow better public services to be delivered for less money. For example, in London we now see police officers patrolling individually, rather than in pairs – meaning twice as many patrols for the same money.

Many of the reforms being carried out in the UK have emerged from think tanks, such as Policy Exchange, and for the first time in a generation the new ideas in politics are flowing from the UK to the US, rather than the other way round.

At present, US politics is stuck in a rut of polarization and partisan insults. Despite our famously aggressive political culture, the current coalition government does at least show how people with big political differences can learn to work together.

Amidst the fanfare of a big Presidential visit, Obama has been here on serious business. He will have been looking for ideas to capture the imagination for election year, in an attempt to pull the US from a perceived national malaise. It is a tribute to the energy and vigour of British political thinking that he has been looking for these ideas in the UK.

The parallels between David Cameron and Barack Obama are often unseen. Too much of the time, people focus on the differences rather than the similarities. Yet as Obama prepares to get his campaign off the ground for the 2012 election, it would be worth David Cameron keeping a close eye on how his American counterpart fares.

Both came to power on the back of a failing incumbent. In America, the frustration of having George Bush in power for eight years was one of the biggest momentum shifters for the Obama campaign. What the Democrat team did extremely well was take advantage of the fact that at large majority of Americans had had enough of George Bush, and expand that to the whole Republican Party. As soon as the lines were drawn between Bush and his party, the GOP stood little chance of retaining the White House.

In Britain, the fact that Gordon Brown’s government was so unpopular by the time an election was called was a huge boost for Cameron. Had Brown called that snap election in 2007, rather than pulling out at the last minute, he would almost certainly have won, and we would still have a Labour government. As it was, he allowed other politicians – notably Cameron – to get themselves into the game. As Brown’s premiership self-destructed over the next few years, Cameron solidified his image as responsible, trust-worthy and the man to rescue broken Britain. He told the country that ‘We’re all in this together’, and used the Labour party’s massive implosion to re-enforce that message.

However, whilst Cameron and Obama owe a lot of their political success to the failings of their predecessors (as to a certain extent all politicians do), this route to power becomes, over time, a dangerous one.

Coming to power on the back of someone else’s failure is not what any politician wants. Politicians want to be able to show that it is by their merit, charisma and policies that they have been elected. David Cameron is the perfect example of this. People were fed up with Brown for sure, and wanted a change. Yet the Conservatives could not secure a majority government and were forced into coalition. This raises the suggestion that people did not so much vote Conservative or Liberal Democrat because they believed passionately in what was on offer; more that they voted for them for the simple reason that they were not Gordon Brown and Labour.

This means that, on wining power (eventually), Cameron was faced with the expectation of the nation, but the lukewarm support of the majority. Hence why the eleven months he has so far spent in charge have been quite tough on him. People were fed up with Brown, and expected Cameron to change things – even though many only voted for Cameron because he wasn’t Brown.

Obama has fared little better in America. His policies have come under attack, he suffered heavily in the mid-terms and lost control of the House of Representatives. Yet as he gears up for the 2012 election, he is still the favourite to win, and enter the White House for a second term. This is because, despite having low ratings in the opinion polls and having had a relatively uneventful first term, Obama still faces no real threat from the Republicans.

David Cameron should therefore be watching events on the other side of the Atlantic with interest. Whilst he might not share political agreements with Obama, he can learn a lot from his electioneering, his organisation and his ability to connect with the electorate.

David Cameron faces a tough few weeks. May 5 will be a key moment for his premiership, and will either be a huge boost or a major setback. The paused in NHS reforms, increasing British involvement in Libya, anger over tuition fees and coalition splits are all starting to take their toll on Cameron. He should not be completely disheartened, as polls today show that the Conservatives are equal with Labour on 40% if there was an election tomorrow. There is still a lot of work to be done, however, and David Cameron could do much worse than learn from Barack Obama.

While we often, rightly, look towards the mega-rich to donate more of their money – in the mould of Bill Gates – we should not forget the rest of the population.

In a speech to the European Association for Philanthropy & Giving, Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary asked the UK to follow the lead of the United States, where people on middle incomes tend to give far larger amounts to good causes.

In one statistic, the Culture Secretary highlighted how in the United States average per capita giving to culture was £37, compared with just £6 in the UK.

Now some say that the recession has meant that families simply don’t have the ability to give as much money to good causes – and I don’t for one moment wish to ignore their difficulties – but this can’t all be blamed on the current financial crisis as an interesting Times piece (£) recently highlighted.

Aid organisations have reported a startling increase in the number of middle-class Indian households giving to charity. In less than three years the number of donors to charity has grown from 2,000 to 100,000 – giving on average around £40 per month. This is around 2.1% of their income.

This is despite living in country where per capita PPP-adjusted GDP was just $3,290 and with around 20% of the population below the poverty line.

So we should not merely blame reductions in philanthropy on our economic situation. A decrease in giving is not something that’s gradually emerged over the past few years since the Credit Crunch either. Indeed, this is a trend which has been accelerating over the previous decade.

One statistic from the 2009 UK Giving Survey showed that 22.8m adults – 46% of the total – are not giving money at all, up from 33% ten years ago. The amount of money that people are giving may have increased in cash terms, but the base from which it is coming from is getting narrower. Moreover, according to NCVO’s Funding Commission many of our donors are getting older and there is a problem in re-engaging with previous donors as well as attracting new ones.

This is clearly not sustainable.

The Government’s Giving White Paper has some excellent ideas in this area and it is pleasing to see that the Office for Civil Society looking at the issue of funding for the Big Society from every angle – for example giving time is just as important as giving money.

But more than anything else this is going to require a massive culture change.

An interesting idea from the Charities’ Aid Foundation (CAF) is to seek to mirror the “Giving Pledge” which has been so successful in the US. This kind of visible philanthropic leadership is exactly the kind of thing that Britain needs to see more.

They suggest that Coalition MPs and Ministers should sign a pledge to start with. But why not go further?

If we are going to see truly large increases in giving, this has to driven from the bottom up rather than the top down. So perhaps instead of bombarding people with partisan literature for the next four years, political parties should distribute a version of the Giving Pledge throughout the country – asking people to give a proportion of their income to charitable causes each year.

If we could get just one million (5% of the people who currently do not give money to charity) to give £10 a month, we could raise £120,000,000 – over half of what the Office of Civil Society is spending on the Transition Fund.

The Big Society is going to cost money. We cannot rejuvenate our society, create a new culture of voluntarism and co-operation without funding institutions and organisations to mobilise this. However we cannot just look to the Government, we need to look to each other and particularly those who are better off than others to contribute.

There are many reasons why this decentralised funding model would be better, but ultimately given our financial situation we don’t have any alternative.

This will be difficult, particularly as we face a squeeze in real incomes, as people have been made to believe – since the Second World War – that their contribution to society is made through taxation and there is little need for them to give to charity. But if the Government is serious about the Big Society this is one of the largest hurdles that it must overcome.

Otherwise, there is a danger that with the loss of public sector funding, the Big Society may end up running on empty.

Whenever these horrendous tragedies happen in the USA, people across the political spectrum try to find various scapegoats (whilst ignoring obvious issues like mental health care and gun control).  In the past, hip hop and artists such as Marilyn Manson have had the finger pointed at them for their occasionally violent lyrics.  Artists like Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, Dr Dre and Eminem have been accused of encouraging violence by commentators and politicians in the past.  Marilyn Manson had the finger pointed directly at him by some after the Columbine Massacre.  And it isn’t just figures on the Republican right who do this, more moderate figures such as David Cameron (accusing hip hop of encouraging gun crime) and Tipper Gore (to whom country-punk band Furnaceface offered a clear musical riposte) have also made the false link between music and violence.

They are all, of course, wrong.  If somebody is deranged enough to want to shoot a number of people or commit a violent crime, then it is unlikely that they will need to encouragement of a hip hop song or apolitical speech to do that.  It always intrigued me that people were keen to point the finger at the often finely crafted rhymes of hip hop for encouraging violence, whilst ignoring equally violent lyrics in other music.  What about Johnny Cash (“I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die”; “took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down”), Bruce Springsteen (“he came home too drunk from mixing Tanqueray and wine.  He got a gun, shot a nigh clerk, now they call him Johnny 99”), Jimmie Rodgers (Frankie and Johnny) or even the Carter Family (Banks of the Ohio).  Did they all encourage violence too?

False scapegoats for these events are just that – false.  Any attempt to link such tregedies to music or political rhetoric is just plain wrong.  Every time that is done, free speech is threatened as is, in this case, freedom in political debate.  Such tragedies are often inexplicable and people, who know next to nothing of the circumstances, should not try to cheapen the events by making simplistic and wrong causal links.

The attempts from a very small but vocal social media minority to link the shootings in Arizona to the words of some politicians are wrong, insensitive and thoroughly dangerous for political discourse.  We should be offering our condolences to the victims of this atrocity, rather than making false causal links and cheapening political debate.  The actions of lunatics can not be explained away by simplistically linking them to musician’s lyrics or political rhetoric.  It is time that we stopped looking for these easy scapegoats.

He gave an interview to Bill Kristol’s ‘Weekly Standard’ magazine a few days ago.  In the interview he says of racial segregation in 1960s Yazoo City Mississippi:

“I just don’t remember it as being that bad.”

In the same interview he lauds the role of Citizens’ Councils in the 1960s and recalls the day when Martin Luther King came to his home town:

“I don’t really remember. The truth is, we couldn’t hear very well. We were sort of out there on the periphery. We just sat on our cars, watching the girls, talking, doing what boys do. We paid more attention to the girls than to King.”

I’ll leave you to decide your view on his attitude to Martin Luther King.  But his other two comments really have to be addressed.

His suggestion that Mississippi “wasn’t that bad” in the 1960’s verges on horrifying.  Segregation was strict, lynchings were still common place and in a state that had a black population of over 40%, only 2% were registered to vote.  This site lists just some of the horrifying events that happened in Mississippi in the 1960s:

• · 1961 – Herbert Lee, a Negro who had been active in voter registration, was shot and killed by white state representative E. H. Hurst in downtown Liberty. No prosecution was undertaken, the authorities explaining that the representative had shot in self-defence.
• 1962 – Two people killed and over seventy people injured in riots about the admission of James Meredith, a black student, to the University of Mississippi
• 1963 – Civil rights supporter Medger Evers is shot by a white supremacist and Citizens’ Council members
• 1964 – Three civil rights workers were murdered and found in a dam
• 1965 - Allie W. Shelby is shot to death in the Hinds County Jailhouse in Jackson, Mississippi after having been arrested, convicted, and sentenced to six months on charges of making indecent gestures towards a white woman
• 1966 – A black man is murdered by klansmen in Natchez

I don’t know what Hayley Barbor’s definition of not too bad is.  But 1960s Mississippi sounds like it was a horrendous place to be black.

And then there is the role of the Citizens’ Councils.  It turns out that they weren’t the benevolent organisations Barbour describes.  Indeed, they were both white supremacist and campaigners for strict segregation.  It is shocking that an apparently respected politician in 2010 is lionising them.

At least Barbour has had the decency to apologise for his remarks.  He said:

When asked why my hometown in Mississippi did not suffer the same racial violence when I was a young man that accompanied other towns’ integration efforts, I accurately said the community leadership wouldn’t tolerate it and helped prevent violence there. My point was my town rejected the Ku Klux Klan, but nobody should construe that to mean I think the town leadership were saints, either. Their vehicle, called the “Citizens Council,” is totally indefensible, as is segregation. It was a difficult and painful era for Mississippi, the rest of the country, and especially African Americans who were persecuted in that time.

But the truth is that he said it initially before backtracking.  We can only speculate about why that was the case.  Could he be playing, in advance of GOP primary season, the same ‘Southern strategy’ of Goldwater in 1968 (read Black & Black’s the Rise of Southern Republicans for a vivid description of how the GOP once the party of Southern blacks completely alienated them in Goldwater’s campaign) or Nixon in 1972 and 1976 or Reagan, with his attacks on ‘welfare queens’ in 1980?

Hopefully these words will show that Barbour is utterly unsuited to national office.  They certainly display a man with little political judgement and an ability to say things that are utterly crass, idiotic and offensive.

Since that point, the Republican Party has gradually edged away from progressive ideas.  Thankfully, the old battles over civil rights for black people have largely been won.  The question that US legislators are now asking is whether it is acceptable for the US Government and US Army to actively discriminate against gay and lesbian citizens and prevent them serving their country.  To any progressive, the answer must be no.  To around 80 per cent of Republican Senators, the answer to that question is, apparently, yes.

On Saturday, only six Republican Senators voted for repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.  Thirty three Republican Senators voted against it.  They failed to advance a single convincing argument about why such state sponsored discrimination was acceptable.  At the same time as 80 per cent of Republican Senators voted against repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, a poll showed that 80 per cent of Americans were in favour of repeal.  Senator John McCain continued his gradual shift away from decent values by leading the opposition to repeal – a stance summed up nicely by the Atlantic.

I’m often told that as a UK Conservative, I should be supportive of the Republican Party in the USA.  What I don’t understand is why I should be at all sympathetic to a party that talks the language of freedom but only seems concerned about the freedom to make money.  A Party that talks about freedom but is unprepared to end overt discrimination against homosexuals and is keen to pry on most aspects of individuals’ private lives is not one I can feel a great deal of sympathy with.  Nor do I understand why I should be sympathetic to a party that so often parrots socially reactionary ideas, or one which left President Obama to inherit a catastrophic economic situation and record budget deficit.

Until the Republican Party moves towards more progressive ideas, starts accepting that all discrimination is wrong and starts to believe that freedom doesn’t just belong in the economic sphere, it will be difficult for progressive Conservatives in the UK to feel much instinctive sympathy with the US Republican Party.

Who should chaperone Palin?

Daniel Hannan – Hannan backed Obama in the last Presidential election but he has since changed his mind. Famous in America for going on TV to denounce the NHS, he has tried to hold Tea Party events in the UK. Daniel is a Conservative who is well connected on the British liberal-right.

Tim Montgomerie –  Montgomerie continued to support George W Bush even when it felt like just about every other European was rejecting him. Tim, as editor of ConservativeHome UK and founder of ConservativeHome USA, has good contacts in the Conservative movement on both sides of the pond.

Nigel Farage – Farage is the media savvy leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), who like to claim they are the British Tea Party. If the Conservative hierarchy rejects Sarah she can cause them maximum discomfort by embracing Farage.

Who should conduct the set-piece interview?

Martin Bashir –  This is the dangerous choice. Bashir has a high profile in both the UK and USA because of his famous interviews with Diana and then Michael Jackson. He won’t hold back on questions and will try his hardest to turn this into must watch TV by finding things to expose.

Sir David Frost – This is the Statesman’s choice. Frost has interviewed every President from Nixon to Dubya. He has an easy manner but this pleasant style was always very affective in getting politicians to slip their guard. Sir David is currently in retirement so it is not certain he would want to interview Palin.

Adam Bolton – This is the safe choice. Bolton works for Sky News who are part of the Fox media empire. He is a respected political reporter and is savvy enough to ask probing questions without upsetting his paymasters. Sky News is restricted to cable TV so the interview will not pick-up a huge British audience but this doesn’t really matter as it’s the American audience that counts.

What will the British Conservative Party do?

Palin’s visit could be tricky for the Conservative party to manage.  On one hand Palin is an important figure in the Republicans – a sister party of the Tories – but on the other hand she is a divisive figure. President Obama may not be too happy for the Prime Minister to offer Sarah a Statesman like photo opportunity.

I wouldn’t be surprised if David Cameron had an unfortunate clash in his diary, such as visiting out troops in Afghanistan, which would mean he misses Pailn’s visit. George Osborne can then have a Conservative ‘power conference’ with Palin. An added advantage to this happening is that Osborne is the perfect person to tell Palin about the financial choices a fiscally concerned government has to make.

What will the British public’s reaction be?

The vast majority of the public will not give a second thought to Sarah’s visit to London, unless some sort of controversy happens. In Britain tea parties are sedate affairs where you eat scones and politics – or religion – is never ever discussed. But of course impressing us Brits is not the purpose of Palin’s visit. All her team’s focus will be on how she can impress Americans.  London will just be a brief backdrop to her continuing adventure.

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As the repercussions from the mid-term elections become clear, a new poll discussed at the Huffington Post shows quite how detached the Tea Party are from mainstream opinions and how this might cause trouble for the GOP in 2012.  My money is still on an easy Obama victory in two years time.

Hopefully an easy victory is also what the England cricket team will achieve down under.  The first test starts this evening and, in his blog, Jonathan Agnew predicts that we will win 3-1.  The BBC also have a helpful guide to the best way to watch as much cricket as possible and still to function!