Washington's conspiracy theorists are preparing a nasty welcome for Britain's new prime minister. Wayne Madsen, a former US navy intelligence officer, is peddling the yarn that Gordon Brown was on the CIA payroll. Citing British intelligence sources, Madsen's website Undernews claims: "When Gordon Brown was a student at the University of Edinburgh… the young Labour and anti-apartheid activist was handed a list by an individual known to be a top CIA agent based in Britain. On the list were the names of a number of British socialists and anti-apartheid activists. Although Brown was said not to have known of his American contact's intelligence ties at the time, the British intelligence sources revealed that Brown has been on the CIA's payroll ever since he took possession of the list." Madsen, author of Jaded Tasks: Brass Plates, Black Ops and Big Oil, has a considerable following among America's paranoid fraternity.
Campaigning on the campuses
There are sharp struggles under way among the various presidential campaigns to win the biggest US youth vote since the days of the baby boomers in the 1960s and 1970s. The "millennial generation"—voters between the ages of 18 and 29—numbers 42m. This youth vote was crucial in several of the tight congressional races last November. Democratic congressman Joe Courtney won what had been a safe Republican seat in Connecticut by a mere 83 votes, thanks to relentless campaigning on campuses against the Iraq war and the rising cost of college loans. Hillary Clinton, who has separate recruiting organisations for male and female college voters, is working the websites. She generated almost 1m hits by asking the YouTube audience to pick her official campaign song. Barack Obama has recruited Hans Riemer, former political director of Rock the Vote, to run his youth campaign, which features a massive effort to get volunteers from the New England college circuit to help campaign in the New Hampshire primary. Meanwhile, the Republicans are using more traditional free market tactics. Mitt Romney has devised a "students for Mitt" scheme, which pays college students $100 for every $1,000 they raise for his campaign.
Hoodlums for Hillary?
The key marginal state of Florida, fourth most populous after California, Texas and New York, is a must-win for both parties. But it looks to be shifting into the Democratic camp, thanks to convicted criminals. Florida used to be one of three states, along with Kentucky and Virginia, where conviction for a felony meant losing voting rights. Florida has now changed the law, and the state's department of law enforcement reckons that 628,000 former felons will be coming on to the voting rolls. The department of corrections, still winnowing its files to take account of those who have died, says it could be as many as a million. The Democrats have not exactly set up organisations called "Hoodlums for Hillary" or "Burglars for Barack," but they know that the majority of those who can be enticed to the polls will vote Democratic.
Taxing the embassies
As George Bush's favourite ally slopes off into retirement, hapless employees of the British embassy in Washington know just what it is like to be on the receiving end of the special relationship. It means being singled out for a special visit from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the US taxman. The IRS has launched special audits, going through every penny of income of all the non-diplomatic staff of the British and French embassies, and the EU mission. As a result, the IRS now claims that some 5,500 people in the embassies and international institutions like the World Bank "have outstanding issues with their tax returns" and the IRS is licking its chops at the prospect of over $100m coming its way. The British embassy (that is, the British taxpayer) has agreed to compensate its employees to the tune of some $20m. After desperate representations by the Brits, the IRS has agreed to take only 15 ounces of flesh rather than the full pound, and is now demanding back taxes for just the past four years. But it is also demanding taxes on "compensation" paid by embassies to their staff for the higher social security charges they must pay, since the staff are classified as self-employed. Worst of all, embassy employees were told they could put away up to $44,000 a year tax-free for their retirement plans. The IRS now insists that the maximum allowed is $15,000 a year; it wants back taxes on the rest. The French and now the German and EU staff, who have yet to be promised compensation, are talking of strikes and lawsuits, and complaining this is all a ploy to punish them and to help finance the Iraq war. The Brits suspect that they were included in the probe in order to refute such claims. The Russians and Chinese, however, are laughing all the way to the bank. For traditional reasons, they do not employ local employees, and so claim that all their embassy staff are diplomats—and therefore not liable to taxes.
