Political intrigue in Germany ahead of September’s elections.  Will Angela Merkel be able to free herself from the constraints of the Grand Coalition?  Her personal popularity suggests so, but it’s not clear whether this will spill over into unequivocal support for her Christian Democrats.

In the context of the ongoing rants at business news channel CNBC over Obama’s economic policies, Daniel de Groot at Open Left links to a fascinating Pew poll (from October) that compares how well-informed various Americans are depending on where they get their information from.  Some obvious findings (doing well, the New Yorker and the BBC; doing badly, Fox News and religious radio), but also some surprises (ESPN outpolls CNN, for example).  And take pride: a whole 28% of Americans can name the British PM.                    photo credit: holger doelle

Also from Open Left, it had been taken for granted that party identification was in inexorable decline, but has Obama (or indeed, Bush) stemmed the tide of this phenomenon, and set Democrats on a long-term upward trajectory?  Sure looks like it.

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department has entered the blogosphere.  Some good catch-up clips from her recent travels in Europe and the Middle East (a visit that serves as the prologue to President Obama’s visit next month).  The FT’s Brussels Blog reports on the masterfully executed political strategy which was her visit to the European Parliament.

photo credit: carf

“Lexington”, who writes the Economist’s weekly column on America, now has his own blog.  This will be the Economist’s second blog on American politics, the other being the long-running Democracy in America.  Slightly off topic perhaps, the latter yesterday considered the nefarious consequences of British visa restrictions (which I discussed briefly last week) on… clowns.

Talking of the Economist, there have been a few articles about friendship groups and social networks recently, but for my money, this article rises above the pack.  Check out “Primates on Facebook: even online, the neocortex is the limit“, and ponder whether you have enough friends to surpass the “Dunbar number”.

One of the oddest things about our political system is that, in all likelihood, the broad centre-left of Labour and Lib-Dem will top 50% in next year’s election, but it looks pretty certain that a Tory government will be returned.  With this in mind, and allusions to the 80s along the lines of my own Thatcher rant, Polly Toynbee eyes electoral reform.

And finally… Andrew Sullivan links to a welcome if unusually frank expression of opinion by a British PM on US politics: Gordon Brown on California’s homophobic proposition 8.