Our party leaders are racing to jump on board the Obama bandwagon.

David Cameron taunted Gordon Brown in the Commons by asking whether he still believed it was "no time for a novice" - a reference to Brown's speech to Labour's annual conference.

The Tory leader sees the election of Barack Obama as proof that change can be a good thing.

From his point of view, it shows that what people want is a fresh face, like the US President-elect or, indeed, Mr Cameron.

The Prime Minister draws a different lesson. Writing in the Observer, he argues that Obama's victory reflects "the collapse of a failed laissez-faire dogma" and what he calls "the old free market fundamentalism".

In other words, it's a victory for the left.

We also read in the Sunday Mirror that Labour is planning massive tax cuts, apparently costing the Treasury £15 billion.

This is in keeping with Mr Brown's admiration for Obama, who also promised tax cuts during his election campaign.

At the same time, Labour is boasting about its plans to continue massive levels of public spending.

There's been a lot of speculation about what Barack Obama's victory will mean Britain.

But it looks like the immediate effect will be to give the Government an excuse to borrow even more.

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Lots of people like to bash the Daily Mail for being a scurrilous right-wing rag, but all credit to them for uncovering the way councils are using legislation nominally aimed at terrorists to spy on ordinary residents.

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act allows public bodies to use "investigatory powers" such as "the interception of communications" and "covert surveillance" to gather information. In practice, this means things like opening people's mail and putting up hidden cameras to record their movements.

Officially, the Act is there to help "the security and intelligence agencies, law enforcement and other public authorities" do their job. Which sounds reasonable enough.

Even in these cynical times, most of us would assume the security and intelligence agencies focus their efforts on fighting terrorism or serious organised crime, and if a little phone tapping or secret filming is going to help then all power to them.

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You may think our beloved Mayor is the most powerful politician in London, but he has a rival - a chap by the name of Tony McNulty.

Mr McNulty (Lab Harrow East), a welfare minister, doubles up as "The Minister for London", supposedly giving the capital a larger voice in the machinery of Government.

Last week he attended the first meeting of the Council of Regional Ministers, a new body set up by Gordon Brown as part of the Prime Minister's efforts to steer Britain through the financial crisis.

It includes the other Ministers of the English regions (London is considered a region) as well as Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Ministers.

A press release issued by the Government's News Distribution Service states: "Helping savers, small businesses and homeowners in London through the worldwide economic problems was top of the agenda."

But what is Mr McNulty going to do about it? As Minister for London he has no powers whatsoever.

As blogger Dizzy points out, the clue comes later on in the release, when it states that the council's remit includes: "[to] disseminate key messages for Regional Ministers to use in their discussions in the regions. This will include the narrative agreed by the NEC."

The NEC in this case is the National Economic Council - another of Mr Brown's new committees - which includes senior Cabinet members but not Mr McNulty.

In other words, his role is not actually to tell the Government what we think, but to tell us what the Government thinks.

It gets worse. He has two assistants - Labour MPs Karen Buck (Regents Park and Kensington North) and Clive Efford (Eltham).

Another press release, this time from the Labour Party, states that these two will "will liaise with and support the work of regional ministers and national ministers."

Oh yes, and they will also "help coordinate the Labour Party's campaigns in regions and nations, with a special emphasis on economic issues".

So their role is actually to pump out party propaganda.

Of course, Labour is entitled to campaign, and to appoint people to lead its campaigns in London. That's part of democracy.

But dressing it up as an attempt to help us pay our mortgages is wretched.

If anyone can prove me wrong with real examples of anything useful Mr McNulty has done for the capital, do let me know.

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There's a thin line between genius and madness. It's not immediately clear which side of the divide Gordon Brown has landed with his Cabinet reshuffle.

Tony Blair once said that the true measure of whether Labour had really changed, and embraced his "New Labour" project, would be if it learned to love Peter Mandelson.

It was an admission that his good friend Mr Mandelson was loathed by sections of the party.

By that yardstick, the party hasn't changed very much. The new Business Secretary remains a divisive figure today.

So has Mr Brown made a mistake bringing him back?

To answer that question, one needs to look at what lies behind Mr Mandelson's unpopularity.

Media coverage of his return to the Cabinet has focused partly on the fact that he has already been in the Government twice - and was forced to resign both times (although, on the second occasion at least, it soon transpired that he had actually done nothing wrong).

But while this may raise questions about his fitness for office today, it has little to do with the concern felt by some Labour MPs.

The truth is that some Labour politicians still despise Mr Mandelson for his role in transforming Labour from an election-losing vehicle for the left, into a party which embraced the free market, stole the centre ground and won three election victories.

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Labour backbenchers are kidding themselves if they think their fortunes will improve by sacking Gordon Brown.

It's understandable if MPs are panicking. After a good ten years of walking all over the Conservatives, they now face not just defeat at the next General Election but the prospect of a landslide victory for David Cameron's party, which Labour could take a decade to recover from.

And the analysis put forward by the likes of Jon Cruddas, MP for Dagenham, is correct. Labour has no answer to Mr Cameron's call for greater social justice and the importance of the family.

The government is good at talking about the economy and public services in abstract terms, but not so good at talking about people.

But this reflects the shallowness of the whole New Labour project, which began in the mid-1990s and defined Labour almost solely by what it was not - not the Tories and not an old-style, working class party of the left.

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