Well, though it's my birthday today and Obama didn't send me a card I will be magnanimous and wish him well on the first anniversary of the his birthday in office. Let's face it Obama is in need of soalce after yesterday's political earthquake in Massachusetts as Republican Scott Brown took Ted Kennedy's old seat.

The turnaround in Obama's political fortunes has been underway for 12 months but Massachusetts has to be a new low and watershed moment for him and his raft of spend-spend initiatives. As Maggie Thatcher said, "That's the trouble with socialists, eventually you run out of other people's money."

But when you do do a series of dirty-behind-closed-doors deals to buy votes for your hellishly expensive pet legislative projects even blue collar Massachusetts liberals can tell 'change' just morphed in 'Chicago-style politics'. Worse, when Mass. already has universal helathcare that its citizens are bing asked to stump up to pay for those states who were 'bought off', like Nebraska.

Obama's tenure looks to be a short one. While Clinton (in a similar position in 1994) reassessed and stole some key conservative economic policies to buy back public favour it is hard to see Obama doing the same. if anything his far-left politics has already run its course with what remains a mostly conservative US electorate.