Tuesday 16th September 2008 – 23:15 GMT, Ziemia Cieszynska

I've finished The Audacity of Hope and maybe later on I will write a bit more about it. For now, two thing particularly struck me.

Firstly two facts that really shocked me:

1. In some high schools in America, the students are sent home every day at 1:30 “because the school district couldn't afford to keep teachers for a full school day”
2. “Each year more than twenty thousand workers are fired or lose wages simply for trying to organise or join unions” (unfortunately, no reference given)

Secondly, I was surprised to find a couple of areas of common ground between Obama and Morris/McGann – on performance related pay for teachers (a good thing), and on the obscenity of current levels of executive pay, especially the fact that the richest people make most of their money as capital gains (taxed at 15%) rather than income (taxed at 30%), meaning they pay less tax as a proportion of their total earnings than those anywhere else in the income spectrum.

I'm not sure exactly what this means. It could just be chance that some issues overlap between the two books. But I wonder whether these small areas of common ground are actually really important, as some of the few things that people from across a seriously divided political spectrum can agree on. They could perhaps provide the basis for some non-partisan work of the kind Obama is so keen on.