MAIL COMMENT: Is there any substance to Obama's style?

Oh, how the rhetoric soared and the star-studded delegates cheered, as the first black presidential candidate promised to 'keep the American dream alive'. 

But (not with-standing a breathless BBC, which declared Obama's address among the most important in U.S. political history), this was no Martin Luther King 'I Have a Dream' moment. 

Tough talk: But will Obama deliver?

Dripping with emotion, heavy on the admittedly remarkable Obama life story and feminised for the women's vote Obama so desperately needs, it was  -  like everything else we have seen from Denver this week  -  more schmaltz than substance.

True, there were some policies: Tax reductions for working families, funded by cuts to government waste, health care coverage for all Americans.

But nothing that hasn't been the bedrock of centre-Left politics for a generation.

And wasn't the rock stadium/Greek temple setting, much like his 'JFK' speech in Berlin a few weeks ago, a little hubristic?

Coming at the end of a convention in which the Democrats were more determined to deliver a saccharinecoated show of unity than a programme for the White House, voters may just be wondering what exactly they are supposed to be signing up to.

Yes, Obama is not the loathed President Bush, but he will surely need to offer more.

On the Republican side, John McCain, must be pinching himself.

Two months ago he was dead in the water, derided as too old and infected by the Bush years.

Today, they stand neck and neck in the polls and McCain, 72, is being portrayed as the radical one.

His selection of Sarah Palin, a strong conservative who opposes abortion, as his surprise running mate, could be a masterstroke  -  stealing the votes of those women so bitter at the manner of Obama's defeat of Hillary Clinton they just might vote Republican.

For the first time since the Obama story began, and with the Republican convention about to start, all eyes are on McCain.

He could still fall short. Obama may yet deliver, and take his once-preordained place in history. But what a race we now have. 

The spy next door

Park wardens armed with police powers by the Home Office...a council issuing 'wanted' photographs of suspected litterbugs...Even Orwell would rub his eyes at the past week in Snitchers' Britain. 

Now it emerges that  -  not content with turning armies of public servants into spies  -  councils are recruiting the public too.

These snoopers, passed off, innocuously, as environmental volunteers, will patrol the streets looking for litter louts, dog foulers and those failing to follow recycling protocol.

Councils, boasting the power to issue fines of £60 or more for the most minor of misdemeanours, will doubtless do the rest.

The 'volunteers' are described by town halls as 'people who care about the environment'.

Really? Stasi-style informants, turning their neighbours in to the state, more like.

Of course, fly-tipping, dumping cars and the vandalism of public places scar communities, and those responsible should be caught.

But, if law-abiding householders are needlessly victimised, and spied upon, they will no longer pick up the phone when they see such crimes taking place, out of reluctance to join a discredited Snooper State. 

What a sad state of affairs that would be. And our interfering, Big Brother bureaucrats would only have themselves to blame.