Giuliani gives the true believers some red meat.

I'm sorry but this didn't wash with me. Sure there was plenty of red meat for the Republican supporters but the speech was built on a false premise.

He asked that we imagine looking at the job applications of both candidates with their names and their party affiliation excluded. He didn't mention whether or not the job applications mentioned the age of the potential employee. Because we all know that, in most business', John McCain would be considered well past retirement age and would be excluded even from an interview. That's not pleasant, but it's a fact.

He then wandered round tried and tested Republican talking points - giving quite good lines - but distorting like crazy in order to make his points. This was not a speech to bring around floating voters, this was for the true believers.

On Iraq he stated:

The Democratic leader in the Senate said so: "America has lost." Well, if America lost, who won? Al Qaida? Bin Laden?

Most people realise that al Qaeda represent a tiny fraction of the forces that the US face in Iraq so it's simply a cheap point put together to excite the already converted.

He then, astonishingly in my opinion, brought up Georgia which hardly represented McCain's finest moment.

Within hours, he established a very strong, informed position that let the world know exactly how he'll respond as President. At exactly the right time, John McCain said, "We're all Georgians."

And that's all he did, in fact it's all that's ever going to be done. Talk tough in Washington whilst doing bugger all. We are not going to start WWIII for Georgia and we have made that abundantly clear. The fact that McCain proposes weakening Nato by inviting in a country that we have already shown we are not willing to go to war for, strikes me as a negative on McCain's scorecard, not the positive that Giuliani appears to be selling it as.

By the time he got to the end he was utterly off the rails claiming that Sarah Palin "has more executive experience than the entire Democratic ticket" and referencing the UN so that the Republicans could give it their customary boo.

It was great fun, but it was an awful pile of nonsense.

Tags: Giuliani, Republican National Convention, McCain, Palin