The Time For Talking Is Over

In Britain there is a reluctance to acknowledge, at least beyond the media, any interest in the events that are unfolding thousands of miles away in the States as people continue to cast their votes. Which way you want the contest to go usually depends on your politics, I know that seems obvious but there are people on the right-wing in the U.K who want Barack Obama to win (Ian Dale nailed his colours to Barack's mast at the weekend) and people on the left of centre who want the old man to win.

I want Barack Obama to win and I want him to win big. I'm restless for change in the big world order, I want to see a new approach to world issues, a new approach to our ever shrinking world. Yes, you can pick holes in both candidates electoral policies and you can say that the coverage has been skewed towards the younger man but the thought of Sarah Palin being the President of the Free World during the next five or six years fills me with horror, the woman reaffirms every prejudice it's possible to have against gun toting Americans. She needs to vanish as quickly as Dan Quayle.

I can remember the first time I stayed up all night to watch the Presidential Election - it would have been 1981, the year Jimmy Carter lost to Ronnie Reagan. The best coverage that year was on ITV and it had nothing to do with the election and everything to do with the screening of an edition of 'Ugly George'. Ugly George was basically an ugly American dude who persuaded women to take their clothes off in public for very little money. It sounds so tacky nearly thirty years on and it was - but this was before Channel 4 and the only time you got to see naked women on T.V was if the BBC let Dennis Potter on or they showed that bits and bobs under the disguise of 'art' such as Caligula or ITV had Cleopatra. Anyway that evening ended in disappoint, not because of a lack of nudity - there was plenty of flesh on show - but because Jimmy Carter who had the best long term economic strategy at the time lost. Americans were too in love with their cars and the idea of low taxation to follow his dream and instead voted for the person who would cosy up with our own Mrs Thatcher.

So good luck Barack.