Election Fever

It is interesting to see how effective the race to be the Democratic candidate for the US presidency has been in exposing Hillary Clinton as organisationally hopeless at best, but also how unashamedly and cynically duplicitous she is prepared to be; her campaign appears to be in it's death throes thank goodiness.

If only there had been a similar series of elections over here for the leadership of the Labour party, and hence Prime Minister. Instead Gordon Brown's 'coronation' told us nothing we didn't know already, which was not much at that - a rather dour Scot who had appeared moderately competent as Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was thought to hold beliefs more in line with traditional Labour values than Tony Blair ever had, and who had a burning desire to be PM. Now though we know the truth. His self-belief was misplaced, and his government is marked only by directionless mediocrity. A government of 'all the talents', remember that?

At least the London mayoral election is providing entertainment. The latest (shock! horror!) revelation that Ken has 5 (yes, 5!) children. What does that prove? Only that Ken is considerably better at organising his love life than Boris, I suppose... It is a sad comment on modern politics that a man who would struggle to organise a piss-up in a brewery and is known only as a bumbling TV personality is ahead in the polls, while his main opponent, for all his faults, has already shown himself to be more than competent, a man who was able to stand up to the Blair and the New Labour machine when the Tories certainly couldn't. And surely he's unique among politicians with his ability to deliver an IT project on time and within budget. Even David Cameron acknowledges Ken's successes, however much he does so through gritted teeth. I'm being unfair to Boris though, the proverbial piss-up is probably the one thing he could organise.

But the important election of course is the one in Zimbabwe, which seems to be drifting beyond the radar of the British press even as it appears to be moving slowly towards a predictable conclusion with a terrible, loathsome despot hanging on to power, and wreaking vengeance on those who threatened to end it. We are of course utterly powerless to intervene, unless you subscribe to Tony Blair's world view. He repeatedly refused to apologise for the overthrow of Saddam Hussain; maybe then he should be apologising for failing to topple Robert Mugabe. He can't have it both ways. If only Zimbabwe had vast untapped oil reserves...