I suppose that if I want to be fashionable, I ought to start describing myself as Blackpool’s answer to Barack Obama. Everybody else is leaping on the bandwagon. Anywawy, I wonder how many of the so-called “Obamacons” could name a single one of his policies. Whilst he might not be as left wing as Mitt Romney on the Michigan car industry, neither does he sound like a natural Conservative. Policy wise, I’m more comfortable with John McCain – though none on either side is perfect – but I worry that some will be put off by his age.

That said, it takes a heart made of finest flint not to feel inspired by Barack Obama’s soaring rhetoric and the message of ‘hope’ and ‘change’. But once you walk out of that sports hall, you still need to ask yourself about hard detail. And at least he isn’t Hilary Clinton, that machine politician, pre-programmed even down to ‘emotion-to-order’ in the eyes of some cynics – she represents everything which is wrong with modern politics.

American politics can be fun and interesting to observe from a distance, but it is wrong to think that there is much we can learn to apply here. Our parliamentary system can never replicate the American presidential system. People also keep on saying that we need primaries in this country. Well if I can just make one teensy-weensy little claim-to-fame – I was selected in an open primary which rivalled that of Iowa’s in its intensity. Which is more than Joan Humble can say after the backroom shenanigans in Lancaster & Fleetwood.