Boss Radio

The first time I read that it was in a political discussion on one of the BBC forums 8 years ago. The writer wasn't 100% serious. In the last couple of months I've heard it said twice on the BBC World Service by people from less well-off nations, and they were quite serious.

Their argument went 'The US is the world's only super-power, the results of their election therefore affect the whole world, therefore the whole world should have a say in it'.

I thought they were being ridiculous.

I've changed my mind.

It's not that I know for absolute certain who I'd vote for, or why. I mean, initially I'd had voted for the bass-player, now I can't even remember his name. My logic there was 'The guy's a musician, a bass player maybe, but still a musician'. I never met a musician I didn't like, they're all good people (OK, Rod Stewart was a bit of a rissole, but he wasn't really a musician, he couldn't even get the chords to 'Dirty old town' right). What could go wrong?

The bass player dropped out.

No problem, Hillary Clinton was the next obvious choice, people were all warning in dark mysterious undertones that you vote for Hillary, you get Bill as well. To me that was the deal clincher. Bill balanced the budget and still found time to dismantle the IRA, and the worst the opposition could throw at him was that he'd had a blow job. Yup, it was Hillary for me.

Obama won the nomination.

OK, I'll take McCain, he seems like a straight guy and he says a lot of stuff that I agree with. Then he goes and chooses the hockey puck (I think you'll find that's 'Mom' - The Man in the Hat) and suddenly Obama's looking good...

I remember Sarah Palin from '80 Rock', her dad was in Monty Python's Flying Circus and, boy, doesn't it show? She lives in Alaska, she represents Alaska, and pre-McCain she didn't believe in global warming. If she'd just moved from her house overlooking Russia to one on the west coast she may have noticed the canoes full of those Eskimo blokes coming ashore. That'd be the Inupiaq peoples of Shishmaref whose homes are being lost to the sea as the ice barrier that protected their coastline, and the permafrost upon which their homes were built, melt.

Nowadays, of course, she does believe in global warming, because McCain believes in it, and he's obviously a jolly persuasive guy, but she still doesn't believe it's man-made. Personally I don't care if it's man-made or not, I just want the governments of the world to do something about it, and if I'd been able to vote in the US elections 8 years ago they wouldn't have needed the judiciary to decide who won, ain't no way Bush would have got in only to tear up the Kyoto Protocol.

But if the rest of the world gets to vote in US elections, what's in it for the good people of the USA?

This is the good bit. They get to vote in all the rest of the elections around the world.

Let's be honest here, there's no denying that the results of the world's elections affect America. Instead of declaring semi-war on Nicaragua they could have just voted the Communists out, and think of how much easier life would be if they'd been able to vote in the Iraqi and Iranian elections. Yup. It's a fair swap. We get to vote for president of the worldUSA, and they get to vote in our elections. Better still, let's let everyone in the world vote in everyone else's elections. That'd sure get rid of Mugabe and Kim. Universal suffrage. You know it makes sense.

Heh.

Now let's see Cameron get in.