PRESIDENT Joe Biden insists that he is still running. He has not said in which direction. He needs to decide quickly before someone makes up his mind for him. Some expect the Democratic Party to push him over the edge. Others that his medical team will advise him against subjecting himself to the rigour of a gruelling election campaign. The only person he will listen to is his wife Jill Biden.
It will not be the first time that a spouse has had the last word. In November 1990, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, locked in a leadership contest within her Conservative Party, survived the first ballot. She would have taken the fight into a second ballot — ‘to fight on and fight to win’ — had her husband Denis Thatcher not persuaded her to quit. He gave her this pithy advice: “Don’t go on, love.”
In Great Britain’s recent general election, the British voters themselves, rather than a furtive cabal of Conservative bigwigs, were invited to decide on the future of PM Rishi Sunak and the party. The results — unequivocal but not unexpected — sent Rishi and the Conservative Party packing.
His successor as PM is Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer who won by a landslide. No one can predict how long he will last. It seems the only permanent resident of 10........