LET'S HOPE AMERICA CAN CHANGE

Only a churl of the most curmudgeonly variety could fail to be pleased that Barack Obama is to be next President of the United States. I did not stay up to watch as probably I should have done however good to get to the computer this morning and see McCain wiped out .

It was interesting to see that even he, with some dignity, hailed the advent of an African American as a positive way forward for the US . And it is. Unthinkable only a generation ago.

Even in the recent past of 20 years ago I remember travelling south from Washington on a Greyhound bus ( my Paul Simon phase) towards the outer limits of the Mason-Dixon line to Richmond, Virginia, and it was utterly clear that the old divides between black and white were lurking only slightly beneath the surface. And let's not get too excited . They still are.

Obama may say "anything is possible" in America but despite being the richest nation in the world it is also one where the divides between the haves and have-nots are tremendous. The US needs a radical reform of its (grossly inadequate) welfare system and is facing economic meltdown so, yes, change urgently is needed. It won't be "left" in the sense we understand it here in the UK>

Obama's policy programme was not even as radical as Hilary Clinton's nor John Edwards, the first Democrat to fall in the primaries

But one major major plus in all this is that Obama's election will at least draw a line under the fundamentalist Republican militarist fervour of George Bush and - let's hope - a change in policy in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is also at least a signal that no country should countenance racist bigotry, white supremacy, or any of the more despicable varieties of intolerance which lead to fascism and genocide. Congratulations to the Democrats and the US for backing a black American