89: Yes we can! Yes he did!

It could have almost been an anti-climax but this morning there is a feeling of euphoria in the air, a feeling of change and possibility, the beginning of a new era. I cannot for a moment pretend to know much about US politics but I do know that the Bush years have finally been swept aside and his much discredited two terms will soon be consigned to the history books where they belong. Barack Obama represents something different, something fresh and exciting a huge antidote to what went before. He's the first major leader of the western world who is younger than I am, yet his appeal is broad across ages and cultures except perhaps the white vote which still had a majority for McCain, a decent man whose conceding address was dignified and magnanimous.

I instinctively supported Hillary Clinton but saw that her experience meant that she is linked inextricably to the past. I wondered whether, having accepted the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama should choose the New York senator as running mate. He didn't, and the supposed "dream ticket" never was. He was right. It would have been as distracting a double act as it would have potentially been a good one. Will he now appoint her to a senior position in his government. Perhaps that is where she will be able to do most good rather than in the "non-position" that is the Vice-President's role.

This takes me back to 1997 and the long night when Labour swept away the tawdry Tories. We were then full of hope, and it is fair to say 11 years later that some of those hopes have been dashed, some of that expectation not realised. Much of what the Labour goverment has achieved is not well communicated and languishes hidden away in boring black and white whilst the new Conservatives' slick PR and colouful marketing grabs all the headlines.

Obama has four years, possibly eight, to turn the biggest democracy in the world around. Let's all give him the space and the support he needs and accept he won't be able to work miracles.