A strange thing happened this November. It became ok to like America. The election of Barack Obama, the USA’s first black president at the start of the month has been widely hailed as the dawn of an exciting new era in world politics. His election has been compared to that of Franklin D Roosevelt and to the release of Nelson Mandela.

More worryingly, it has also been compared to the election of Tony Blair. Let’s hope history turns out differently this time around.

National hero and game old war veteran that he is, McCain was still out on the stump at the eleventh hour, exhorting his followers to “Never give up”. Which was met by the resounding response “Yes, but we think you should!”

While the betting fraternity had been laying serious money on Obama’s victory over John McCain, very few were willing to risk a punt on either candidate to serve the full two terms.

On the one hand we had a 72-year-old. On the other we had a left of centre candidate of African descent. A man compared to John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King. In other words, one likely to croak from natural causes within eight years, the other a target for every rifle-wielding right-wing lunatic in America. And at the last official count in the Land of the Free, there were around 100 million rifle-wielding right-wing lunatics.

Indeed rifle-wielding right-wing lunatics are such a powerful political lobby in the States that McCain felt compelled to choose one as his running mate.

Sarah Palin described herself as a “normal mum”. How many “normal mums” do you know who hang out of helicopters shooting moose with high-velocity rifles? She’s promising to run for President in 2012, which is good news. Her policies may have stunk, but she was always an entertaining sideshow. In the meantime, a lucrative career in pantomime beckons.

Palin may have been a bizarre choice as a potential Vice-President, but then running mates are not always chosen for the most obvious of reasons. Kennedy famously picked LBJ because “I’d rather have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in”. Sarah Palin would indeed appear to have been inside the tent but to be pissing all over it.

This has been an autumn where normal politics has been turned on its head. Where Gordon Brown performed his first vaguely socialist act, by committing his government to a widespread programme of nationalisation. Of the banks.

This was merely following the Bush government’s actions Stateside. When the US nationalised AIG and other financial institutions, they came in for a deal of criticism from the more fervent free-marketeers. To which the obvious response should be,“If you think capitalism is such a good idea, why don’t you go and live in Russia?”.

Put to one side that Manchester United shirt sponsor should now be the US Treasury and that Newcastle United’s shirts should credit the British taxpayer rather than Northern Rock, nationalisation of the banks makes sound economic sense.

Ignore the fact that the banks have over the years been responsible for the closure of many small and large businesses. We can’t have banks being closed down. The economy would not work if the banks were closed down. Without the banks, there would not be anybody to close the other businesses down.

Particularly in a recession, when there are like to be more companies needing to be closed down, it’s simply impossible to function with the banks. Explained it simple lay terms, it all makes perfect sense.

Big money was also on the agenda, when George Osbourne was hanging around in some very dubious company over the summer. It’s bad enough hanging out with Russian gangsters for the sake of blagging a few quid, but one should really draw the line at associating with the likes of Peter Mandelson. Osbourne assured all of us that all the discussions on Deripaska’s yacht were “above board”. Who cares in which part of the boat the sleazy deals were done?

But while politics in the US changed forever and capitalism as we know it teetered on the brink of self-destruction, there is little doubt which news story has taken up most front page tabloid space this last month. The much more important issue of two overpaid entertainers harassing an old-age pensioner who used to pretend to be Spanish.

Whether you think Ross and Brand’s antics were cutting-edge humour, childishly offensive or arrogant abuse o their position, you have to agree they would never have happened in the days of Lord Reith. One can never imagine a dinner-jacketed announcer proclaiming over the airwaves:

“This is the BBC Light Programme, calling from London. Later tonight Mr Tommy Hanley and the cast of ITMA will be phoning up Mr Arthur Askey to say “I fucked your grand-daughter. I thank you, playmates!” But first, a recital on the piano from Da”.