I could hardly believe what I heard on the radio last night. Radio 4’s The World Tonight was getting soundbites from American voters and one of the subjects was whether the world was ready for the potential of a female US President and one of the respondents said that the Commander in Chief needed to be tough, suggesting with approval that Richard Nixon “… would’ve dropped an A-bomb” to sort out the problems of the Middle East.

I hope that wouldn’t have been true, not that Nixon stands as a particularly laudable example in that role; it also beggars belief that someone could see that as a solution. I’m guessing that particular interviewee was at the right hand end of the Republican constituency.

No vote for me in that race but I do hope that the eventual winner won’t be someone who thinks that unleashing mass destruction is a way of solving human problems.