When Sarah Palin came bounding into the world’s consciousness this week, like Annie Oakley riding shotgun on the Deadwood stage, those of us who don’t read the Guardian gave a big cheer. America had its own Margaret Thatcher at last.

Sarah Palin and mischievous daughter at her elbow

Since then the Rottweilers of the Left have been out to savage her every thought and action, even her family is not out of bounds. Barack Obama went 15 points ahead in the polls. It looked like John McCain had made a game-over error of judgement.

But, just as you could never keep Margaret Thatcher down for more than a moment, back came the exuberant Palin with a speech and a performance that left the Republican Convention in paroxysms of delight.

A heartbeat from the Presidency? Bring it on!

Already, she has developed such momentum that quiet-man Obama and his grey Kinnochio sidekick haven’t a hope in Hades of stopping her. This Alaskan pipeline goes all the way to the White House.

I’ve been forecasting a John McCain win in Syntagma since February and, although I’m not claiming victory yet, I’m more confident than ever that it’s hovering over the bag.

The Clintons must be livid. Hillary may have met her Nemesis — the woman who will become America’s first female President. Poetic justice is washing over Washington.

Now what does this tell us about the plight of the British grey ghost, Gordon Brown?

He would never have done what McCain did this week: chance everything on one bold throw of the dice. Fortune favours the brave and Gordon was not born to break the bank at Monte Carlo.

In extremis, the gambler’s instinct is the only card he has left to play. Fail to deploy it and the party’s over. McCain played his deftly and now looks a good bet for Pennsylvania Avenue in January.

Brown could go with dignity, of course, but not with honour, as Charles Clarke suggested yesterday. He has blown whatever honour he had when he signed the country away to a foreign power, against the wishes of its people, and ratted on his promise of a referendum he knew he would lose.

A recent university study suggests that people who daydream are more creative than those who don’t. Their reveries make new and unusual connections in their minds, releasing many more possibilities for action. Accountant types who spend their time studying statistics and facts limit themselves to what has been prepared for them.

The fact is, Gordon Brown doesn’t do brown studies — an old term for a reverie. He’s no daydream believer, so his words and decisions always lack originality, zing and bounce.

John McCain revealed this week that he can wave his wand and make magic. He’s got his opponents in a spin and they know it. His gamble has paydirt written all over it.

Gordon Brown should sit at John McCain’s feet and seek the mojo that makes a man a leader.

With this Keystone Cops British government I can almost believe anything.

Cartoon of Alistair Darling by Morland.

When the credit crunch first hit and it became obvious Gordon Brown’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) had failed to spot the problems at Northern Rock and in the wider financial sector, what did Gordon do? He pushed for a global version of it to police the planet against similar disasters in the future.

Apart from stable doors and all that, it proved that there’s a disconnection from reality in the Brownian universe.

Today we read that Chancellor Alistair Darling is furious that Brown intends to put up £40 billion ($73bn) of taxpayers’ money to underwrite the flakiest mortgages in Britain.

At a time when the curious American institutions Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which had their origins in the Great Depression and have stuck around ever since — are reported to be insolvent, Brown is intent on a British version.

Fannie Brown and Freddie Darling, perhaps?

The Chancellor reacted with uncharacteristic sharpness in a Guardian interview recorded two weeks ago but published yesterday. This is the worst economic crisis for 60 years, he growled, challenging Brown’s denial-laden narrative of events. He then appeared on the BBC apparently under orders to quote a text prepared by the looming ogre next door in Downing Street.

He did. Five or six times, each repetition virtually identical. At one point I thought I was watching one of those tape loops that plays the same bit of footage over and over again.

Just as I was beginning to get dizzy and drift off into a hypnotic trance, I cottoned on that this was Darling’s way of signalling to us in the real world that this unfortunate man, now trapped in his Treasury nightmare, was speaking to a script. Rather like Middle East hostages trying to show us they don’t really mean what they’re saying and are saying it under duress.

I feel truly sorry for Alistair Darling. He has always been known as “a safe pair of hands.” Now those hands are stangely missing. Chopped off, tied behind his back, maybe? Who knows?

He’s on the way out, his head about to be sliced off on the internet in the manner of recent hostage unfortunates.

His legacy?

Years of loyal service to his master, a reputation as the quiet man of the Cabinet, little else that anyone can remember, oh, and Fannie Brown and Freddie Darling.

Or will Ed Balls take the rap for that?

Dispatched from a rain-sodden holiday destination somewhere in England.

Like many I’ve just finished watching the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

From a Chinese point of view it was quite brilliant and everything went spectacularly to plan in that Great Hall of the People style they prefer.

However, looked at from a London 2012 perspective it confirmed my worst fears that this “show” will be a total disaster and will demean our country for years.

The eight-minute segment devoted to the 2012 Olympics reminded me of BBC children’s television on speed. Crammed with flashing graphics, wildly gesticulating, politically-correct people throwing newspapers into the “street,” a very inappropriate red bus, a weird reference to the shipping forecast, and David Beckham (groan) … need I go on?

Football and rock music are all we have to show for 2000 years of titanic struggle against the forces of darkness, it seems.

Where was the greatness and dignity of London pre-Blair? The spirit of the city that carried it through two World Wars and the turbulence of two millennia of history. Why has infantilism become the central characteristic of a capital sorely despoiled in recent years?

It hit all the wrong buttons and was clearly the product of Red Ken Livingstone’s Cuban regime, rather than the new Mayor’s.

If this is a foretaste of what is to come, many of us will boycott these Games as totally misrepresenting our country and capital city.

It makes it harder to defend the integrity of London because New Labour has turned it into the stab capital of the world. As such it does not represent anything that the huge silent majority in these islands can defend or support.

Even the country — Great Britain — has been mangled into Eurotrash-speak as “Team GB”. Only one brave newscaster on the BBC News Channel — Chris Lowe — had the grace to say, “Team Great Britain”. He might have improved on that by referring to “the Great Britain team,” but we have to be thankful for small mercies nowadays.

These are quick thoughts and impressions of what we saw today from Beijing. I am certain that Syntagma’s more considered view will be even more damning.

Well, that’s the Olympics over for another four years.

What! I hear you say, it’s only just starting? Are you having a laugh?

In modern times, the opening ceremony has become the Olympic Games. The rest is substandard minority sports played out by complete unknowns on behalf of various pharmaceutical companies.

A few score cyclists riding round and round a velodrome — how many know what a velodrome is? The Tour de France is a much greater spectacle.

Meanwhile, half a hundred rowers pull their way down a canal in a park. I don’t think I can stifle this yawn for much longer.

And all those athletes running round a track in pursuit of the big advertising contacts a gold medal will bring. Everyone wants to be a model these days. Whatever happened to real men?

For this, China has turned its capital Beijing into an armed camp, ringed by their version of Patriot missiles, just in case someone somewhere tries to disrupt the event. They have, but it’s in Georgia and it’s the Russians.

I have to admit though, the opening ceremony was without doubt the greatest show ever put on anywhere on the planet at any time. It wasn’t the most tinglingly enjoyable, like a big Royal event in London, but it had more Wow factor than any other comparable bash. It was massive, unremitting — it lasted four hours — and had a machine-like precision that was quite mesmerising.

Pity poor London which has to match that in just four years from now. Can a capital city every bit as ancient as the former Peking dust off its old bones and produce a show as scintillating as the new Emperors of the Middle Kingdom have done?

That is to miss the point entirely. Britain is not a command State like China. The English don’t go in for that kind of mass synchronized eventing. Anyone who has watched our football team knows how unsynchronized we can be.

We’re a nation of individualists who rather resent being pushed around by our rulers. Besides, we are more than a little ironic and prefer our patriotism laced with a great deal of humour. Think Gilbert and Sullivan and you’re on the page.

The problem London has is that its Olympics is in the hands of the same team that brought you the Millennium Dome, the Great Wall of Fire across the Thames that fizzled out like a damp squib, the Millennium Bridge that wobbled so much people were seasick crossing it, and a display meant to highlight 2000 years of British history that included a troupe of Brazilian dancers, snowboarding, an Irish presenter, and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Way too much irony!

I refer, of course, to those prize Charlies, New Labour.

Tessa Jowell is the Olympics Minister. This is a lady who has been Minister for “Fun” for donkeys’ years and was demoted to her present position a year ago. She has never run anything in her entire life apart from bits of bureaucratic machinery. Naturally, the cost of Olympic contracts is rising by the week.

Her husband was allegedly involved in bribery scandals with the Italian Prime Minister, and such was the fuss, Tessa had to separate from him, while denying all knowledge of his activities.

Thankfully, London now has a real showman as its Mayor, one Boris Johnson, a chap who knows a thing or two about irony and has actually appeared on game shows. We should also have a different government in 2010, when David Cameron is almost certain to be Prime Minister — he’s 25 percent ahead in the key marginal seats.

Perhaps the most important point is that London can’t be taken over in the way that Beijing has. It’s essentially hundreds of small villages where the old fields in between have been built up over centuries. Many boroughs retain their villagey character. The Olympics will practically disappear when plonked down in that rather dismal part of London hollowed out for the even more depressing stadiums and fun arenas. Like the Dome, there will be no sign of it anywhere that tourists actually go.

I would like to be able to summon up more enthusiasm for this project than I can, but the Olympic Games has become a crashing bore. Only a bigger and more spectacular opening ceremony each time masks the fact that the sport is a sham and the nuts and bolts rusted beyond repair.

The irony is, London is just not capable of that kind of opening show. Amid the disappointment, we may finally realize that this overblown extravaganza is simply not worth disrupting our lives for.