CAN Barack Obama seduce even the Muslim world? So far I have manfully resisted falling for Obama and becoming an antipodean Obama boy. But, like everyone else on the globe, I bear witness to his charm and smoothness.

I suffer a certain ambiguity in my attitude to Obama. He is the President of the US and as such an enormous force for good in the world. He represents the continuity of overwhelmingly beneficial American policy. So at one level I am all for him.

On the other hand, it is impossible not to be annoyed by the double standards that the Bush-hating media applies to him. Can you imagine the noise and fuss that would be made if George W. Bush had tried to appoint to his cabinet a gaggle of charmed plutocrats who apparently felt the payment...