WE can all breathe a huge sigh of relief now that Barack Obama is to be the next president of the United States and there is no danger of the war hero garden gnome and moose-killer Barbie getting anywhere near the White House.

Obama’s election was a historic moment, but I am bored with all this nonsense about how black he is, how cool he is, how much his wife’s dress had the same markings as a black widow spider and whether his daughters’ new puppy will be hypo-allergenic.

Who cares? I thought that the election of Obama had brought us back to some semblance of a proper news agenda instead of grubbing around in the same territory as the supermarket tabloids.

The US had a 90 per cent voter turnout because Obama inspired the young and ethnic minorities and working families that he might have some of the big answers, not because of the clothes he wears. David Cameron take note.

It’s time the world moved on from petty matters. Obama has almost as big a crisis to deal with as Franklin D. Roosevelt faced taking over the presidency in the depths of the Depression.

While it was moving to see Jesse Jackson’s tears and the 106-year-old voting for the first time in her life, let’s not forget that Obama has raised the American people’s expectations so much that he simply has to deliver.

I would hate for the world to see another leader promise much but instead become mired in clinging onto power for the sake of it, instead of for what it can achieve.

Those of us who can remember the euphoria of that May morning in 1997 can also remember how far Blair fell.

HAZEL BLEARS, the Jimmy Krankie of politics, was being questioned by a Radio 4 presenter about Obama’s victory.

Wonderful to see such a turnout and such engagement with the US political system, she said. And it can’t happen here because the media is so cynical about politics in this country.

“Or is it because politicians here refuse to give us a straight answer?” the presenter asked.

“Well, I always try to answer every question honestly,” said Hazel Krankie.

“So what are Gordon Brown’s top five mistakes?” said the presenter, springing his elephant trap....

And that is why we should all be grateful that we are British.

BACK to Alaskan Barbie. It has now emerged that she thought Africa was a country and not a continent - and this has come from her own Republican aides.

And I thought it was blondes who were supposed to be dumb.

AND finally...

PERHAPS Sarah Palin should team up with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi who said Obama was “young, handsome and tanned”.

I feel no further comment is necessary from me.