[Malcolm]

Suggest Tim you try a few months off the forum instead of leave it altogether. If it has been one of the best forums you have experienced then it has a high standard to live up to in your mind. It won't always acheive those standards. Have a break, come back refreshed and you may see that even with this low point for you, it is still a worthwhile forum to be part of. Like building a car. I got fed up with the "burden" of thinking must work on the car when other things were tugging at my sleeve. Shut the garage door for three months and came back with fresh vigour and higher standards of workmanship.

Anyway, we all occaisionally say things that cause a response which upsets us when received, but email written humour/teasing is very hard to write so that in its reading, the recipient gets the point being made. Add in politics and..... flame war!






But on the politics front, and saying this form a neutral position, I seem to see a practice developing which scarily leads me to think the US system is about right! In the UK we had Maggie in power for a long time and she got the boot. Tony then had similar problems. Your Howard chap now has suffered the same fate albeit at the hands of party other than his own. I don't think it is the colour of their politics that is the issue but the time spent in office. Too long for an individual. Does the individual loose touch with reality after this length of time in power? The party can stay in power but not the individual.

The US system of two terms seems a good balance although sometimes the US population make enough noise sometimes to make an overseas guy think that this may be just a bit too long too.

Maybe democracy should limit the individual term in office but allow a party to hang in there as long as it can? After all, many dictators don't last over 10 years! And those that do tend to be very suppressive.