The US Presidential race has settled predicably into a Biden Trump rematch. Only the demise of one or the other, whether through natural causes or imprisonment, can stall this inevitable showdown. It is not unlike four years ago and not hugely unlike four years before that (though Clinton was certainly very able), but it still marks a generally unhealthy trend in the United States. A lack of renewal.

If you dig back into the recent past of Presidential elections, you will find plenty to find encouraging. Obama vs McCain and Romney (all decent men), Bush W vs Gore and Kerry, Clinton vs Bush and Dole, Reagan vs Carter and Mondale, and so forth, it is clear that we are living in times that are producing unwanted outliers.

Biden is a good man and pretty capable but he is well past his prime. Trump is not a good man and may be quite incompetent, if his first term is anything to go by. This should not be the competition that the world's self-proclaimed premier democracy is handing an astonished planet.

We should always have older men and women in positions of prominence in our democracies. They can bring wisdom and insight and are in a better position to recall the mistakes that have not been learnt in the past, lest me make them yet again. 

But the torch needs to be passed onto younger people, something which may happen after this contest is over.