So why haven't they been looking for the last three years? Has no-one got the vision to see that a candidate who looks frail now and who will be 86 at the end of a second term, five long years from now, could well be a liability in an election in over a year's time? I mean, what if he dies or gets really sick, fer chrissake? The age difference between them isn't too far short of a presidential term in length. You can't pretend that that doesn't matter. Listen, I like Biden, I think he's done well and the world feels safer with him at the helm. But there has to be someone else in the frame, at least to fall back on even if they don't replace him. Where is that person? They are neck and neck in the polls now, but trip-ups will wound Biden far more than they will Trump. There's his son and there's his Afghanistan cock-up for starters. Populism and seventy-odd million ignorant people have been set in place to make Trump ever stronger at every trip-up. He seems almost impregnable at times.

Read the piece by Timothy Garton Ash. He's a big Biden supporter, as am I, he's worried, and he's far more savvy in these matters than I am. I don't think you'll find anything "jaundiced" in his piece, whether you agree with him or not.