Obama has a spine (for once). The UK Premier must also.

I am no fan of Obama. He uses brain-dead non-phrases - "Change!" - to mislead people into thinking he is going to do what they want. He has shown his willingness to engineer vast transfers of wealth from the many to the few without consent in bailout after bailout.

He has done at least two things right.

One was to extend the hand of friendship to the Iranian people.

The second was to give the nod to allow lethal force in the rescue of the Captain captured by Somalian pirates.

Three pirates were killed. This will give a moment of pause to all thinking of doing similar deeds. They will pick their targets more carefully. The chances of them letting a US ship pass them by has gone up dramatically and so the lives of US merchant sailors are safer now.

Begs the question. Would Brown do the same? I say no. He is vain, vacillating, cowardly. Would Blair? Unlikely, in my view. Thatcher? Does that need an answer? Mrs T has form. Her willingness to make a similar decision in the Iranian Embassy Siege enabled it to be resolved in a professional manner. The SAS knew - to use an American phrase - that Mrs T had "got their back", i.e. she would cover them, and it was her who gave the go-ahead not to have any "untidiness" at the end and she made it clear that she was the one from which the order came.

For all the anarchy, I suspect Somalian pirates are, on the whole, rational actors. Britain needs to ensure that we exploit that to the advantage of our shipping. I suspect that it will need another incident and another firefight to sort that out. Our PM needs to make that decision. Until we get a new PM, I suspect our sailors and shipping are still at risk.

p.s. We are told that the Somalians "respcet their village elders". Ok, so why don't these elders openly say that piracy is wrong and end this behviour? I leave you to come to the blatantly obvious conclusion.