Caracas Chronicles

[Note: My usual policy is to steer well clear of non-Venezuelan subjects…we’ll be stretching that rule in this post.]

Quico says: There are local elections in Britain tomorrow. By far the highest profile race pits the treacly philochavista Red Ken Livingstone against the inimitable parliamentarian, classicist, columnist, author, magazine editor, television pundit and wit Boris Johnson for mayor of London. You can think of it as Chávez’s first electoral test of the year.

Boris – a.k.a that guy who looks like a polar bear who just stuck his tongue in a power outlet – has to be the most entertaining politician I’ve ever seen: his foot constantly stuck in his mouth, his brilliant-if-diction-challenged mind, his frazzled but devastating sense of humor, his cantankerous reactionary proclivities and his constant, slightly deranged gaffes improbably adding up to an enormously likable figure.

Why should you care? Because Boris has made a stump speech attack line out of Ken Livingston’s fuel-for-advice deal with Juan Barreto’s Greater Caracas Municipality, calling the effective subsidization of the world’s wealthiest city’s transport by a third world country “crackers” (a Britishism meaning “nuts” that, if pronounced Britishly enough, sounds just like “Caracas”- and a play on words that Mario Silva once hilariously misheard as “crack ass”.)

The polls have these two neck-and-neck, so keep your fingers crossed for Boris tomorrow night. Just watching that Paleoleftist Livingstone booted out of office would be worth it.