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Oh dear!! why oh why did our hapless Prime Minister Gordon Brown do his publicity and goodwill visit to the US at the same time as the Pope!!? As one newspaper put it
"International media figure visits US... and the British PM is here too!!"
Obviously Popemania has broken out in the USA, so poor oul MR Bean has had trouble getting his bits covered. Not that any of us want to see Gordons bits, but you know what I mean. I find it extraordinary that he keeps making mistakes like this. In Tony Blair's day the Downing St team was a slick and well oiled media machine, and you wouldnt see them making this kind of timing error. The USA loved Blair, so once again Gordon has put himself in a difficult cliff-climbing position because his impact overthere is having nothing like the same effect as our Tone's did.
"Thank you for the contribution to our culture" said Gordon on American TV last night, while trying out his devastatingly uncomfortable smile on the unprepared citizens.
But a serious aside to all this...Is Religion making a comeback? Instead of figures like the Pope diminishing in stature on the world stage, his power and authority seems to be increasing. Perhaps its the onslaught coming daily from other religions that encourages us westerners to look more at our own faith, at our own beliefs, at our own icons. We are perhaps all jockeying for position in this brave new world and looking for somewhere to belong, or looking for an umbrella to shelter under.
Despite years of bad publicity for the Catholic Church in the USA, due to child molestation damage, religion and the Pope are as big as ever.