carney, of course

but even if he wins, how can canada possibly stand up to trump without a functioning fourth estate?

It’s confounding and worrying being a repatriated Canadian in Britain these days. The internet is a hailstorm of questions for which so few reliable answers exist.

The trade war and the tariffs — are they on or off? Are we actually going to be annexed by Trump? If I fly over on holiday this summer will I be able to eat avocado salad and drink California Pinot or be treated to a war ration diet of Jackson Triggs and corn on the cob? Will the Yanks have figured out a way to siphon off the fresh water making it impossible to swim at the cottage? Do my friends have a generator and a back up generator, just in case? Will I ever be able to get back to England? Who will be in charge? That last one was a joke. The answer is Mark Carney. I mean obviously, hello.

I wrote a long profile of the guy in early 2020, just as he was leaving the Bank of England, right before lockdown hit. Charming and twinkly as he was, I did not find myself dazzled by his vision for the simple glaring reason there wasn’t one. Now that he has a platform, a mandate and a tsunami of support, there still isn’t one. But no matter. What Carney had then (as now) was something far more useful in the political arena: Timing. Crazy blind luck.

My god did he know it too. Even back then, before Covid, before so much, I could feel the tidal pull of his eventual success coming off him in great fizzing waves. It wasn’t charisma, it just was. He could see a way through and he wasn’t vacillating. And I wanted to be happy for him, obviously (he’s clever and charming, a centrist, what’s not to like?) but the premonition of his power was so strong it made me feel strange.