Hot tips in the World Bank stakes: Blair, Bono, Clarkson …but not me

Shortly after the death of John Paul II in 2005, the wise and amiable Father Dominic Milroy, former prior of the Benedictine college in Rome, leant across a dinner table and said, ‘Martin, you’d make a good candidate for Pope.’ ‘But father,’ I protested, ‘I’m not even a Catholic.’ ‘Oh don’t worry,’ he responded, ‘We can soon see about that.’ Likewise I’m glad to discover that not holding a US passport does not rule me out as a candidate to succeed Paul Wolfowitz as president of the World Bank when he departs next month, so long as I’m prepared to convert: his predecessor, Australian-born James Wolfensohn, took American citizenship in order to secure nomination by Bill Clinton in 1995. That helpful precedent opens the way not only for me but also for the runner tipped by former World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz: Tony Blair, whose decade-long spiritual journey will surely be all the more complete if he now becomes an American as well as a Catholic.