Was Britain banking on a Chris Christie presidency?

A fun game for football fans involves trying to recall players who were earmarked as future Premier League stars and fell hilariously short. There was a balletic Manchester City midfielder – I can’t remember his name – who was slated as a future England captain, only to be photographed by fans eating a takeaway a few years later, bloated and out of work. You can play the same game with this year’s presidential election.

Diplomats posted to the US make it their business to work out which big beasts of American politics are most likely to become president years in the future, like football pundits predicting England teams but with slightly more riding on it. They call it ‘talent spotting.’ And the word on the street is that when the oracles appointed by the British government looked at the post-Romney field a few years ago, they decided to get close to New Jersey governor Chris Christie.