Your Top 5 Favorite World Leaders Right Now

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Jose Mujica
Elio Di Rupo
Matteo Renzi

don't know who else really. Even Renzi is really only here because he's better than anybody else in Italian politics.

Oh yeah

the queen

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I feel the same way about Abe funnily enough. I never thought I'd particularly like a right-wing nationalist Japanese leader, but he hasn't been all that bad economically and it's nice to know Japan's at least led by somebody.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Why Tusk? He's one of the biggest Europhiles in the EU, I thought you'd be opposed to all that.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I would say that Tusk is, if I'm honest. He has reasons to be - Poland much prefers (for obvious reasons) to escape the Russian sphere of influence as much as possible.

His speech when Poland ascended to the EU comes to mind:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

It's why Tusk would be on my "Five World Leaders I would oppose ordinarily, but admire nonetheless" - I like optimism, even in the face of corrosive cynicism. Others would be:

Modi - say what you like about him, the guy knows how to get things done. Although I'm certain that the guy is being artificially bigged up, I'm pretty sure that India will be left with a competitive infrastructure at least.

Abe - despite nationalism, is avoiding knee-jerk inflation fears. He's in a hard place in Japan, which is suffering from a desperate demographic squeeze (dare I say it - like Europe would be if the populist right stopped immigration); but is performing admirably.

Cameron - I dislike the guy, but he could be sooo much worse. His detoxifying of the Tories, if somewhat cosmetic, was way overdue. His support for gay marriage, for no real political benefit (in fact the opposite, with his party becoming divided and obsessed with the issue) really made him rise in my opinion. He did it because he believed it to be right - not for petty political reasons. I can't imagine pragmatic, moderate Merkel doing that.

I can't really think of any other conservatives in power that I respect. Possibly Key, but I don't know hell about NZ politics.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Cameron supported gay marriage precisely because of his crusade to 'modernise' the Tory party. I mean, I actually do doubt as to whether he would have introduced that legislation if the Conservatives had won a majority in 2010. Whilst, in hindsight, it was an obvious strategic blunder (in my opinion, it was the issue that really lit UKIP's fuse), I genuinely believe that he felt it would be a useful strategic move that would help the Tories win a majority in 2015.

I think that Cameron is too intelligent to have thought that his party would have swallowed the marriage pill with no resistance. After all, he was leader during the tortured Civil Partnerships Bill passage; he knows that the only value the modern party shares is a mutual love of backstabbing and infighting; he had to have known that backbenchers would bicker and make him look weak. It just seems like way too much of an electoral risk for what is ultimately a minor issue for most people - and in an election year to boot!

The fact that (as far as I know) he pre-empted Labour and the Lib Dems on the issue, suggests a genuine belief to me. Perhaps I'm naive, I don't know.