You know what they say - a week is a long time in politics. Although, to be fair, when Harold Wilson coined the phrase, he didn't have a journey from Liverpool to King's Cross - accompanied by vomiting toddler twins - and including a bus replacement service from Luton onwards - as a comparison point.

Still. Be that as it may, the trueism holds true. A week is a long time in politics - so who knows how Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's career may be faring, come Friday. Currently, however, she is one red-hot piece of political ass. You can't move for pictures of that feisty Alaskan MILF - or should that me VPILF? - and her gun collection. It's like Shania Twain's mother has tooled up, watched one episode of the pinko-liberal West Wing with disgust, and then decided to bagsy the White House. Who's talking about Obama now, eh? Obama? Over-ma, more like.

In the UK, the continuing revelation of Palin's autobiographical facts have been reported with a nervous, blinky amazement. She named one of her children - Piper - after a make of snow plough! She believes that victims of incest or rape should be denied abortion! She thinks the world was made in seven days! She regularly kills things - not like just wasps, or even a chicken - but stuff like bears! And mooses!

Imagine if there was a British candidate for Deputy Prime Minister who had a child called “JCB”, believed raped children should endure labour, dismissed evolution and regularly shot gigantic animals. It would be regarded as borderline sectionable behaviour.

In America, however, it makes them even hotter for Palin. To be crude, a tough chick with great hair who shoots things - that just turns America on. They like the idea of politicians who could hold their own in a bar brawl.

This is one of those instances of international nuance where you see that the Atlantic Ocean should, really, be renamed The Aesthetic Gulf. It's the same difference in US/UK attitude that became apparent around the time of the Millennium Bug. In America, survivalists in Minnesota built a whole, self-sufficient underground complex, complete with air-filtration system and hydroponic greenhouses. In the UK our most high-profile Millennium Bug planning came from Richard Madeley and his Millennium Cupboard - in which he placed tinned sardines, Wet Wipes and a torch.

And you know what? Along with Doctor Who and Cardigan Bay and flapjacks, this makes me proud to be British. We're utterly wet and a weed. Hurrah! I like the fact that - without ever talking about it - we all decided we didn't, actually, want to survive the Apocalypse. Because, yes, we'd be alive - but in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, full of buff, shouting American survivalists. The British are only into living so long as it's civilised and pleasant. As soon as we have to poo in a hole and lose reception of BBC4, we're quite happy to become extinct. We are not into all this forceful, effortful, yippy, yappy, living-and-winning-at-any-cost stuff. We don't want ripped, renegade leaders, like Gerard Butler in 300, shouting, “Tonight, we dine in Hell!” We want someone who is, ultimately, very good at accounts, shouting, “Tonight, we dine in the dining room!”

And indeed, wanting a slightly anaemic-looking accountant as leader seems to be the watermark of all peaceful, civilised countries. The election of a buff leader almost invariably leads to trouble. Ólafur Grimsson, President of Iceland, for instance, looks like someone who eschews the viscerality of tea in favour of a weak, lemony drink. In New Zealand, Helen Clark had her most controversial moment when, at a charity auction, she attempted to pass off another person's watercolour sketch as her own. As for Pascal Couchepin of Switzerland, he might - just - be able fight his way out of a single wet paper bag. But if two were to come at him at once - game over.

Russia elects Vladimir Putin, on the other hand - a man who releases topless, buff shots of himself - and suddenly there's nuclear and Chechnya and Cold War all over the place. It's almost as if, should you vote in a leader who appears to have a “surviving a geo-political meltdown, merely with the power of his fists” function, you shouldn't be surprised if, one day, he wants to test it.

So when I look at our uniformly mild, paunchy, metrosexual British politicians, it makes me swell with both pride and relief. I love that David Cameron's idea of all-out war would be shouting, “You've really got my dander up, you grotty little man” as he cycled past his enemy's house. Nick Clegg looks like he'd whimper, “Don't touch my beautiful face” if someone brought out a flick-knife in a subway. Even our hardest politician - John Prescott - is a man who merely hit another man, once, and would refer to a gun as an “automatic revolvamator”. Sarah Palin would shoot him, skin him and turn his head into a handbag in under a minute.

You can't trust politicians who go to the gym because - and I'm fairly sure this is true anywhere in the world - in the gym, you're stuck watching trashy daytime TV, like Jeremy Kyle, which could easily lead you to believe that humanity is dissolute and corrupt, and needs to come under stricter state control. Going to the gym - and I believe this is on the verge of being scientifically proven - turns you into a blood-thirsty fascist potentate.

Additionally, if you've spent two hours bench-pressing, you're going to be shattered by 9.30pm, and looking to be under your duvet by 10pm. Yes, that's right, you're going to miss Newsnight and with it, any hope of a balanced global overview. You will, alas, be at war with Korea within a week.

So let's give three cheers for being a country of weeds, fleas, geeks and delicate flowers. Three thin, reedy cheers, obviously - and quiet claps, in case Sarah Palin mistakes us for a baby seal, and shoots us.

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