So "Biden has quit" ?

 It would be a little more polite to say "President Biden has withdrawn from the race" or something similar. He is after all still the President of the United States of America.

His withdrawal was inevitable perhaps and I am relieved he has had the good sense to realise that. The question now will be whether it is too late. 

"They won't be ready," Mr Dog Walker told me this morning. (I was contemplating whether it was possible to add anything to the bins.)

I disagree. I am quite sure that, behind the scenes, people have been working towards this. It would be ridiculous to suggest otherwise. Anywhere and everywhere in the world there are presidents, prime ministers, dictators and more there are contingency plans. Who takes over if the top man (or woman) dies?

Sometimes that must appear obvious, the way it does for the monarchy in the UK or some other European countries. It is not quite as obvious as that here. The assumption is that the Deputy Prime Minister would take over - as they do when the Prime Minister is out of the country. In reality there would need to be an endorsement of the Deputy by the governing party. Would that always happen? 

Prime Ministers Lyons and Curtin died in office and Prime Minister Holt is presumed to have died in office. (He disappeared while swimming in the ocean and his body was never recovered.) There were "caretaker" Prime Ministers (Page for Lyons and Forde for Curtin) but they were never actual Prime Ministers. When Holt disappeared John McEwen was caretaker Prime Minister for just twenty-two days.  I have some memories of that but Lyons and Curtin were well before my time. It is more a matter of why McEwen took over than how that remains in my mind. The country went to an election soon after Holt's disappearance and things went on much as before.

Politics in Downunder has been reasonably stable I suppose. There was some jiggling around in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years and the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison years but the government did not collapse. We went to elections which have always been fairly peaceful even if they are not quite as free from fraud and nastiness as people would like to believe.

I therefore look at America and I am grateful I do not live there. I am grateful we do not need to vote for a Prime Minister in the way they vote for a President.