CANARY WHARF: From the country that has given us Enron, pre-emptive strikes, institutionalised poverty and a record of spectacular military defeats stretching all the way back to Korea, we now have the description of Hugo Chavez, the brave president of Venezuela and this page’s new hero, as an ideological descendant of Hitler. Concentration camps, forward thinking trade deals and seemingly benevolent energy deals aside, all the brave man of Venezuela really needs is a mo and raised right hand.

Could we see another assassination attempt in the offing? Another Allende, followed by a violent crackdown on his supporters and the enforced flight of Venezuelans across the globe. What I find most distressing is this knee jerk aversion to alternative economic systems. While the success of neo-liberal capitalism can be witnessed in the astronomical profits of energy giants, manufacturing tyros and big pharma (and their absurdly well remunerated officers), it’s failures are writ large across the ever increasing slums of our world. Surely if capitalism was the out and out success story we are urged to believe in, then wouldn’t the gap between the rich and the poor be shrinking rather than growing. The reality is that capitalism, based as it is on competition, requires losers. If the Venezuelans, and Latin America in general, are able to develop alternate models of economic organisation that assist in the building of a viable and socially enviable continent, shouldn’t they be congratulated.

Not for the chaw chewin’, SUV drivin’, "just-folks" of Texas.

PS. Evo we love your striped jumper!

PPS. How does a rogue state that has not ratified a number of key international treaties and agreements, in addition to being in constant conflict with the Geneva Convention, become the moral compass of the world?