Sunday Noticeboard

Today’s noticeboard is brought to you by the 20th anniversary of a spectacular Guardian blunder – and a lame 20th anniversary Guardian repetition.

The Trumps and the Bushes in 2018

Way back in 2004, Guardian plonker Johnathan Freedland suggested that folk outside the US should be allowed to vote in that year’s US election:

Who could honestly describe the 2004 contest of George Bush and John Kerry as a domestic affair? There's a reason why every newspaper in the world will have the same story on its front page on November 3. This election will be decisive not just for the United States but for the future of the world …

So perhaps it's time to make a modest proposal. If everyone in the world will be affected by this election, shouldn't everyone in the world have a vote?

Two decades after Freedland’s “modest proposal”, here’s Guardian Australia voluntary admission Paul Daley suggesting much the same thing:

Australians, like people the world over who care about democracy and global security, really should get a vote in the forthcoming US election, so critical is it to our geopolitical and strategic interests.

Let’s hope Daley’s editors take this further. In 2004, that Freedland piece – or, rather, a certain reaction to that piece – led the Guardian to attempt an international US election hijacking.

It didn’t work out as they’d hoped. Here's the full story.