Candidate Anthony Weiner is unlikely ever to trouble British voters, that is not to say Weiner can be filed away, with complete confidence, under the category "U.S. politicians who have incautiously disseminated images of their private parts, using the alter ego Carlos Danger." For one thing, given the reach of social media, and the man's irrepressible ambition, it must only be a matter of time — unless some sort of technology can be invented to block transmission — before a young British subject, switching on her telephone, suddenly finds that she is Carlos Danger's latest penis pen-pal.
In the more immediate future, it seems quite likely, should mayor Boris Johnson stand again, that Londoners could soon be asking related questions about sexual behaviour and fitness for office. Has Weiner really done enough, with his lame "sexting," to be considered a serious contender? In London, evidence of vigorous and sustained priapism has become so strongly associated with mayoral ambition as to be pretty much a prerequisite for office.
Long before Boris Johnson showed the world how to brazen out a vibrant history of extramarital impregnations and assignations, both short and long term, Jeffrey Archer, the perjurer and prostitute's john, was the Tories' favored candidate, followed by a man actually nicknamed "Shagger." Shagger was beaten by Ken Livingstone, an unlikely but notably successful ladies' man, whose idea of drinks party chit-chat, awed Guardian staff once discovered, is the line, delivered with tremendous nasal authority: "When a woman opens her heart she opens her legs."