Joe Biden is the Obama continuity candidate – but it’s too early tell if that’s enough to beat Trump

Editorial: The former vice president did have some promising messages in the latest Democratic candidate debate, insofar as they could be deciphered

Some decades ago Joe Biden became a minor celebrity in Britain because he was caught plagiarising one of the then-Labour leader Neil Kinnock’s speeches. As it happens, Senator Biden, during an early tilt at the White House, gave quite a good rendition of the Kinnockian rhetoric about education and opportunity, but it was embarrassing all the same.

Thirty years on, and at the age of 76, Mr Biden is running for president again, but this time he is reminding the British of John Prescott, another Labour politician who enjoys a reputation for mangling his meanings. Although still the frontrunner in a crowded field to take on Donald Trump in next year’s general election, Mr Biden did not inspire much confidence in the latest Democratic candidate debate that he’d be able to take on and beat the incumbent, one of the biggest brawlers that the roughhouse of American politics has seen.

At times Mr Biden was incoherent, getting mixed up and simply unable to deliver a sentence that made sense. The rough outlines of meaning, the contours of a policy proposition, were usually there, but clouded by misspeaking and mix-ups. Physically Mr Biden had a strange plasticised look about him, though tanned and trim. If he makes it to the White House, and if he then goes on to serve two full terms – the norm for most presidents since the Second World War – he will be all of 86 years of age when he leaves office in 2029.