All of Biden's men and women just two months to go

It must be a strange feeling of relief and regret for the thousands of Biden-appointed officials who will be out of a job in two months' time. This is the way it has to be. It's something like 4,000 officials across government who have to go when a new president steps in. You get used to all the big names, such as Antony Blinken, secretary of state, Jake Sullivan, national security adviser, and Lloyd Austin, defence secretary. They will all vanish, along with their Biden-appointed advisers. I'm sure they will all be making arrangements for new jobs in the private sector or perhaps just taking a break after four years of hard grind and mass travelling around the world. That's the relief bit. But the first morning they wake up after January 20, 2025, they will have to come to terms with the fact that they no longer have the trappings of power, no chauffeur-driven cars available, no Secret Service protection, no desperate calls from foreign leaders seeking help, no huge decisions to make. That's the regret bit. As for Joe Biden, I suspect he will eventually feel huge relief but with a large splash of nostalgia as well. However, in his case, he will still have all the stuff that goes with being an -ex-president, including Secret Service bodyguards. But he won't have to make any more speeches with the whole world watching to see if he slips up, slips over, or just looks lost. His biggest regret is that he wasn't allowed to have another go at beating Trump. He had to hand over that job to Kamala Harris and she failed.