David Maddox: Sinister developments in the White House as the left seizes power again

Many of my fellow lefties will no doubt share my delight that we can now count the most powerful man in the world among our number.

I am of course referring to the fact that Barack Obama is left-handed, as the picture of him signing the order ending Guantanamo Bay prison camp illustrates.

And according to academic research the return of a southpaw to the Oval Office should be a good thing after eight years of right-handedness from George W. Bush.

Chris McManus of University College London claims that left-handed people as a group have historically produced an above average quota of high achievers. He adds that left-handers' brains are structured differently in a way that widens their range of abilities, and the genes that determine left-handedness also govern development of the language centres of the brain. It has also been argued for a long time that lefties are more creative.

But, one thing is sure is that the hand which a politician uses to write has little to do with his political leanings.

This is underlined in the list of previous US Presidents who were or are lefties which in recent times have included Ronald Reagan and George Bush snr. The first lefty US President was James Garfield in 1881, but this obviously did not go down to well because he was assassinated four months into office. The next two were Herbert Hoover (1929 – 1933) and Harry Truman (1945 – 1953) but five of the last seven now have been lefties including Gerald Ford (1974 – 1977) and Bill Clinton (1993 – 2001).

In terms of British prime ministers we have only had two lefties. One was possibly the greatest, Winston Churchill, the other one of the worst, James Callghan.

However, despite the evidence that left-handedness may be a sign of superiority, we southpaws are still discriminated in every day language. Words indicating evilness and clumsiness like sinister, gauche or having "two left feet" on the dance floor come from an anti-left agenda, whereas right for correct or ambi-dexterous (two right hands) come from a pro-right agenda. How ironic that sinister and gauche would more likely to be applied to Mr Obama's predecessor the right-handed George W. Bush.