There is an episode of The West Wing in which Jed Bartlet, the fictional US president, undergoes emergency surgery after being shot. He quickly recovers, but afterwards there is a massive inquiry about who was running the country while he was under the knife. Even though everything has returned to normal, there is talk of a constitutional crisis owing to the fact that, for a few hours, America was leaderless.

In Japan, Shinzo Abe, the boy prime minister - at 52, the verdict was he was too young for the job - quit on September 12 for reasons that are still not entirely clear. A new leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic party will be chosen next Sunday and confirmed as prime minister by parliament on September 25. The day after he resigned, an exhausted Mr Abe checked into hospital - and checked out of government. Just who, precisely, is in charge?