Imagine, if you will, the leader of the free world rising early in the White House, listening attentively to his morning security briefing, defusing a burgeoning crisis in Mexico during a fraught phone call over coffee, and heading to his first morning appointment.

And imagine, if you can, that as he takes his seat at the National Prayer Breakfast, that the President of the United States crossed glances with a small bespectacled gentleman. A fraction of a second in which Barack Obama and Terry Le Sueur lock eyes…

Well, you don’t have to go too far down the road of 1980s bodyswap comedies to see the potential for laughs there, do you? If the directors behind Big, Vice-Versa and Freaky Friday taught us anything at all, they taught us that.

The idea of Barack Obama, Chief Minister Terry Le Sueur and Social Security Minister Ian Gorst in a room with just 3,447 close friends is a strange one – and not just because of the unholy row that blew up after a minister missed the last States sitting to go overseas.

In Housing Minister Terry Le Main’s case, it was about a holiday to Tenerife. In the case of these two ministers I guess they could try to claim that they’re working. Although what, if anything, they are going to get out of the event is pretty unclear.

Unless … have they taken Sir Philip Bailhache’s advice about preparing for independence in the event that the relationship with the UK will break down?
Are they negotiating for Jersey to become the next US state? We’ve already got a Governor, some Senators and an obesity problem, so I guess we’re around half-way there …

IF the presence of two of our politicians in Washington DC is a bit unusual, then the total absence of politicians from one of the biggest stories of the week was rather more surprising.

One of Jersey’s oldest financial institutions, Kleinwort Benson, may not now be able to get a banking licence, having been bought out by a company well outside the top 500 banks. That’s not the end of the world in itself, but Kleinwort Benson employ more than 200 people, so they are a big deal.

The problem is that rules are rules. Jersey has been shouting on about the top 500 rule since way before the banking crisis even began (it’s the reason why Jersey Home Loans can’t offer you discount mortgages – they’re not in the top 500, and therefore can’t be licensed to take deposits).

And while the Jersey Financial Services Commission say that the rules have been relaxed – which is true, but not much, and everyone kept a little quiet about it – they are faced with a really difficult decision: break the rules, or run the risk of losing some jobs.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the decision itself that’s difficult. There is no way, no chance at all, that jobs should be allowed to leave Jersey at a time of recession due to some administrative problem.

The difficult bit will be presenting it so that it appears that the top 500 rule is still in place.

Here’s the surprising bit: there are no politicians involved, at all, yet. It’s all down to the commission.

The politician I phoned about it sounded pretty glad about that too – it’s probably not something that he would have wanted to get involved with.

ONWARDS, to the States’ Order Paper for this week. It’s the same trivial stuff that we’ve come to expect from last year: a little amendment to the Planning Law here, a petition about climate change there, and over here a set of rules for (I kid you not) the Jersey branch of the French-speaking parliamentarian association.

You would almost think that politicians were not looking at a year in which they will have to debate the New Directions Health Strategy, the Island Plan, the Sustainable Travel and Transport Plan, a solution to dwindling pension funds, and new laws on knife crime, a Police authority and immigration – and we haven’t heard a squeak on any of them yet.