the corner office

I avoided commentary on the outcome of the general election (roughly along the lines of WTF??). I could say it was down to me waiting to see whether the plagues of locusts would materialise, but in truth life's been taken up by other stuff.

But fair to say that Ed achieved the heretofore-considered-impossible and proved himself to be even more of a disastrous Labour leader than Gordon Brown. And then he did the honourable thing (ie. patronised voters by saying they weren't listening hard enough to his message, and then resigned). And now we have a Labour Leadership Contest.

This has been a fun distraction from the harsh realities of the Tories preparing to come and claim firstborn &c &c. After a few false starts, the field has been narrowed down to 3, no 4 people.

First, Andy Burnham, who's the strongest candidate, everyone says, (as long as you don't call him Andy "MidStaffs" Burnham, I guess), followed by Yvette Cooper, who has as a selling point the potential to become the second female British Prime Minister (as long as the Tories can be prevented from pointing out that the person who'd then be running the country is someone who willingly chose to tie the knot with Ed Balls, say no more), and then Liz Kendall, who's touted by some as the best hope for taking on the Tories, and vilified by others for being on the right wing of the Labour Party (there is such a thing, apparently)

And that makes 3. Indeed, it looked to be a 3-horse race, but at the last minute people managed to nudge Jeremy Corbyn into the starting gates as well. This was done so that the Labour Party could have a "debate" or something. "What does the Labour Party stand for" "Erm, whatever gets us elected?" "Yes yes but what is that?" "Erm, I dunno, all that stuff about being nice to the working classes we learned about when we were at Oxbridge?" "Sod the working classes, they've all gone to UKIP, what else?" "Ok then, buggered if I know, maybe we need a debate about it. Pass another canape, please."

And so now there Will Be A Debate, and we have Jeremy Corbyn. One might say that he is to the left of the Party, or a few other things (bearded Hamas-loving nut job and peril to all that is proper and decent, for example), but anyway.

I digress. The point of this post was really to point out that Corbyn is now on the leadership ballot. And Labour, bless them, despite believing that the world runs best when clever people (preferably theirs) are in charge telling everyone else how to live their lives, have not quite mastered the principle of Unintended Consequences. So it is that Labour made a big deal about how their leadership elections are open to anyone who cares to join the Labour Party (for just 3 quid), and a lot of people have spied an opportunity to keep Labour out of government for another generation: get Corbyn elected as leader of the Labour Party. It's got its own hashtag and everything now: #ToriesForCorbyn.

I love this country.