Real(ity) politics

Over the last few days I have enjoyed the spectacle of MPs running around Westminster, dashing into restaurants and shouting "A fight! A real fight!". Yes, the Tony's finally encountered a leader of the opposition who's a real threat to him: Gordon Brown (...texture like sun...) He's yet to violently offend anyone but Tony that anyone remembers, unlike David 'In the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is king' Blunkett (who managed to offend virtually everyone whilst still in charge of Education), he's not surgically attatched to any part of George Bush, and he's not a gurning orange Spitting Image puppet version of himself who we're all utterly sick of the sight of, so apparently most of us would prefer him as prime minister to Tony.
Like any totally secure grown up, Tony has responded to this by scheduling press conferences on top of his, spreading rumors, bumping him off the general election team, and generally refusing to stay in the same continent as Gordon if at all possible. Gordon has stuck to getting other people to spread rumors for him, and trying to maintain a dignified barrage of on party platitudes. You might mistake this for confidence, but bear in mind that if he hasn't worked it out for himself some wise old hand has probably pointed out to him that people would probably prefer a small pot plant as prime minister to Tony, as long as it wasn't a member of the conservative party.
Which brings me to Charles Kennedy. It would be nice to think, wouldn't it, that this might finally be the year that the Lib Dems get in. The only substantial thing in their way is the fact that even the people who want them to win don't think they can. Just for a moment imagine that it happened, and that lined up along the opposition benches were a bunch of Labour and Tory MPs, distinguishable only by the colour of their ties, sulking their boots off and trying to find something to disagree about, and canceling each other out in votes by taking the opposite sides just because. That's probably the image the fifteen MPs that gave them a talking to last night: "You two have not only let yourselves down, you've let the school down too. If you don't show a remarkable improvement I shall make the Lower Sixth the prefects, and you will have to sit at the front with the first years."
Ah.... The happiest days of their lives.