"What, me as leader? Well, obviously it would be a great honour and privilege to lead the Conservative party but I can't at the moment you see, because erm, I've got a verruca."
"Yeah - and I've got to go to my gran's on that day, so I can't stand either."
Finding someone to lead today's Tory party is like asking for volunteer pilots at the Biggin Hill air show. Maybe the opposition will end up having to follow the example of the FA and hire a Swedish manager instead. On the basis that the new Tory leader is always the person that you least expect, the next boss of the Conservative party will probably be Zebedee from The Magic Roundabout. He looks about as normal as any of the rest of them.
But the Tory leadership battle is no more significant than a cast change in a Channel 5 soap opera. The big story of this election is the result. For Labour to win one landslide was incredible enough. To have repeated it four years later would have seemed like some wild fantasy back in Labour's long years of opposition. "Labour gain Hove" was surreal; "Labour hold Hove" is the world turned upside down.
Any minute now I'm going to wake up and find it is all a dream and Mrs Thatcher is still prime minister.
"We are delighted to have won a sixth term and we have decided to replace the cabinet with the little men who live in my radiator."
I n a way it is even better than 1997, because we weren't just voting to get rid of a government: the country made a positive choice of public services over tax cuts. And for Labour to hold seats such as Dover is a triumph in the face of a Conservative party attempting to whip up hatred against asylum seekers. The low turnout should not deflect from what an amazing achievement the result is for the government; Labour achieved everything it set out to do in, er ..."Operation Turnout".
My own efforts as a Labour candidate in Maidenhead did not bring socialism to the banks of the River Thames. On polling day I drove around the well-clipped villages of Berkshire in my brother's rusty Ford Sierra with the loud hailer, urging the millionaires to vote for the promised increase in the minimum wage. I'm sure I saw someone covering the ears of their cleaner.
Labour's vote dropped by 3% while a tactical vote for the Liberals saw them surge by 11% and all I could think was "good luck to them". The rise in tactical voting across the country is an expression of the electorate's exasperation with the current system and we have to find a way to make people's votes really count. Otherwise the frustration and anger of the voters will finally boil over in places like Maidenhead. They'll tut and look skywards.
Participation was down from supporters of all the parties and I blame the confrontational "yah boo" style of modern politics which is all the fault of those Tory bastards on the other side. But now the project of improving the lives of ordinary people should go hand in hand with genuinely involving everyone in the democratic process. All sides of the political spectrum agree that we have to really work at conquering apathy and antipathy. Even the Telegraph website featured a little icon saying "Is democracy in danger; vote here".
I was going to add my voice to the debate. But then, you know, I just couldn't be bothered.
Useful links
Results
Ask Aristotle about your constituency
Talk about it
Who should lead the Tories? Should Hague have quit?
Video
See Hague make his resignation statement
Election headlines
Triumphant Blair reshuffles cabinet
Hague: I quit
Comment and analysis
George Monbiot: Labour's victory rings hollow
Austen Chamberlain: history's first Hague
