Quintin Jardine's blog

Only seven hours until we know the name of the new Leader of the Opposition, (I can hardly wait) and the bookies are telling us it’s going to be Milipede the Younger, Ed rather than David. Since the voting system is so complicated that nobody understands it, this has to be based on chatter rather than analysis. I hope it’s wrong, because I find him a creepy character and he’d be my second last choice, preferable only to Ed Balls. I’m not a member of any part of the fractured organisation that’s holding the ballot, but if I was I reckon I’d have voted for Diane Abbott. She has more charisma than all the other candidates put together,  she once appeared in Romeo and Juliet with Michael Portillo, and she’s also the oldest by some years, and so has significantly more knowledge of life. She strikes me also as someone who’s prepared to fight for what is right, not simply for that which is considered electorally acceptable. My only problem with her is that apart from her time at Cambridge, she doesn’t appear to ever have set foot outside London. But on the plus side she’s the only one of the five to have on her CV any real experience outside the secretive and disreputable Westminster community. How can you aspire to govern a country when all your knowledge of it is second-hand? How can you presume to  preside over an economy when you’ve never actually contributed to it?