Phil, DKTOS...At least your campaign cycle over there is mercifully brief (at least compared to here in the U.S.). Potential candidates here are already in "Early Campaign" mode...raising money and posturing for various constituencies...positioning themselves on issues near and dear to party faithful in most cases...considering how far to crowd towards the center for "middle-of-the-road" or otherwise unaffiliated voters...after a little more than a year and a half of this we will then enter 2007 and the early primaries will be on the horizon...these little "Beauty Contests", which are generally held first in small states will serve to eliminate many of the potential candidates before most of the American Public can even start to consider who they are and whether they might actually make a good leader for the next four years...After these early elimination rounds the media will start speculating as to whether those who did not win have any chance of "rebounding" or whether they are "Toast"...and whether the "Winner" has "legs"...and at the end of this entire charade it is quite likely we will end up with two major party candidates that had raised a whole lot of campaign money and read the tea leaves well enough to navigate the whole silly, overblown, overly-long process, and successfully directed just enough negative advertising at their closest opposition for the nomination and were able to effectively deflect the smears aimed at them. At this point they will marshall all their funds and spend most of them attempting to paint the nominee of the opposing party as a bastard, half(or more)-crazed lunatic, traitor, moron who is not tough enough or compassionate enough or not something else enough, or maybe too much something else...only about 1/2 of these things will be true in most cases...and the American voting public will then look at who is taller or who they would prefer to hang out with for an hour or so and drink a beer with...which then gives them the intellectual chops and required involvement in the process to weigh in critically on whoever gets elected and voice disappointment and disgust at whoever it is...if we are lucky whoever does happen to get elected will turn out to be fair-minded and not abuse the power and position and at least try to govern and LEAD our country in a good and positive direction. If not, well, then we may end up with another President like the one we have now...don't know how many more of them this Republic can handle before we begin to disintegrate internally from all the rancor and divisiveness that type of 'leadership' tends to engender. But hey, we will still have our SUV's & MTV...and Televised Sporting Events, Celebrities and their personal pecadillos and fetishes to twitter and be concerned about, "Reality TV" to provide a constant Circus cycle to go with our Daily Bread...do I sound cynical today? I suppose so...

Just a little bit cynical, perhaps... and don't forget, you then have to factor in the amount of hot air that is also expended trying to convince the world outside that this system is a) the best in the world, and b) worth killing people for... and they wonder why we get so jaded and dislike politics.

PS... oops, just realized I left the first 'r' out of Tom Lehrer's name. Sorry, Tom.

As a clueless midwesterner outa touch with Parliament (When I need a laugh I love watching House of Commons on C-Span. You guys conduct politics with so much passion...) any song with Hazeltine, Hezzer and Widdecombe in it hasta be funnier than I realize. Tom Leher homage wins me over, too. The song brings images of Howard of Hell taking his turn after Duncan-Smith like the classic album cover "Who's Next?" zipping his pants up after urinating on Big Ben! A wonderful peek into the political atmosphere of our mother country. But I hafta comment on Maggie's street cred. No disrespezzy to da P.Ax but da MaggaHatch Biatch wit dat badunkadunk all up in my bozack got sum trippin shizzle. Ya fizzle mah wizzle?

It would appear that the Conservatives are just as mulish as their Republican bretheren over here. Don't ya love British politics? In America, if a member of the House of Representatives even slightly insults another, he has to immediately apologize. But in the House of Commons, you can say, "I dare say that the Honourable Gentleman from Wigton is a bloody fool with all the brains of a cabbage!" and your entire Party starts hooting like a bunch of yahoos -- so long as you still call him "the Honourable Gentleman." And Tony Blair is a true master of handling "Question Time." As was, much as I disliked her, Baroness Thatcher. Can you imagine Georgie Bush standing in the well of the House as Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank and Maxine Waters call him on his multiple lies?

Who's next - Maybe some dumb Hollywood actor who emmigrated to England?

Don't say that, 2Eagle. It's too scary a thought. The only one who qualifies, as far as I know, is... Mrs. Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone Penn, alias Esther Ritchie.

If you've completely lost direction,
Or are depressed by your reflection,
Or by Major's gaining reelection,
Why not do yourself in?
(--Verse from an old mp3.com song, now no longer available.)