I am cautiously pleased. While Diane Abbott is wonderful she is probably unelectable. I am by no means clear that the school debating club of PM's question time is relevant. It is a showcase from a former era when teh fiction of parliamentary democracy was still alive. The first question is who will play best to the electorate and the second question is who will do something once in (and if in) to restore democracy in place of the dictatorship of the majority.

Bear in mind that we have probably already tipped, like Italy, into the abyss of electoral history - today the whole country is a rotten borough controlled by the concentration of press power. If we don't fix that (in the same way that if the US does not fix its oligocracy) we are totally stuffed as a democracy, and the best we can hope for is a benevolent dictator - in which respect I vastly prefer Miss Piggy to the dirty Digger. At least if you have heredity determining rulership there is a chance of benevolence.   The stinking rich are by definition sociopaths. That is how they got rich.