Gordon Brown in 2000:

Some people might think Ken Livingstone is funny, but saddling London with him for four years is no laughing matter.

And so the irony of the 2008 model Brown having everything crossed that Livingstone might help save his arse is a delicious one. I hope Gordon’s gagging on it. If I was him, I’d start drinking now and not stop until the snooker’s finished.

It was also a delight to hear the now rusting Blair Babes desperately scrabbling around for a silver lining on the radio this morning. Both Harriet Harman and Hazel Blears, spewing smoke and misfiring as they wobble and parp slowly towards the scrapyard, claimed that last night’s Tory successes would mean that the opposition’s policies and positions would now come under greater scrutiny in the run up to the next general election.

Oh, yeah? Like they did in 1997? Back then policies counted for almost nothing so why should they now? You could have pretty much, as they say, put a dog in suit and the voters would have put a tick in his box just to see off the Tories. That voters are now starting to look to an empty suit like Cameron should tell us just how bad things are 11 years later.