Odds On

William Rees-Mogg writing in The Times recently tipped Lord Mandelson to be the next leader of the Labour party with, at his heels, Harriet Harmon making good running. Give me a break please Rees-Mogg - Mandelson leader with Harmon his deputy, or vice versa?..... the mind boggles.
I would like to know what the odds are on these two in the betting market. Now that Rees-Mogg has tipped them then maybe the odds will suddenly have risen; but as the time draws nearer when decisions have to be made by the National Executive or whoever, my bet is that they won't, either of them, be in the running.
Remember some time back when Margaret Thatcher was PM and people were speculating on a change up top? Who then was odds-on favourite? No, you can't remember because he has pretty well disappeared without trace; so I shall tell you: Kenneth Baker. Remember him?
He was tipped for the top but somehow I knew that he didn't have a snowballs. He was too decent, too nice, too much the intellectual. So he went - to the Lords.
But I must say that Kenneth Baker was responsible for introducing a bill that had the most far reaching effects on social life: the Dog Act. Now many people said it wouldn't work; others said it was a disgrace, an assault on the right of dogs to do whatever dogs do - like bite and shit and bark and kill little babies. I thought, and still think, that it was one of the best acts passed through parliament that have taken place in the past 50 or so years.
So, cheers to Kenneth Baker for that and though he is virtually forgotten he will always be remembered by me as a man who did the right thing - though it wasn't the most popular thing and maybe that's what eventually wrecked his ambition. If he really had any.
Mandelson, leader of the Labour Party? Don't make me laugh. Why not Elton John?