Sexing Up the Body Politic

Well what about those French Presidential elections, eh? The first round has given us a straight left-right run-off between Socialist Segolene Royal and conservative Nicolas Sarkozy. The question I have is: why don't we have socialists like that Miss Royal here in Britain? Of course, in a way we do, in the sense that she's been criticised by many traditional left-wingers for being too moderate in a Blairite sense. What I mean is, why doesn't the Labour Party seem to have any hot political babes like Miss Royal vying for the leadership (and I don't mean Margaret Beckett)? Can't they grasp that it is this very lack of eye candy for male voters which lies at the root of their problems? Look, we're sick of having to choose between middle-aged, not very attractive, men in elections. What British politics, and most specifically the Labour Party needs, is sex. OK, I know that it could be argued that we've had too much sex already in British politics. However, John Prescott humping secretaries on his desk, or Robin 'Sex Machine' Cook using his gnomish charms to lure unsuspecting women into cupboards at the Foreign Office on the pretext of showing them his 'fishing rod', are not what we need. The images conjured up by that sort of thing are enough to kill any amourous thoughts potential voters might have had stone dead. What we need is something we can fantasize about as we cast our ballots (so to to speak).

Now, before I'm accused of sexism, I'd just like to say that I'm simply trying to be realistic here. Men are shallow, I should know, I am one. We don't just think with our penises, given half a chance we'll vote with them as well. Show us a pretty face, a shapely thigh, a well rounded buttock or, even better, some cleavage, and we're happy. For us, erection means election. So clearly, to mobilise the male vote, Labour needs to field some political 'stunners'. Don't worry about the women voters - they're too sensible to be swayed by such things. Trust me, the smooth charms of David Cameron will only appeal to repressed ex-public school homosexuals. They won't fool women, who'll see through the smarm and recognise his insincerity and lack of either policies or principles. Sadly, British politics doesn't have too good a record on presenting us sex-obsessed male voters with female candidates we can have masturbatory fantasies about. In addition to the afore-mentioned Margaret Beckett, Labour has also given us such passion killers as Glenda Jackson, Barbara Castle and Harriet Harman. The Tories, if anything, have been even worse, serving us up Maggie Thatcher and Edwina Currie. Now, I know that many Tory MPs seemed to find Mrs T sexy, but that just reinforces my opinion that they are a bunch of ex public school types, who spent so much time buggering each other that anything vaguely resembling an arse seems attractive. As for Edwina Currie - well, would you want to whack off over a photograph of her? Or, even worse, imagine her naked? It is one of the great tragedies of John Major's life that not only was he married to Norma, but that he also had an affair with Edwina. Sheesh! Just how unlucky can one man be?

But getting back to the original point - whilst being an attractive woman would be an immeasurable help, any such new Labour leader would, obviously, also have to be ideologically sound. In addition to a great pair of knockers and a shapely arse, any Labour equivalent to Miss Royal would also have to be committed to a programme of achieving greater social equality through a programme of wealth redistribution in order to get my vote. I might be shallow, but not that shallow!