Hattie get your coat

Sir Compton simply drools whenever he sees the Rt Hon Harriet Harman on the television. She's luv-er-ly. But he thinks it would be a very bad thing for the Labour Party if she became leader (though a very good thing for the Tory party).

Would not Harriet, in order to make herself feel good about social justice, have to move the party to the Left? Reach for Britannia's helm, a breastplate bloodied but unyielding, and a 50,000-volt cattle prod for all ghastly men!

The trouble is, the world as moved on. Consumerism has trumped just about everything else and, while perfectly laudable, a more equal society - and not just between the sexes - would undoubtedly be a more sour and petty society too. And God knows its sour and petty enough as things stand.

We've had all this New Jerusalem guff before and people aren't interested. If she really thinks she can revive the economy and make health and education better - as opposed to simply burdened with yet more targets and tables - then she ought to put up once Mr Brown has been a) decapitated (unlikely) or; b) faced and been punished horribly by the electorate (more likely, incredibly). But if - and this applies to all parties - she wants to chase the dream of a fairer society, forget it. There is, however, one reason, though, why she should put up, and that is to wipe the snarl off the face of Mrs Balls.

Incidentally, neither of these ladies will ever be Prime Minister because, like Neil Kinnock, they would ultimately scare the bejaysus out of voters. So leadership for them, or for whoever gets it, will be a question of taking the tribe into the wilderness for, most likely, two terms. Put a fiver on Alan Johnson as an interim leader and then Ed Miliband once they've finished tearing chunks off themselves. They ain't going to win from the Left and need someone palatable and competent-looking from the Centre.

Anyway, there's a very good thing about Hattie in the Sunday Times. She's quite nice, really.