Leaders’ labours leave us baffled

Especially for new leaders.

Why is it so complex? Why is it made so deliberately unpleasant with various levels and candidates thoroughly humiliated if a controversial but popular hero has runaway votes and the bottom of the list group has three or something similar? Why can’t it be a straight vote and that’s that?

Still, there’s not a lot of point in asking what we think of as the obvious, is there? We are after all, dealing with political parties here!

Now I know that languages – even our beloved English – can change over the years, generation by generation.

But really some of the words which rise up and demand to be accepted by everyone else, are laughable if they were not so silly.

I mean where did the following mouthful come from?

Being quizzed about the health service and its future, one chap talked earnestly about the ‘marketisation of the NHS.’

If marketisation has found its way into the language, I do not wish to be expected to use it. If it is just a figment of someone’s imagination, please leave it there.

I refuse to get involved in the Jo Brand performance concerning milk shakes and batteries.

Not because I don’t have a view about the lady whose strength appears to lie in offending people but just because I’m easily bored.

It’s daft, but sort of funny.

Talking about the re-using of Madame Tussaud waxworks where it seems you can be heated as new (your effigy, that is) and become someone quite different, the effervescent Anneka Rice reckons that her body has indeed been melted down to become Kim Kardashian’s bottom.

I’m not sure who is the winner here!

I had a little booklet years ago called something like Know Thyself.

I read it but can’t remember what labels I acquired. However, actor John Cleese has his own little memory bank and when new knight Michael Palin wondered why his actor pal had not also been honoured, apparently Mr Cleese chipped in with his own probable reasons.

He said: “I am too naughty, I am untrustworthy, irreverent and vulgar. They have never asked me.”

There’s honesty for you anyway.

Well you have to hand it to our Andy (Murray) who has, of course, been honourably knighted.

As he recovered from significant surgery earlier this year, Sir Andy always said, cautiously, that while he may not play Wimbledon this year, he could enter big time again playing doubles at the popular Queen’s Club championships.

And it seems that prediction is set to come true.

What’s more, these days he is, above all things, a sensible chap. Although he loves playing singles which is where his heart lies, he is well prepared to become a doubles player for as long as it takes.

Nowadays, Andy has a charmed home life with a lovely wife and two adorable daughters, underlining that tennis is no longer at the centre of everything. And when he does come thundering back, he’ll be all the better for that.

Good luck, Sir, keep up the progress!

Author Jilly Cooper is 82 now and still preaching the best in romantic relationships.

She suggests that wives/partners should forgive affairs, force the ironing on the man/other half and go to bed angry. Hey, don’t blame me if it doesn’t work!