Who would vote for anybody unless they were some kind of crank?! Who votes, except people who have a bee in their bonnet about something? I don't think it's easonable to suppose that any elected official will do anything other than enrich his gang and do such work as cannot be avoided to stay in the job. That is the sole reason why Stephen Harper was recently talking about gay marriage and so on; whereas in fact the practice has been established in this country and even the armed forces has accepted it. Mr Harper's view must be to look for votes from the sort of people who get a big charge out of someone else's mistreatment. Promise to make trouble for somebody and you'll pick up support from a nice demographic of hysterics and manic-depressives.

A while ago he was in the Atlantic provinces and thought it suitable to complain about the "culture of defeat" to be found there. I don't think anyone knew what he was talking about at the time. Defeat?? Was there a game on that we didn't know about, that we got owned in? Only later, having studied this "culture of X" buzzphrase, could you see what he was driving at: The unemployed have no jobs because they're too lazy. And it will be the same with everything else. You feel you were screwed over? Yeah, you probably wanted it. You'll get yours.

No doubt Mr Harper is a nice guy. But conservatives everywhere have been going through a strange, possibly psychotic phase lately.