I can't work out if this is better or worse than Boris...

Actually that's a bit of a silly thing to say. Anything is better than Boris.

But we now have, according to the Metro and other high quality news sources (Sky News, The Mirror), the news that 26 year old Miss Great Britain, Gemma Garrett, is running as an MP for the "Beauties For Britain party" in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election on May 22.

Ms Garrett has apparently said: "I may not know a lot about politics yet, but I do know about people and how everyone would prefer that Britain looks and feels beautiful instead of dwelling on the ugly and negative side of life and politics."

Quite...

She will be guided through her campaign by Robert de Keyser, the chairman of the Miss Great Britain contest, described by Metro as her "political advisor".

It's been obvious for years that in this post Blairite-Britain politics is now all about marketing: the spin of Blair and New Labour, the phoney eco-posing of Cameron, the libido of Nick "shagger" Clegg for the Lib Dems (OK forget the last one...). I mean, when someone can get elected as Mayor of London, with no record of competence, but purely on the ground that his imbecility is funny, you know we have jumped the shark...

But this takes things one step further. This is political candidacy as marketing tool, apparently marketing for the Miss GB contest. At least Screaming Lord Sutch launched the Monster Raving Looney Party to show that every one, no matter how absurd, had a right to the political process. This is politcs as promotion.

So next election you can choose between the banality of the main parties, the extremism of the BNP and the RESPECT party and the lifestyle choices of the Nescafe Party (the candidate that never sleeps), the McDonalds Party (the candidate that never exercises) and the Nintendo Wii Party (the party that exercises in the comfort of its own living room whilst smoking lots of skunk).

Which probably means the democratic process isn't dead.

Then again, we did just elect Boris.