Lembit Öpik loses it in more ways than one

Lembit Öpik  has failed in his bid to be LibDem  candidate for London Mayor next year. Coming last in a field of four. our hero saw comparisons with another great man.

Lembit said

 "I think like every great politician you have to have some wilderness years. Nelson Mandela had them. Many other people had them."

I will give him the benifit that this was a form of joke and he wasn't really comparing himself to a man who spent Mandela was imprisoned on the notorious  Robben Island where he spent  eighteen of his twenty-seven years in prison for standing up against the ecvils of Apartheid.and who on his release led all the peoples of South Africa to democratic election and government.

The trouble for Lembit is even as an ironic jest many will see this as the musing of a vainglorious hasbeen.

The victor in the LibDem nominations was Brian Paddick  who on the Todays programme  claimed that he realises that current Mayor Boris Johnson was unpopular with Londoners because he been talking to Taxi Drives.

Readers of Private Eye and the occasional column " A Taxi Driver Writes –  may well see something on the lines of

 

Today No. 13458 N Griffin: 

I had that Brian Paddick in the back of my cab . Clever Man got Boris  and Ken bang to rights. They say he an ex-copper. Thats what we need . He sort out those looters. String them up thats  what I say. He's what! Blimey did they know that in the Met? 

Got what a choice they have in London Johnson , Livingstone and Paddick. I hope for progressive voters sake the Greens find a prominent candidate and they can afford to put up a decent fight.