A Political Post About Animals.

The African Savannah. A vast stretch of land that is home to some of the world's most beautiful creatures. The image at the beginning of The Lion King whereby the huge orange sun rises over incredibly flat land is an image that's always conjured up in my mind when I think of one of Earth's most beautiful landscapes.

Now think of the creatures that call this land home. Imagine a group of fast moving buffalo and a herd of slow, lumbering elephants migrating to a new watering hole. The buffalo have a clear leader to take them towards their goal, a fresh face in a world usually only reserved for the oldest and experienced. Whilst some of the buffalo's decisions have been called into question recently and he may have struggled to make firm commitments on particular issues, he had the support of the rest of his herd (to an extent on particular issues but nevertheless, his leadership credentials were never threatened), and as a result, the buffalo move on at a quick pace towards the watering hole.

Now the elephants. Their leader, a bumbling old elephant who's every move and decision seem to implode around him, forcing the rest of the elephants to question whether he's the right one to lead them towards the watering hole. When the watering hole is in sight and when it's more important than ever to have unity amongst the herd, senior elephants attempt a sneaky coup in order to unseat the head elephant. Whilst they may claim to have been trying to establish the right leader, it is totally obvious to everyone around they're not happy with being led by this particular elephant. Other senior elephants take their time to commit, but eventually defend their leader as they seem to be catching up to the buffalo, and despite the two scheming elephants admitting their coup has failed, the damage on the elephant herd is far-reaching. Instead of concentrating their efforts on reaching the water hole, they're fussing over a problem that isn't going to change and their internal disagreements look set to plague the herd all the way to the water hole. All it's doing is allowing the buffalos to get a bigger lead.

If by now you're thinking I've gone all Doctor Doolittle and a turned a bit bonkers, that was one big analogy in describing the current 'shituation' the Labour Party is in at the moment. While Cameron stuttered and stumbled through Monday when talking about married couples, instead of seizing the opportunity to fight back, Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt thought they could bring up that now centuries (well it certainly feels like it) old debate as to whether Gordon Brown could actually lead the Labour Party to election victory. Their proposed secret ballot was about to close to stabbing Brown in the back as possible, and their "amateurish" plot failed. Miserably.

Miserably for everyone except the Tories. Their 'uncatchable' lead in the Polls has been eaten away at over the last few weeks, and with Cameron's lack of commitment to tax breaks for married couples, it's not hard to see why. But now Brown's back in the firing line for the wrong reasons and the continued flogging of the dead horse about his leadership credentials looks set to haunt him for the next 5 or 6 months. Nice knowing you Gordon, or should I say, leader of the elephants.