Hugh Muir: Hopeless

A grievous blow for Ivan Massow, the millionaire Tory businessman who once described himself as the "only gay in the Westminster village". Things have moved on, but still Massow was unable to convince the local party in Somerton and Frome to take seriously his bid to be the Tory champion at the next election. His advocacy of gay marriage, the issue that saw the local chairman resign, might not have helped. The candidate is to be David Warburton: a teacher turned businessman/composer, once a cleaner, van driver and shopkeeper. Just the man, say Tories, to shove the Lib Dem farming minister David Heath on the political scrapheap. They dream of nothing but Lib Dem humiliation these days.

The hopeless Hugh Muir in his record-breakingly banal and lazy Guardian Diary - did anyone really think Massow's "bid" was serious?