Is this the Tory leadership race or the seventh circle of hell? | John Crace

The woeful standard of wannabe leaders - KemiKaze, Jimmy Dimly, Honest Bob - proves the Tories' masochistic need to be abused

Credit where credit is due. You'd have thought the Tory party conference would be a downbeat affair. A death spiral of despair. Instead, it's as if everyone is out of their heads on acid. Blissed out in an alternative reality. Slugging back vast quantities of Kool Aid in an everlasting kiss.

This being the Conservatives, you can never rule out the possibility that there are a number of delegates who still have no idea they suffered a landslide defeat in the July election. Or even that the election actually took place. The same people who haven't yet been told that Margaret Thatcher is not immortal. There's a surprising number of them.