Why on earth did Harriet Harman not stand for the leadership of the Labour Party? She would easily outshine the dull and unimpressive bunch now fighting for the crown.

Harman has been acting leader since Ed Miliband scuttled off after the party’s general election defeat on May 7.

She has shown herself to be far more than a mere adequate stand-in.

She has coped well with David Cameron during Commons exchanges, which is more than Miliband ever did.

She has demonstrated, too, that this will be – to use her own expression – a “grown-up” Opposition, that will not necessarily vote against every single Government proposal – purely because it is Tory.

But, alas, she has had to backtrack somewhat in the face of outrage from many thoughtless Labour MPs who ridiculously believe that every dot and comma of Conservative policy must be opposed, irrespective of its merit or otherwise.

It remains a mystery why Harman, who is such a fervent campaigner for women to be at the top, did not throw her hat into the ring.

Meanwhile, some of the candidates themselves appear to be in a state of shock over the advances that hard-line left-winger Jeremy Corbyn has made during the campaign.

Some have said that if he wins they would not serve under him and also that they would not appoint him to a post in their own shadow Cabinet.

How foolish and embarrassed now must those short-sighted MPs be feeling who helped to nominate Corbyn on the grounds that all wings of the party should have their say in this campaign?

Did it not occur to these dunderheads that the way to stop the hard left from getting a foothold would have been not to nominate him in the first place?

Apparently not. What chumps they are!

Boris Johnson is by no means the force of nature in the House of Commons as he is as Mayor of London.

His “second coming” into the Palace of Westminster at the last general election has proved to be an unhappy time for a man who thrives on bluster, wit and the television camera in close proximity.

The “killer” blow was the ruthless put-down inflicted on him by the Home Secretary Theresa May when she refused to allow the use of water cannon on the streets of London.

But he deserved every bit of it.

Boris had stupidly wasted thousands of pounds of public money buying second-hand water cannon from the Germans without taking the elementary precaution of checking, before he embarked on this ludicrous purchase, that he would be allowed to use them.

How foolhardy was that?

He is reportedly now claiming that Theresa May and the Chancellor George Osborne are doing their darnedest to prevent him getting anywhere near the party leadership once David Cameron has quit before the next election.

That may or may not be true. But he is certainly not helping his own advancement with brainless transactions of this kind.

Before the 2010 general election, Boris, as Mayor of London, was the most powerful Tories in the country.

Now he is just one among hundreds of Conservative MPs.

The Scottish Nationalists are proving every bit as troublesome as people feared.

They have already kiboshed, temporarily at least, plans to relax the anti-hunting legislation and are rampant over ‘English votes for English laws’ proposals.

There is no way David Cameron and Co will succeed in taming them.

When the senior SNP MP Angus MacNeil says: “If the Government think they can kick us and there will be no tick back,they are wrong,” this is no idle threat.

They mean business so ministers had better beware.

There can never, of course, be a ‘right’ time to give members of parliament a pay rise.

But to hand them a 10% hike is no less than a kick in the teeth for those policemen, nurses and others employed in public services who are having to make do on 1%.

If they don’t want it, they should hand it back to the people who pay them, you and me, the taxpayer.

They simply have to write out a cheque to the Treasury who will take it back with glee.

What could be simpler?