Pick sexier leaders and save democracy

If Boris Johnson, George Galloway and Nigel Farage have taught us anything, it's the enduring British affection for a  rogue.

There's something deep within us which will forgive you anything, provided you look like you'd buy a round in the pub, could share a joke with a taxi driver, and know one end of a woman from the other.

You could call it charm. Or confidence.

Or, brace yourself, sexiness. You may recoil in horror from the idea, but truth is, these men do have sex appeal. Maybe not to you, but they've done well for themselves.

You may hate them, but it's hard to deny they have a certain alpha-maleness; and it's silly to deny that people respond to that.

Now, here's a problem.

Those who choose the leaders, the political class, the media, are the most immune to the charms of the alpha male (or female) so their success always comes as a surprise. The (culturally) middle class tend to be resentful of charisma, mainly because in its youth it was an unpopular, though self-regarding, spod.

The working and upper classes hate the cultural middle class. Sad, but true.

It's not jealousy; it's because the (cultural) middle class are the least sexy and least charming of all classes. Indeed, they deny the existence of sexiness or charm. They look for their leaders to display things like ideological purity, moral seriousness, all the while wearing terrible ill-fitting suits. Outside of the group this is very confusing.

To the cultural middle class Ed Miliband as Labour leader makes sense. To everyone else it is baffling, verging on insulting. THIS GUY? You are JOKING!

Really?

The electorate doesn't give a fuck about the Labour leader's credentials - they want to be swept off their feet by someone dashing, someone who'll repeatedly let them down then look them in the eye, and make them feel like there's no one else in the world but them. A wink. I can't stay mad at you.

Who in the Labour party can you imagine seducing anyone? I mean, other than a drunk researcher on the last evening of a conference. Blair's problem was not his transgressions - it was his protestations of wide-eyed innocence. If he'd managed a wink, a shrug, a leak of that Wendi Deng thing, he'd still be in power.

We can't let the fringe parties (UKIP, Respect, Conservatives) have the monopoly on charisma. We need sexy bastards in the mainstream. Are there any out there? Suggestions in the comments.