I have been experiencing a fair amount of schadenfreude (A german word, meaning "Pleasure at the pain and misfortune of others) watching the Tory leadership race unfold.

If you haven't got any idea what I'm talking about, here is a brief recap of goings on for the last month or so. After the Tory political party lost in landslide fashion to the Labour party in the general election, the leader of the Tories (William Hague) decided to quit his post as head of the party.

This left the job wide open, and so the typical several-month long job of electing a new leader began. Five people tried to lead the party, but three were voted out of the running, leaving only two - Kenneth Clarke and Iain Duncan Smith.

This is all very well, but there is one major problem - Europe. The European Union (EU) wants Britain to join the European Single Currency (the Euro) and ditch the pound sterling, something that the current Labour Government are toying with doing. Kenneth Clarke also wants to join the Euro - but Duncan Smith does not.

This small problem has escalated beyond all proportion, creating a rift between the party so wide that whoever wins now will be unsupported by half the party. The last two Tory Prime Ministers, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, are supporting Duncan Smith and Clarke respectively.

Add to this that one of Duncan Smith's election campaign team actually belonged to a far right Nazi-ist group (the British National Front) and that Thatcher is trying to sabotage Clarke's campaign in every way possible, and this gives you basicly two very different parties merged forcibly into one.

This also leads the way for a third party (the Liberal Democrats, of whom I support personally) to slip unnoticed into effective opposition against Labour, relegating the once great Tories into little more than a minorty party.

Of course, I think that this is great. All the in-fighting in the Tories is going to lead to blows, all the voters will leave them and (as most of them hate the Labour government too) will join the only viable alternative - the Liberal Democrats.

Schadenfreude may be a bad thing, but it sure feels GOOD.

Chris"Monster Raving Loony"topher