A lot of fellow Liberals, and indeed those from right across the political spectrum, will share my view that the current Labour Party leadership election has descended into farce.
The question is how and why did they come up with such a basket case of an electoral system.
Why not use a simple one member one vote system?
For the answer you have to go back more than thirty years to 1980 when the Labour leader was elected by the parliamentary party alone.
Following the disastrous Callaghan administration, the big unions wanted their say in choosing the Labour leader. At a conference in which they had 90% of the votes, they made sure they got it.
An electoral college was introduced with 40% of the vote reserved for unions which could be cast as block votes for their preferred candidate.
Over time this method came under pressure from both a hostile media and a New Labour leadership, determined to reduce union influence, but still get their much needed cash.
The negative publicity generated by the attempts of the Unite Union to get their nominee selected as the candidate in Falkirk, forced a panicked Ed Miliband to react.
However, like all his predecessors, he came up with a fudge that looked a bit like OMOV, but wasn’t.
He may well have wanted real reform, but wasn’t brave enough to completely exclude union votes.
The result is that the unions are still going to have a very big big say in who is the next Labour leader. By signing up registered supporters, the votes of their members will most likely be decisive just as they were when Ed was elected 5 years ago.
The other ironic twist is that the candidate who only made the ballot at the last minute (with the nominations of MPs who clearly weren’t supporting him), could now very well win!
I am so happy to be in a party that can conduct a free, fair and open leadership election.
* David Warren is a Lib Dem campaigner and a very small stakes gambler!