I may have to start screaming

And you would not like that. The reason I feel like screaming is that I am still reading numerous references to Gordon Brown not being the elected Prime Minister but being a despot and a tyrant as well as, no doubt, a usurper.

He is none of those things though we have moved a long way from the sort of liberal, constitutional democracy that many of us would like. That process was helped along by both parties, particularly since this country's membership of what started as the EEC and is now the EU.

Now please, everybody repeat after me: we do not elect Prime Ministers, we elect parties to form governments. As the leader of the party that has won three elections (and what does that tell you about political life in this country?) Gordon Brown is the duly elected Prime Minister of this country (and what does that tell you ....?). Tough.

I appreciate that the Labour Party should not have crowned him after Blair's resignation instead of going through their usual internal electoral process but that is their problem. It has nothing to do with the country or its constitution.

Just to remind everyone: other "unelected" Prime Ministers were Churchill in 1940, Eden in 1955, Macmillan in 1957, Douglas-Home in 1963, Callaghan in 1976 and Major in 1991 1990 (thank you for the correction). All unelected tyrants, presumably.