Brief Lives: Alan Johnson's Labour Leadership Bid 2006-2006

Across Britain today, almost no-one is mourning the death of Education Secretary Alan Johnson's Bid for the Labour Party Leadership, which passed away largely unnoticed at 9am.

The child of a desperate desire to prevent Gordon Brown becoming Prime Minister, Alan Johnson's Leadership Bid was born in the summer of 2006 in the region of the Number Ten Policy Unit in Downing Street. Its birth was greeted by a wave of complete indifference in newspapers, magazines, television and across the nation as a whole.

Over the following months, backers of the Leadership Bid whipped themselves into a frenzy of tedium as campaign HQ pulsed to the sound of no phones ringing and no calls being made. By the beginning of this month, those behind the Leadership Bid were at fever pitch as Mr Johnson's recognition factor leapt to an astonishing 2 people in 100, though sadly both those people recognised Mr Johnson as "the bloke who used to hand out the shopping baskets at the entrance to Asda".

Facing inevitable ignominy The Leadership Bid was buried this morning when Mr Johnson told a packed hall of empty seats that he would not be standing for the leadership as there was a far more able man for the job ... though sadly he had been unable to dissuade Mr Blair from standing down.

Alan Johnson's Labour Leadership Bid is survived by Alan Johnson's Deputy Leadership Bid, and, tragically, John Reid.