£200,000 a vote

The Count and his ancestors always maintained a healthy distaste for democracy. Clearly, Gordon Brown shares the Count's aristocratic distrust of anything democratic. Having run away from four elections so far (Labour's leadership election, the dodged call for a general election, the promised EU referendum and the David Davis by-election) it is clear he is no fan of letting anyone other than G Brown vote on anything. His dislike is understandable. When forced into an election, his disasters include:

• Crewe (first Tory gain from Labour since the Ice Age)
• Henley (lost Labour's deposit),
• London (lost the plot and let a toff win, which at least shows Londoners have some sense)
• Glasgow East, which was Labour since the time God was born.

In his desperation to achieve popularity, he has resorted to bribery. When the Kostovs needed to rig an election, things were simple. We would give all our peasants a bottle of vodka and some nicely boiled cabbage, and they would vote the right way. Those who put their illiterate mark on the wrong part of the voting slip would promptly be evicted. This was a cheap and effective way of making sure that the voters made the right choice. Gordon Brown can not even bribe the electorate well.

In an attempt to buy the Glasgow East election, he threw £600 million at the electorate in the form of delaying a 2p rise in fuel duty. The dummy did not realise that if you need a car in Glasgow East, you steal it. When it runs out of petrol, you steal another car. So no one in Glasgow East has ever been near a petrol station, except to raid it, and no one pays fuel duty. His bribe missed the target completely. If he had given the Glaswegian voters the latest Scottish delicacy, a deep fried chocolate covered pizza, for free he would have earned their votes and adulation. So that was £600 million to gain less than 11,000 votes: over £50,000 per vote. That would buy as much deep fried pizza, dodgy booze, fags and dope to keep the whole constituency happy for decades. They could even afford to buy some petrol to torch the cars they have stolen.

And he still managed to lose the election. His corruption is forgivable: his incompetence is not. At least he should be able to rig an election properly. Even Mugabe does a better job: at least he manages to declare himself the winner.

Glasgow East was nothing compared to the disaster of Crewe. He decided to bribe the voters of Crewe by doing a U-Turn on his policy of doubling income tax on the poor. The last time the Kostovs tried doubling the tax on their poor, we were faced with 70 years of Communist revolution, Stalinism, gulags, bad television and worse food. Of course, Brown did not quite have the guts to say it was a U turn, so instead of repealing his tax rise he decided to throw £2.6 billion at some mind numbingly complex and inefficient scheme designed to make good the worst effects of his tax hike. Brown's £2.6 billion garnered him a grand total of 12,679 votes. That is £200,000 per vote. And still he lost. He is a genius in terms of incompetence.

However, the good news is that Gordon Brown can count on the Count's vote: slip the Count £200,000 (used notes, non sequential serial numbers please) and the Count would vote even for G Brown. Even better, give the Count a few billion and he will show the Prime Minister how to bribe voters efficiently, while letting the Count earn a nice little commission on the side.

Of course, there is a simpler alternative. Revert to aristocratic rule and do away with elections altogether. Count Kostov stands ready to serve....