All political careers end in failure… Theresa May, Corbyn, Trump – Prime Minister, LOTO, POTUS. All going well for them. For now..

10) Marco Rubio: He was the perfect GOP candidate, smart young and hispanic. The perfect foil to win the key state of Florida… The GOP primaries started off with a bang for little Marco when he scored an amazing third place in Iowa. The pundits were stunned “It shouldn’t be possible” they cried. People rushed to back him at 1.7 on Betfair, and he went as short as 5-2 for the presidency.

Well it all came crashing down with a bang when he had a malfunction in the debates and his “Florida strategy” ended up with him failing there too, just like he had everywhere else – except Minnesota curiously enough.

Still he took Florida in the General handily and is now part of a Senate that is all GOP controlled, so definitely not the worst failure here.

9 Andrea Leadsom: She won the Brexit vote, and somehow ended up the finalist to face off against the favourite, May. And then she announced she had children. “As a mother”, the papers had tricked her. They’d been so terribly teribly mean to her.

Well its a good job she wasn’t auditioning for a job where naivety might go, oh wait that horrible Putin tricked me in the negotiations. Oh wait, she was. She wanted to become the Prime Minister.. Now in charge of DEFRA, where she can keep tabs on cows and their calves.

8 George Osborne: It was all his for the taking, the chosen golden heir to David Cameron’s glorious Tory inheritance. He strapped himself into the good ship Remain, and said “I’ll punish ALL the Brexiteers” as the vote loomed. Anyway on the 23rd June his ship smashed up on the rocks, George among the first casualties.

7 Jeb Bush: The pre event betfair favourite for the GOP leadership for much of the summer… And then it actually started. $44 million in the tiny state of New Hampshire to finish FIFTH. $2080 a vote in the Iowa caucus to finish, was it before or after no hoper Chris Christie ? Who cares

Trump utterly demolished ‘Low Energy Jeb’, and never has so much political cash been spent for such a tiny impact. He didn’t just lose the GOP primary, he was so comprehensively thrashed historians will look back at his campaign with wonderment as to how so much money could produce such little result.

6 Michael Gove: He’d masterminded the Brexit plot. A cerebral man, with a Brexit plan so comprehensively brilliant that it would propel him to the top of the Tory party in a post Brexit world where he, and not the experts would reign supreme. So working together with his partner in crime, good old Boris he hatched his plot, won the Brexit vote – and then standing right behind Boris plunged the knife in so deep that not even the Conservative party could stomach the sight of the amount of blood he had on his hands. The old “He who wields the knife” proverb was confirmed yet again.

5 Boris Johnson: Boris took a while to choose sides. Join the Bullingdon Remain Galley, or slink off with raider Farage, Pirate Galloway and the rest of the Buccaneer Brexiteers. Seeing as he quite fancied leading the Tories, and Captain Dave and First Mate George had made it very clear THEY would be steering the Remainer he slinked off and joined the rogues.

Obviously they’d never win, after all all Boris’ mates were voting remain. Every man woman and child from N5 to TW10 was flying the European flag, Boris KNEW the filthy flag of convenience he’d adopted could never ever win.
Except it did, and then some ‘promises’ he’d made to the electorate came into sharp focus. £350 million was it Boris ? It all unravelled, and his leadership hopes were dashed as fellow Brexiteer Gove plunged the knife in.

4 Owen Smith: Tom Watson organised it, and then one by one, by one, by one a hundred and seventy Labour parliamentarians expressed “No confidence” in red Jez. But no one wanted to challenge him, all fearful of losing. Badly.
Eventually Angela Eagle stood up “Ah but you’re lacking the right equipment” the rest of the PLP cried out, and so they decided to give Owen a run at Jez. The first point of call for the great white hope was to try and rig the ballot so Jez couldn’t stand, and after that the Jez vs Owen Smith contest was on.

I watched two of the debates and I have to say I have never seen JC look quite so brilliant as he did against Owen Smith. Smith was dire, by far the worst of all the candidates I’ve listed on this page including Andrea Leadsom. Anyway Smith got the shellacking he quite rightly deserved, and even people who voted for him thought he was a piss poor candidate.

3 David Cameron: It was all set up for his greatest triumph. He’d thrashed the Scots, whacked Ed Miliband and the hat-trick was in sight. He’d confirm Britain’s place in Europe forever and be known as Dave the Great throughout the ages. And then Sunderland came in. Remain had barely won in Newcastle. The tale of the night was of provincial England telling Dave and his mates where to stick it. Dave – the man who triggered the Brexit vote, and responsible more than any other for the result (Referenda can be forever dodged if one wants) resigned from Downing Street the next morning. At the peak of his powers, and then gone off *poof* into the dinner speaking smoke.

2 Hillary Clinton: She had one job. ONE JOB. To beat Donald Trump, a twice Bankrupt Queens billionaire dripping in gold. It was all going perfectly, the early vote in by mails were rolling in for the Democrats and the firewall was about to include North Carolina. Every analytic pointed to a Hillary win. And then the results started to come in. Rural counties going massively for Trump, and in the end an impressively efficient victory for a man with supposedly no ground game.

Hillary was cold, had no charisma and no message for those struggling in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. Trump had a message, and an actual campaign – and somehow Clinton from the US party of working men and Women, the Democrats lost the working class to a fricking billionaire. I did search on Youtube for news of Hillary’s rallies but couldn’t find any… her campaign was proof if ever needed that you have to be out there fighting and pushing your message. I’d recommend watching the Major campaign of 1992 as bedtime viewing for her.

1 The pundits, Media, consensus, US : We all wrote off Brexit, they all wrote off Trump. 95% chance proclaimed Sam Wang for Clinton, & the pre-Brexit mood was similiar – they’d commissioned an exit poll at every polling station in Primrose Hill. The pound soared, Betfair hit 10-1 for both Trump and Brexit. And then the results rolled in.
Sunderland, North Carolina, Newcastle, Florida. The consensus view of what ought to happen blown apart by those pesky voters not once, but twice. John Harris got it, as did a psephologist who exists only on Google sheets.. Not many others did.

2016. It’s been quite a year.

Pulpstar