Yvette Cooper popped up on TV this afternoon - another politician who "was the future once"

One particularly poignant reminder of the fleeting nature of political fortune was provided by a TV news interview with Yvette Cooper during this afternoon's comings and goings. With her earnest little munchkin face all scrunched up in resentment, she was mainly whining about Boris Johnson's elevation to one of the three great offices of state, but she also found time to moan about some of the other outrageously right-wing cabinet appointments as well. I wasn't really listening to what this former hot tip for the top spot was saying: instead, I was wondering just how awful it must be for a former political BSD to find herself wittering away irrelevantly on College Green in the role of token Labour voice.  After all, this woman undoubtedly (and not too long ago) must seriously have entertained the prospect of becoming Britain's second female prime minister, with hubby as her chancellor. But her abysmal, career-destroying, coma-inducing performances during last year's Labour leadership election campaign killed off those hopes once and for all.

How galling to have to stand there today representing a party which, during Tony Blair's reign, had seemingly turned itself into the natural party of government, but which has now been reduced to the status of a chaotic, incoherent protest movement (and a particularly ugly, violent, hate-filled and foul-mouthed one at that); a party which - for all practical purposes - no longer exists as a political force in parliament, and which is unlikely to exist in its present form for much longer. Not only that, but the "respectable" wing of the party - the one Ms Cooper belongs to - no longer seems to have a definable purpose, as it evidently doesn't represent any particular section of mainstream society in any meaningful way. Even if the majority Blairite/Brownite wing of the Parliamentary Labour Party could get rid of Steptoe (which it seemingly can't) there doesn't appear to be any convincing reason why, between them, the Conservatives and UKIP shouldn't plunder traditional Labour seats in most parts of the country at the next election (apart from in London, which, thanks to an unusually high proportion of immigrants and middle class liberal-leftists, is decidedly weird).

The Tories are in power without ever really having won over the country: they snatched victory at last year's general election by default, because Labour threw away all its natural advantages. By focussing on the sort of politically correct, cultural Marxist irrelevancies so beloved of North London leftists, Labour managed to mislay the whole of Scotland as well as large swathes of its natural support in England and Wales: its fanatical pro-EU stance and its refusal to acknowledge the somewhat obvious truth that its traditional working-class supporters aren't quite as keen on mass immigration as Islingtonians in search of a steady supply of cheap nannies, builders, exotic restaurants and Uber drivers. And Ed Balls's wife was as guilty as anyone at the top of her party when it came to a preference for indulging in middle-class metropolitan virtue-signalling over addressing the genuine fears, concerns and priorities of traditional Labour voters. She really can't blame anyone but herself and her peculiar ilk for the dramatic reversal in her fortunes.

To make matters even worse for Ms Cooper, the Tory prime minister whose reshuffle she was so ineffectually criticising today was the former Home Secretary whom she shadowed for four long years between 2011 and 2015: during that period, it was obvious, whenever they faced each other across the Dispatch Box, that these two women absolutely despised each other (anyone who seriously believes the world would be a more peaceful place if only it were ruled by women would do well to watch footage of these two squaring up to each other: scary).

In 2013, Woman's Hour included Theresa May and Yvette Cooper on a list of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom. Now, Yvette Cooper has no power at all, and her great enemy actually is the most powerful woman in the United Kingdom (not counting the Queen, of course). That's got to hurt. Obviously, one's heart bleeds. (Camila Batmanghelidjh was also on the 2013 list: I wonder what she's up to these days.)