What's in a name?

So the runners are out of the stalls – Abbott, Balls, Burnham, Miliband, Miliband – and all from the first half of the alphabet!

If you look back over the postwar years the pattern is the same: Attlee, Gaitskell, Wilson, Callaghan, Foot, Kinnock, Smith, Blair, Brown. Add in the two temporary leaders after Smith and Brown (Beckett and Harman) – that’s 9 out of 11 with names starting in the first half.

It’s the same pattern with the Tories: Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Douglas-Home (whichever way you spell it), Heath, Thatcher, Major, Hague, Duncan-Smith, Howard, Cameron – 10 out of 11.

Not so different for Liberal leaders too: Davies, Grimond, Thorpe, Steel, Ashdown, Kennedy, Campbell, Cable (temp), Clegg – 7 out of 9.

What is going on here? Could it be to do with position on the ballot paper? Possibly – if you take all 31 A-M names in the lists above, 16 of them are A-Ds (four letters) compared with 15 E-Ms (nine letters) – so the skewing to the front is even more marked.

Do we really elect our leaders on the basis of their position in the alphabet? Should we be worried?