You don't have to be mad. But...

Theodore Dalrymple in today's Times (£) highlights the inflation in the official recognition of syndromes, manias and psychoses, as meticulously documented in and promoted by the ever-expanding Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

Which got me pondering as to how the Labour Party leadership candidates are bearing up as we enter the thirteenth week of campaigning. With the DSM as my guide, I think I may have noticed a condition or five that point towards everyone needing to take a few days off:

SERRACUMMUSICUS INSILIOMANIA

an irresistible compulsion to jump on bandwagons

HYPERBOREAN TOURETTE'S

inability to stop mentioning one's regional provenance

PEDAGOGICAL INTERROGATIVE APHASIA

a speech impediment presenting as tongue paralysis 

when asked a question about education

HEALEY'S PARANOIA

unavoidable anxiety experienced by those 
diagnosed as the frontrunner
(see also Heseltine Syndrome and Acute Portilloism) 

CLP-TYPE MICRONUMEROPHOBIA

severe aversion to smaller than expected returns 

from the local party nominations

 
The good news is that most of these are reckoned to be seasonal disorders and that everyone should be cured by the 25th September.