Idiot Fogey Marcel Berlins has gone all William Rees-Mogg in today’s Guardian and predicted centrist Francois Bayrou to emerge as the next President of France, as a result of voters turning off Sarkozy and Royal in droves.

It’s a shame Berlins has backed him, as Bayrou would have made an excellent president.

Despite his apparent support, Berlins says he would be “a leader with even less charisma than the next British Prime Minister” but omits a far more pertinent fact, which is that Bayrou, like Brown, is a formidable politician and potentially a formidable head of state. Bayrou has the particular gift a lot of politicians strive for all their lives, of dressing up brutal common sense as political idealism. He is a candidate who really speaks, clearly, constructively and convincingly, for people who are sick and tired of politics.

He has been caricatured by the Sarkozy camp as “an extreme centrist” which is an imaginative way of avoiding the admission that he outflanks Sarkozy on intellect, honesty, gravitas and most importantly of all, an understanding of what France needs. He is a social liberal (unlike Sarkozy) and an economic conservative. He loathes dogma, from either left or right.

There is still a long way to go, and Sarkozy is still, it has to be said, a massive favourite. He has an enormous machine behind him and his campaign is far slicker than Royal’s. Bayrou looks to have the sympathy of the voters without necessarily being able to persuade them to part with their vote.

He is way ahead of the other two on basic intellect and suitability for the role, but that’s unfortunately less than half the story.