A major one just now is that Labor does have an anointed leader in Neil Kinnock, a skilled and strong political personality.

Once Iraq's anointed leader - anointed by the Americans - Chalabi, at age 62, is without a job, spurned by the very colleagues whose ascension he engineered.

The logic of this argument goes that the Lubavitch see no need for another rebbe because Rabbi Schneerson is the Messiah, the anointed leader whose appearance will herald the world's final salvation.

This fulfils the Mosaic prophecy that the anointed leader will "guide the caravan of the heavens to their new homeland" but the leader will not live to enter the new land.

Its anointed new leader received a prestige boost from Britain's Tony Blair and America's Bill Clinton.

Having been (whether he liked it or not) the anointed leader of the internal opposition in 2007, Miliband D's complicity in allowing what came next to happen is depicted as great and profound.

He does not walk, but strides in his peculiar gait, carrying himself like an anointed leader.

But the eyes that gazed steadily at him from the mirror confirmed what he already knew: that he was the anointed leader of the new age.

He considered himself the anointed leader of a chosen people wandering in the wilderness.

He quickly earned the respect of his colleagues and was subsequently anointed leader of the Progressive Party Caucus.