from operator import itemgetter

unsorted = [(3, 1, 'Python'), (1, 3, 'Haskell'),
        (2, 1, 'Scheme')]
# default: sorts by first item
print sorted(unsorted)
# custom: sorts by second item
print sorted(unsorted, key=itemgetter(1))

# output
# [(1, 3, 'Haskell'), (2, 1, 'Scheme'), (3, 1, 'Python')]
# [(3, 1, 'Python'), (2, 1, 'Scheme'), (1, 3, 'Haskell')]