Anything you can do .....

As those of us who are old enough to remember will testify, we used to have two main political parties that were ideologically opposed to each other. For most of the time this worked pretty well - whoever was in government governed and whoever was in opposition opposed them. The advent of programmes like "Question Time" and the broadcast of parliament meant that sometimes the whole thing seemed a little childish and tiresome, though.

The reason for this is that politics is essentially about argument and, whichever way you look at it, argument is not great theatre for the vast majority of people. What "Question Time" and parliamentary broadcast demonstrated is that most of the time politics was about one side saying one thing and then the other taking a virtually opposite view. One side saying one thing and then the other saying "no, you're wrong" followed by the other side saying "no, YOU'RE wrong" isn't really that entertaining.

But at least there was a clear choice. What we have seen over the last couple of weeks with the Lib Dems, Labour and now Tory party conference is that there isn't a choice any more. The parties no longer argue about what is the best ideological principles for governing the country - they just boast about who does it better. Thus you have the Lib Dems saying one thing one week, followed by Labour saying "yes, but we'll do it better" the next and then the Tories saying "ah, but we can do it best of all" the next.

There seriously isn't a difference between them anymore. They are all the same and the only argument today is about who is the most "progressive" (the rebrand of socialism). And for those of you who are still planning on voting Tory at the next election - remember that it isn't Labour or the Lib Dems who have moved to the right, it is the Tories lurching massively to the left that has brought this about.

I won't vote for any left wing party (and that includes the BNP) which is why I can not vote Tory.

Just to clarify - it is entirely possible for a left wing party to subscribe to capitalism and for a right wing party to believe in nationalised industry. The Chinese are still communists, but use capitalism and the USA is still conservative but has a nationalised postal service (and various other agencies). Capitalism is simply an economic system - not a political ideology.