"Wishy-Washy"? I Wish

An old friend who has come to much the conclusion that I have, that only electoral reform and the consequent wholesale reinvention of the party system can get real Labourites, real Tories and real Liberals back into Parliament, recently described what we have instead as "wishy-washy". I am almost tempted to say that I wish it were. In fact, these psuedo-Labourites, pseudo-Tories and rising pseudo-Liberals have thoroughly unsavoury political presents to match their thoroughly unsavoury political pasts.

The Iraq War is not "wishy-washy". Nor is banging people up for months on end without even charging them with anything. Nor are identity cards. Nor is the EU Constitreaty (to which the Tories are not opposed, so they have invented the doomed call for a referendum in order to get themselves off the hook with their few remaining activists, voters, and friends in the Press). Nor is the supremacy of enactments of a supranational body which meets in secret and publishes no Official Report. Nor is the destruction of our fishing industry.

Nor is unrestricted immigration (to which, again the Tories are in no sense opposed, because it is absolutely necessary for the utterly unconservative "free" market to function). Nor is the presence of foreign bases on our soil. Nor is the relegation of our foreign policy to a part of the Washington inter-agency process. Nor is the existence of MPs who treasonably take daily dictation from the American neoconservative junta.

Nor is the fact that former Luftwaffe pilots, former SS officers, and people who were senior officials of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) as late as 1991 have more right to enter and live in this country than have the people of those countries with which we share a Head of State.

Nor is the Private Finance Initiative. Nor are the Public-Private "Partnerships". Nor are the most draconian anti-trade union laws in the developed world. Nor is the use of public money to secure the profitability of allegedly private rail companies, and even then to undercut the railways in the interests of Arab oil-guzzling cars mostly made abroad and always made by companies owned abroad. Nor, then, is the cost of public transport to the passenger. Nor is the purchase of key national assets by foreigners.

Nor is the cruel taxation of prescriptions, eye treatment, and dental treatment. Nor is non-domicile tax status. Nor is the never-ending evisceration of local government. Nor is the widest gap between rich and poor since anyone started measuring it. Nor is the real terms decline in the incomes of the poorest fifth of the population since 1997.

Nor is the refusal to bring back grammar schools. Nor is the refusal to bring back O-levels. Nor is the ongoing assault on special schools. Nor is the halving of every sentence the moment that the judge or magistrate passes it. Nor is the Police confiscation of assets without a conviction. Nor is the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act. Nor is the abolition of the provision whereby a Bill which ran out of time was lost at the end of that parliamentary session.

Nor is the de facto legalisation of cannabis. Nor is deregulated drinking. Nor are super-casinos (which haven't gone away). Nor is hardcore pornography for sale in high street shops. Nor are lap-dancing clubs.

Nor is the refusal to create a legal presumption of equal parenting. Nor is the abolition of the tax credit to fathers while continuing to pay Child Benefit to mothers. Nor is welcoming into government separatists (if they still are, but they certainly say that they are) in Scotland, those open to separatism (if they ever really were, but likewise) in Wales, and fully armed terrorists in Northern Ireland.

And so one could go on, and on, and on. Our Political Class is many, many things. But it is certainly not "wishy-washy".