Open Mike

Michael Portillo gives us the grandees' line for 2015: renunciation of Thatcher's education policy, dismantlement of the NHS the creation of which was in the Conservative manifesto in 1945, the kind of hostility to the police previously associated only with the sectarian Far Left (he identifies support for the police as Old Labour, and of course he is quite right), no Tory candidates against sitting Lib Dem MPs (at least where Ministers were concerned, we knew that, anyway), and the suggestion that somehow it used to be considered Politically Incorrect to talk about the undeserving poor

The last bit is of course pure dross, with no factual basis whatever. Like "you used to be called a racist if you mentioned immigration", or "there used to be a taboo against criticising the monarchy". When, exactly? In all three cases, among others, nothing could be further from the truth.