One-Party Britain, Again

When Paddy Ashdown was UN High Representative for Bosnia, his political adviser was one Ed Llewellyn, now Chief of Staff to David Cameron. And now the talk is of the pro-war Ashdown as Minister under Cameron. Along with his party's Somerset MPs David Laws and Jeremy Browne, both Orange Book Boys, but Browne in fact responsible for the Lib Dem General Election campaign in the West Country. Not in the North, against Labour. In the West Country. Against the Tories. Meanwhile, Liz Truss led the 1990s drive among Lib Dem students to make that party anti-monarchist.

At least, the Tory MPs Greg Clark, Chris Grayling, the splendidly anti-war Andrew Lansley, David Mundell, Rob Wilson and Stephen O'Brien, as well as the influential columnist Daniel Finkelstein, are former members of the SDP. There may very well be more. There are certainly more old SDP hands in the Shadow Cabinet than on the Lib Dem front bench. Seriously. And what was wrong with the SDP? Four things: the betrayal of Gaitskellism over Europe; the betrayal of Christian Socialism, and, lest we forget, of Gaitskellism (as well as of a section of High Toryism), over nuclear weapons; the decadent social libertinism of Roy Jenkins; and the comprehensive schools mania of Shirley Williams. Cameron all over.

Andrew Adonis (also ex-SDP), James Purnell, Peter "Young Communist League" Mandelson, Matthew Taylor, Julian Le Grand, Ken Anderson, Geoff "Old Trot Director of a Communist Party Continuity Organisation" Mulgan, Bernard Gray, Martin Read, Sir Peter Gershon, and now this. Expect the unrepentant old Trotskyist likes of Stephen Byers and Alan "Haze of Dope" Milburn to be hanging around any Cameron Government. Don't even bet against Blair attending Cabinet, if he's not in prison by then.

But speaking of Adonis, rather than move him from Transport to Education, the two positions should be merged and given to Peter Hitchens, who could fill the country with railway stations and grammar schools. Now, that really would be a Government of All The Talents.