Limehouse Lives

The SDP is one the three toxic streams running into our present Political Class. While its poison is a great deal less virulent than that of the 1970s sectarian Left or the 1980s sectarian Right (both of which, as much as anything else, wanted and want to abolish all minimum ages of consent), it nevertheless includes the betrayal of Gaitskellism over Europe, the betrayal of both Gaitskellism and Christian Socialism over nuclear weapons, the decadent social libertinism of Roy Jenkins, the comprehensive schools mania of Shirley Williams, and her regret at not having resigned in protest against past Labour measures to restrict immigration.

As well as, related to all of those but especially to the last, a fanatical hatred of trade unions. Hence Vince Cable's use of this week's Any Questions to promise on his party's behalf, both the end of what little regulation the airline industry still has preventing a wholesale takeover by the deunionised sector, and a complete ban on strikes in "essential public services" such as the railways, which he does not regard as sufficiently essential that they should be brought back into public ownership.

Don't vote for the SDP. So don't vote for the party of Vince Cable. Don't vote for the party of Daniel Finkelstein. And don't vote for the party of Andrew Adonis. Make alternative arrangements.