Cassilis

That's a phrase you hear with distressing regularity when people talk about politics. Call me a woolly old relativist but I always find that sentence very depressing regardless of which of the main parties it ends with. It reeks of blind loyalty and unthinking tribalism, a view of politics that casts parties as no different from football teams - peopled by transient figures but somehow embodying something noble and eternal. For me, at least, this is partisan tosh. When someone attempts a potted history of their favoured political tradition there are a few standard things you'll always find - mistakes will be acknowledged but cast as aberrations and closely associated with individuals rather than the movement (individuals usually described as 'not really one of us'), triumphs might be linked to individuals but they are assumed to speak for the movement as a whole, those things become 'what my party is all about'. I don't believe any serious and objective reading of UK political history over the last couple of hundred years could conclude that either of the main parties were intrinsically bad or mistaken in most of their actions.

Now, I can anticipate the obvious riposte to this - 'that's your opinion, when I look at my lifetime the XXX party has been responsible for most of the ills and the YYY party have introduced most of the good things'. This misses the point though - what I'm objecting to is the suggestion that nothing can change, that either party is irrevocably fixed to certain solutions and outcomes and therefore will never be worthy of support. It might be reasonable to doubt that a party will ever align itself to the things that matter to you but ruling it out altogether just strikes me as lazy. It's a judgement of course and the fact that I'm restricting my point to the 'main parties' (I'd happily say I'll never vote BNP) perhaps undermines it a little but I still think there's something to it. Another riposte that perhaps does hold a little water is that this only holds true now that we've reached Fukyama's liberal democracy / 'end of history' type state. Managerialism is the name of the game now and perhaps pre-universal suffrage, welfare state etc. you could align the parties better with certain vested interests. But not anymore.