UK politics: is a return to two dominant parties unthinkable?
Looking at the latest opinion polls, odds for political betting on seats in the next UK Parliament (note: not Westminster) the odds on a return to 2-party politics must be very long indeed. My own political life was shaped by simplistic descriptions of the ideologies of the two main parties in the UK. Conservatives/Tories stand for selfishness and greed. Labour stands for sharing and collective action.
One Nation Toryism forged out of experience post World War II recogognised that the old order shaped by the aristocracy was finished. But the nouveaux riches had other ideas. A succession of events starting in the early 1970s led to a neo-conservative project for the self-enrichment of the few and the recovery of baronial powers to subjugate the rest of us to a modern form of serfdom.
Spelling that out is Labour's challenge in 2015.
Green politics is a distraction. Any self-respecting Labour politician recognises that the planet is at risk from the selfishness of the 1%. Urgent steps are promised by Labour to tackle climate change. But it is not enough. Neither is the response to nationalism.
Much patriotic cant has been breathed by a deepening sense in the devolved nations of betrayal by Westminster governments past and present.
A return of UK government in May under Labour could be the key to whether two-party politics ever makes a return.