Theirs Not to Reason Why

Now, I am sure we have all been following the Deputy Conservative Conference with almost every bit of the alacrity due its significance. In solidarity with those suffering under the Government's austerity measures, there have been comparatively few balloons, but a thin yellowish skin stretched over a lot of hot air popped up in front of the delegates today and started mouthing some second-hand platitudes left over from Daveybloke's pre-election No Longer the Nasty Party phase: transparency, responsible capitalism, shared society and everybody's favourite, not ideological or right-wing.

True to its non-ideological word, the Deputy Conservative leadership has gone out of its way to make the affair as much like the proper Conservative conference as possible: firstly by refusing its remaining dupes any opportunity to bring Twizzler Lansley's anti-NHS bill closer to the coalition agreement and further from what the proper Conservatives want; and secondly by describing the country's situation with the magic word war. Certainly there are parallels to be noted: the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact last year between a self-proclaimed revolutionary people's party and some right-wing lunatics; the Sudetenland of the tuition fees, in which certain pledges were casually and contemptuously torn up while the electorate looked helplessly on; the Deputy Conservatives' little Passchendaele in May this year; and of course the continuing Charge of the Right Brigade into the shadow of the double-dip valley. It is not entirely clear which of these glorious military adventures was actually being evoked; but doubtless a good rah-rah was had by all.