Ouijah Board Required

How zombiefied is the average member of the Conservative Party ? I mean, they elect a leader, he gets deposed in a coup and the new guy starts pushing through the very policies that the members implicitly rejected when they elected IDS.

We're not talking little stuff here. The Party's line on the EU is such a federalist monstrosity that even its own MEPs are rebelling. The War on Terror ? Howard's opportunism over Iraq has moved beyond the merely squalid to the positively dangerous. To paraphrase Mark Steyn: by demanding an impossible standard of evidence before action is taken, Howard is inhibiting the ability of future governments - including his own, of course - to wage war effectively against an enemy that rarely announces its intentions via an advert in the Times. As for social policy, Mel P sums it up perfectly.

So Howard has successively abandoned Euroscepticism, national defence and the family. Given all that, what exactly is left ? As far as anything recognisably Conservative goes, Howard seems to envisage the Tories as a kind of low tax pressure group. As for the rest of the policies Howard may as well fire the policy staff and let You Gov write the manifesto.

What's that squeak I hear ? 'Electability' ? No doubt Conservative MPs are prepared throw all manner of babies away with the bath water . At the end of the day, they're career politicians and as such will drink the full 26 flavours of Kool Aid if it means they can cop a swanky office in Whitehall. But Conservative activists ? What do they get out of it ? Why should they pound pavements and stump up cash merely to provide a collection of sleazy wooden men with top jobs ? Well, traditionally, the idea was to promote an ideology you believe in, but given that the Parliamentary Conservative Party has abandoned ideology isn't it time the rest of the party abandoned them ?

Can any Conservative really say that a Howard government would be better than a Blair government ? There's little to choose between them politically speaking. You wouldn't leave your kids with either of them. In fact, there's only one real policy difference between the two of them and that clearly shows Blair in a better light. Even while being quite possibly definitive proof of the stopped clock hypothesis, Blair showed real courage and vision in his Iraq policy. Howard on the other hand has managed to diminish himself every time he speaks. We are living through days that will define the world for centuries to come, and the leader of Her Majesty's Opposition is scrabbling around in the gutter trying to catch the PM with odd socks on.

So, I return to my original point: what kind of drones are Conservative activists ? If Howard finished up his next conference speech by mooning at them, would they get a clue then ? Conservative Party members: it's time to face facts - you are hated by your MPs. This bunch of snivelling, two dimensional, amoral scumbags regard Conservatism as a brand or image. Market share is an end in itself. Hence the hatred for activists: by bringing actual ideals into the equation, they interfere with the effective marketing of the Conservative Party PLC. Activists: if you genuinely want to promote Conservatism then you're wasting your time with the Conservative Party. Let the two-faced, conniving twerps deliver their own leaflets.