A week is a long time in politics (III): The yellow peril

I appear to have missed a day, imagine this as overnight campaign much in the style of Cameron, only without having to actually go anywhere. I blame having rather too many drinks with an old school friend last night.

So, I am delighted that we are using the metaphor for xenophobia to East Asians to describe the rise of the Liberals (I know we're supposed to call them Liberal Democrats, but I'm with Gordon on this - it just sounds wrong). I'm not quite sure why this is acceptable when so much else isn't. One presumes it is because people don't know their history, and this is butressed by the continual belief that they are some kind of new party, when they're older than a decent number of countries.

Anyway, regardless of their antecedents, they need to be stopped. This 'anti-establishment' surge has gone far enough. Looking back, one of the nicer things about older elections, apart from the tendency of the Tories to win, is the decent numbers of votes who actually voted for sensible parties, even when they were wrong. The BBC - who else - has a decent list of post-war elections here. Scroll back to 1951 for my favourite, where 96.5 % voted Conservative or Labour. Last time that percentage was roughly 67.5%. You can interpret this trend anyway you like, and people point to an anti-politics feeling, a fragmentation of society or similar. But it's also essentially a tedious narcissism that pushes people away from the proper debate. To my mind, where there are political battles to be fought at a national level, you essentially only have two options. Either join in and support one side or give up, say smugly that you didn't vote for them, you believe in Fabian socialism or Transcendental meditation or the like. With the possible exception of the Nats, (but they have local and now national elections for these issues), it's pathetic. In the UK election, you have to pick a side, because your vote will do it for you anyway. A vote for UKIP doesn't help you get out of the EU, it helps the Tories lose. A vote for Plaid usually doesn't advance an independent socialist Wales, but undermines Labour (thanks for that). These small parties, and their voters, are incoherent and muddled and, well, pointless.

And at the broadest level, the Liberals are the examplars of this approach. The current lot are better than previous incarnations, better calibre than any since the mid 80s; better and more consistent policy. But, deep down, I'm not entirely sure what anyone thinks they achieve by joining and voting that they couldn't do better in the main vehicles. If you are dissatisfied with the Tory or Labour direction, better to stay in the major parties and fight. I've got time for some of Clegg's liberalism and compassion, but that's what the One Nation Tories argued for. Where are they now: in the Liberals. Vince Cable may want to regulate and impose strict controls on the banks, that's right wing Labour, and in the Liberals. Unpack the Liberal coalition and there are a range defectors and the dissatisfied. They encompass a wide variety of contradictory policy and principle. Some of them are talented and principled, they're also wasted and have no stomach for the fight - remember the SDP were those who left the Labour party rather than fight Militant. Where they do turn the screw, we know they are opportunists: witness Nick Clegg failing to point to a single issue of principle that would determine who he would form a coalition with; remember the campaigns in Cheltenham in 1992 and Southwark in 1983. There's no shame in taking what you can get, and no shame in not wanting to fight for the highest prize. But it's not a reason to vote for them.

Luckily, the squeeze is kicking in as polling day approaches. Today's polls have the Liberals down with votes distributed to others. People are unprepared to vote Yellow (or Orange - see, they cannot even decide on a colour) when it matters. Now, I'd like to think this is because they see the importance of making a real decision, but I suspect it's because of the electoral system. That may not be fair, but I'll take it. If only we could get rid of most of the others as well.