"they've got... Michael Gove, Douglas Murray and Dan Hodges. " And Toby Young. Never forget Toby Young.

"The left-wing had been marginalised quite effectively, and were locked out from the start" This is just it, if, in the days running up to May 1997 Blair was repeatedly forced to throw titbits to the hard left (who at the time were going on Radio Cuba denouncing the rotten British capitalist state and demanding hard-core command-and-control socialism and an alliance with revolutionary Stalinists in the European parliament), we'd have been wondering whether they were united and fit for government. Why is Cameron having to pander to these people? Replace 'hard left' with 'Dan Hannan'.

"There is another right-wing party that was a collection of squabbling power blocs that comes to mind, but let's not Godwinise unnecessarily..." Would that be the one that condemned the outrageous waste of public money on vanity infrastructure projects before realising the propaganda value of opening something new and shiny for the cameras once in office? Unlike these gents? http://twitpic.com/jl52b The first section of autobahn was opened by Konrad Adenauer.