Agreeing to Disagree

The need to reform political party funding is agreed by both wings of the British Neoliberal Party and its little orange tail, and a commitment to do something or other about the problem was in all three manifestos, along with all those other little jokes about electoral reform, removing the structural deficit and preserving the National Health Service. Accordingly, the parties have gone off together to sort things out, and have discovered considerable common ground in refusing to countenance any reform of political party funding. Labour refuses to change its relationship with the unions, while the Conservatives and their little orange fags shake their heads sadly at such boorish intransigence. Faced with the prospect of yet another forced head-wash in the Bullingdon Club lavatory, Nick Clegg appointed his financially scrupulous chum David Laws to try and keep up the pretence of negotiations; but it seems the seniors were in a disobliging mood. Clegg responded with an extended whine about trade unions on his toy radio programme, though doubtless not without having first obtained due clearance from the representatives of Lord Ashcroft, Rupert Murdoch and other genuine working people.