It is like filling in the winning numbers on the lottery ticket and then, when you get to the counter, buying a Mars bar instead. Of course with a majority of 179 being whipped to vote in divisions is a bit like being busy doing nothing, particularly when the majority is, apparently, not big enough to ensure simple things like a ban on hunting with hounds. The more important point is that the government and, by implication, the whole New Labour, grandly titled, project has been busy going nowhere. But actually we know where. A second term with a reduced majority.
Problems piling up as disgruntled former ministers begin to congregate on the backbenches.
Pledges on class sizes, hospital waiting lists and access to higher education broken, as they must be, even if there were to be a change of direction tomorrow. Voters turn away, or simply stay at home, not just in the heartlands but in the suburbs and small towns where people wanted, and expected, better. We can imagine the consequences, not just the defeat of the party, but a melt-down, a civil war more vicious than anything we experienced in the early 1980s. I am actually in favour of witch hunts when there are real witches. Of course this has all happened before.