I’m really sorry Charlotte but one of the greatest achievement of the Labour movement was getting the working class into parliament, something quite unpopular with the liberals at that time.

Of course, after 100 years, I’m not associating you with the attitudes of your predecessors.

I thought that was interesting (in an ‘understanding what’s going through people’s heads’) sort of way. Well, tonight I had a quick look on the internet to discover a bit more about the history of universal suffrage in the UK, and was surprised to discover that it was a Liberal that gave us the 1918 Representation of the People Act, the one that extended voting rights to all adult males (and women over 30 with appropriate property rights) and a Conservative, Stanley Baldwin, that gave us the 1928 Representation of the People Act that extended voting rights to all adults, male and female.

Going back a little earlier, it was Gladstone – another Liberal Prime Minister – that got us the 1884 Reform Act that added another 6 million to the number who could vote.

It’s funny, when I try to think where Labour has empowered anyone but themselves and those that fund them  (including trade unions and all the other rubbish) I come up blank.

Pity really. The true measure of the quality of liberalism was the way that it did, in fact, give power away – which it never got back again. Turns out the trick is to f**k your opponents over as hard as possible… who knew?