Since the 60s at least, there’s been a strand of liberalism that’s been closely linked with collectivism – our curse, if you like, and the source of the movement’s irrelevance in modern politics.

Liberalism as liberty without property rights blurs the line with communitarian and collectivist thought very easily. The idea of a ‘liberal left’ in this context is fairly intuitive.

The idea that people – say, for example, a few thousand hippies – should have the right to have a peace and love festival wherever the hell they like? That’s liberty without property rights. So the concept of ‘a liberal’ became someone that believed in this sort of ideal.

Let’s now consider the opposite – property rights without liberty. Your stuff is yours, but you’re not free to decide what to do with it. So you own your field, but even if you want to rent it out to a bunch of hippies for a peace and love festival, you’re not allowed. But, see, this is a totally nonsensical position – if you’re not actually free to decide what to do with your money or your property then you don’t, in fact, have property rights – nor do you really have liberty.

So herein lies the crux of my own political obsession: personal liberty and economic liberty – libery and property rights, together – are inseperable and, seemingly counter-intuitively deliver actual equality under the law. Anything else – anything else – is your ‘liberty’ at the expense of someone elses.

Somewhere between the two – limited liberty and limited property rights – we find the modern political consensus, quibbling over really rather insignificant issues. And, depressingly, it’s not going to change under the Tories. Tory libertarians are as screwed up as I am.

When the Tories are in, the sort of energy we’re seeing in opposition to Labour will dissipate (goodbye Tories, goodbye Anyone But Labour types), yet the fundamental issues that motivate people like me to write about the world we’ve made for ourselves won’t be changing.

To win liberty and property rights, to create a genuinely liberal Britain? It’s going to take not just opposition to an odiously incompetent Government but an actual positive demand for change in that direction. You know, that sort of epic, ‘one person in 100 million once every 4 generations can pull it off’ sort of challenge. You know… impossible, in other words.

I think it’s time for classical liberals and libertarians to begin planning for the post-Labour era, to avoid the inevitable stagnation and inertia that will come from a change of Government. The temptation will be to relax, to breathe a sigh of relief at the end of Labour – I think, actually, that’s when it’s going to get really hard. It’s one thing to be against an unpopular Government – quite another going against a popular one.