Back in the olden days when I used to be a Lib Dem, I found myself attending their Autumn conference. It’s true. Had great fun, if I’m honest, but the highlight came when I was surprised (or is that taken aback?) to see the BBC’s Andrew Neil and his strangely coarse hair and curiously humped gait. I immediately offered my friend £20 to ‘steal his wig’ but the challenge wasn’t accepted.

Was only later that I suddenly connected the coarse, densely matted hair with his more popular nickname: Brillo. It makes perfect sense.

Of course, Lib Dems have a special loathing for Andrew Neil – Despite having 60,000 members and taking 25% of the vote at the last general election, Wiggy (or Brillo) regards the party (and, by extension everyone who voted for them) as beneath contempt and not worth discussing. You can argue the merits of the Lib Dem Party but the idea that British Politics is nothing more than a tribal battle between Conservatives and Labour, that nothing else matters, that nothing else is worth our time discussing?

That’s what I thought. Pretty shoddy, if you ask me. Diversity everywhere, except in politics it seems. Nothing winds up Lib Dems more than seeing Diane Abbott and Michael Portillo sitting on a sofa together every week representing ‘balance’ and a full spectrum of political opinion.

So if this is how the third largest party fares at the hands of Andrew Neil, how do you suppose a tiny  little party with only 450 members gets on? That’s right… they get torn to shreds. I have a lot of respect and time for Chris Mounsey, the Libertarian Party’s leader. He’s also a very sweary blogger, and it seems Brillo has been waiting for a long, long time to give him a bit of an on-air bollocking.

If we’re ever going to get a ‘different kind of politics’ in this country, perhaps one suggestion is for the BBC to recognise that believing the only axis that matters is Labour Versus Conservative is, itself, a political opinion. It’s a form a bias and one that is suffocatingly self-reinforcing. It’s a hard enough job to make people realise that there’s nothing special about Labour, nothing special about the Conservatives as it is – they’re just people with no great gift for governance and certainly no monopoly on ideas or being right.

So why do we behave as if they do? And why do we pay money to have this bullshit spoon fed to us by witless hacks like Neil?

But then, to break through the glass ceiling that’s over every other party in the UK it needs people to realise that politics isn’t something to be spoon fed through the television or by newspapers. It’s a living, breathing thing that comes from real people and what they need and want from this life.

The Libertarian Party may only have 450 members. They may have a lot of very sweary bloggers in their ranks… but it’s a spontaneously occurring political party that’s come from normal people realising they have a lot in common with each other and absolutely bugger all in common with what passes for the “State Approved Choices.” It’s not been created by some rich old bastard trying to wind up the Tories. It’s not a front group for some trade union wankers. It’s not just a bunch of splitters from some other party. In short I think it deserved better than being dismissed with “You’ve only got 450 members? Stop wasting my time!” There’s actually an interesting story about the internet and what role it might play in the politics of the future here, but I guess you have to understand that first. Wiggy doesn’t.

So it’s not the Libertarians he’s insulting. He’s insulting everyone who dares have an opinion that doesn’t fit into neat ‘red or blue.’ He’s insulting anyone who dares imagine that they’re allowed to participate in politics outside of the prescribed paths (you know… pretty much the majority of people). Thanks Wiggy, but no thanks. You’re a dinosaur and your days are pretty much numbered.

Well, I can hope anyway.