A Woman Scorned

Trying to get over her Wotan fixation, Polly is now offering her own brand of strange advice to those perennial wall-flowers of Westminster politics, the il-Liberal anti-Democrats:

So while the big beasts shrink their apparent differences, here is not just an opportunity but a positive need for a Lib Dem resurgence. The vacancy is waiting, if they choose a leader to seize it.

Now, telling a political party that they need a charismatic leader with ideas, convictions and the backing to drive those through to policy hardly takes the brains of a Milliband but

But the party's usefulness is not to propose policies it has no power to implement.

Isn't it? I thought that was the great use of minor parties in a democratic state. Come up with good ideas, represent those not targeted by the main parties, get your policies adopted by the government. Anyway:

Its one useful mission is electoral reform, to break the centrifugal voting system that compels all parties to seek just 8,000 swing centrist voters in key marginals.

Excuse me? Exactly how is this not a "policy it has no power to implement"? And, let's be honest, it isn't "all parties" seeking those voters, frankly. I am fairly sure that UKIP, the Scots Nats, Plaid, the Irish Parties, the SSP etc, etc, have pretty much no interest in those 8000 swing centrist voters, unless they are part of their core constituency? So, in Pollytics, "all parties" is clearly synonymous with the Gordo and Dave show. Ah, well.