It's not that the UK is free of conviction based politics either. Here, it's the Market, or more exactly the heady drug known as Market Forces.

They're more efficient, more effective, more stringent, and clearly, more lucrative, than any other business modus operandi. Like the well-known commercial, Market Forces kills all known germs. Dead.

Or do they? What have Market Forces blessed us with ? A privatised Railway Service that is the envy of the World....oh sorry, mis-typed, meant the laughing stock of the world; price-gouging power companies; exam marking companies that can do everything except the very thing they're supposed to; and some uncomfortable tinkering with the Post Office. There are more candidates for the wall of shame, I just have n't the patience to list them all.

And when Market Forces fail as they do, (I've Metronet in mind amongst others), what happens, we seek the remedy in....more market competition.

Then there's the human angle. Market Forces inevitably scupper someone's job, or puncture their hard-earned pension. Misery bubbling away. The argument for making Market Forces a Class A drug writes itself.