Eric...As Hawk says the old labels are becoming redundant.

We should be thinking beyond party politics. We now have a situation where a supposed "labour" government are implimenting policies that a "conservative" administration would never have attempted.

Rhetoric, and distotion by Blair, carried the centre and many of the left, supported by the whole of the forces of traditional conservatism, into the Iraq shambles.
Had the Conservatives been in power, I firmly believe this country would not have troops in Iraq today, and I say that as someone who has never voted conservative.
The wholesale privatisation of public services and the introducionof markets forces as a philosophy, if attempted under a conservative govt today, would never get on the statute book.

We are now almost in the same situation as the Americans, with an increasingly "dumbed down" electorate fighting over two parties which are basically the same.

As the 16th century rebel priest Thomasso Campanella said.

" The people" is a beast of muddy brain, who wages war for its chains rather than be free".....Ake