Now, when you're fighting Republicans . . . Democrats are all rallied around and ready to go ahead and go to the mattresses.

And what does the moderate Left have to offer? Only more redistribution, more public assistance, and particularist concern for particular groups that can claim victim status, from the sublime peak of elderly, handicapped, black lesbians down to the merely poor.

A good Platy should have a deep body, well spread finnage, and bold colour; for example, Red Platies must have a scarlet-red body with the red spreading into the fins. They should not be of the pinky orange shade which we so often see.

John Walden, who was charged with monitoring this exercise in quangoism, found that many civil servants disliked this level of consultation.