Skipper

Reading about Francois Bayrou today,(see picture) now pushing both Royal and Sarkozy in the French presidential race, made me wonder if there isn't a potential for a similar shooting star in our own jaded politics. We saw Berlusconi invent his Forza Italia party out of nothing except money and a national malaise and rule as premier for much longer, perhaps, than he should have.

We had our own third force moment, of course, in the early eighties but the SDP lacked any roots in major social groups and as soon as the media tired of it, it faded. But now we have a situation where we have a national disenchantment with politicians and politics and a surfeit of traditional politicos trying to bend our ears. Fertile soil, I would have reckoned, for a new force, offering itself as 'anti' system, to make some alternative political hay. To some extent we have alternatives with the SNP looking to become the biggest party in the Scottish Parliament after the may elections with their very alternative message of an independent Scotland.

There are also other fringe alternatives, like the BNP's unwholesome message which one sincerely hopes will remain locked in the cage in which voters have chosen to place it for the last few decades. What is needed is a political movement which is alternative, yet mainstream, appealing to all classes with a basically centrist programme and with access to some substantial political funding. 'The Lib Dems!', I hear you cry, but they are perhaps too 'traditionally alternative' with their leader who looks like a Conservative Cabinet minister, to fill the Bayrou slot to any degree. It would seem we are waiting for that third force and will probably remain so, perhaps indefinitely, short of the political earthquake which the amiable, tractor driving farmer seems to be causing in France.