Not with a bang but a meeting

Last night, at a meeting of a certain polticial party of which I am much beloved, a man stood up to report on the year's activities. "Well" he said, "we have had nine main meetings, and we lost three byelections".

We then went on to endorse the same tired structural set up for another year. Well I didn't endorse it, but that's one of the irritating quirks of democracy.

So now we'll have meetings and pre-meetings before the meetings. Sometimes we will even have a meeting and then hold the same meeting again for a few additional members who aren't part of the executive. And my brain will implode with boredom, frustration and impotence.

This is the collective madness to which my party has come. Unshakeable adherence to a rule book that is becoming in parts utterly obsolete, a rule book which has all but removed radicalism, sponteneity and flexibility from our political lexicon.. And last night we were unable to prevent the forces of conservatism winning out again.

But there is hope...