I've spent the last couple of years critiquing the Slop Right for its overall absence of policy, and I'm not at all surprised to see that not a lot has changed since I last checked in on them. Reform is still churning out bullet point shopping lists that won't survive first contact with reality, while Restore's efforts are disjointed filler. They're going through the motions so policy is seen to be done, rather than done to be seen. Again it tells me they don't know what policy is for or how to use it. They upload it to the website where it will gather dust and they move on. Policy is supposed to form the basis of campaigns, with each policy campaign sponsored by an appropriate spokesman who should be an authority on the subject - or on the road to becoming one. For both parties, this is becoming an even bigger problem than the lack of serious policy. Reform should by now have a solid team of impressive spokesmen, already lined up to sake stronghold seats. We're not seeing that at all. We only see them cycling through their lacklustre selection of clueless MPs, some of whom will struggle to keep their seats. Meanwhile, Restore is not only failing to attract serious people. It is actively repelling them. In both cases, neither of these parties are in the process of putting together an alternative government. They are in the business of garnering votes for its own sake, and going through the motions of electioneering because they don't know what else to do - pissing away vast sums of money in the process. For a short spell, Restore did have a better idea of how to set the agenda. The Rape Gang Inquiry was conceptually sound. It just ended up being low grade exploitation slop that didn't go anywhere because they put so little thought into it. Everything is done on a whim and at the least minute. There is no structure to anything they do. God knows what they did with all that money. I am not surprised, then, to see that both parties are failing to make the grade. The more we learn about the inner workings of Reform the more shambolic they look, and ever less capable of running a viable government. Meanwhile, Restore is still sucking off neo-nazis for reasons that totally escape me. The factional rivalry only serves to degrade both. Lately, though, it struck me that this isn't just an administration problem or a philosophical problem. It's more to do with the right in general and the sort of people it attracts. For a while now I've been asking if this is seriously the best we can do, and it turns out that it is. It's been so bad for so long that in recent months I've started to question if serious people still exist. They are such a rare breed, and if they do exist, they are giving politics a hard swerve. I don't blame them either. Lately, though I've discovered that there are some sensible, dedicated and intelligent people around. Everyone I spoken to belonging to the SDP has been pretty sound. Their policy base is still quite thin and in need of much improvement, but in terms of people, there are some real achievers in the ranks with lives outside of politics. If Eleanor Rofe can pick up where William Clouston left off, then it will carry on being quietly competent. It just has zero mid-term prospects while the space waster Slop Right is still in the frame. For the time being, party politics is a complete dead end and protest action is having more of an effect. I think we'll have to endure a collapse of the national grid in conjunction with a fiscal crisis for it to reach critical mass, at which point it will be calling the shots. We need to ensure that street movement has a set of coherent demands. Ultimately, I'm not sure that there is a use for the current parties of the Slop Right. They soak up money and attention but produce nothing of value, and they're not even winning seats. I don't think right wing politics is likely to progress until Farage and Lowe are out of the way. They cannot break the competence barrier because they are the competence barrier.