Our political parties are corpses and democracy as we used to know it is quite dead

expect the Labour conference this week will be very like a funeral I once attended, in ice-cold rain, under black skies, in the shadow of a Victorian prison, where the heavy clay soil was so wet that the grave had to be held open with steel props in case it closed up with a gigantic squelch before the final prayers were over.
In short, it will be so gloomy that it will almost be funny.
Like the world banking system, Labour has gone belly up and can survive only if it is rescued by outsiders and entirely rebuilt.
What’s more, this is the second time this has happened to the decrepit party in two decades.
Two years ago, it seemed invincible and it was the Tories who were a despised and failed brand.
Now it’s indefensible and the Tories have mysteriously become, if not popular, then bearable. What happened? Why the sudden, violent swing?

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