Political Parties in 1985

After something of a hiatus, a new Libertarian Alliance pamphlet is added.

In Getting to the Political Parties, Brian analyses how libertarian ideas are spreading within the Conservative Party and the SDP in 1985. He reminds us that a Conservative government is far from a free-market one:

What about all those fatcat landowners in the cabinet, guzzling farm subsidies? What of all the lawyers on the Conservative back benches, running the tightest state enforced closed shop there is, and of the upper-class unions and their restrictive practices generally? What of the protectionist manoevres indulged in by the big corporations that pay the Conservatives’ election expenses?

And points out that perhaps there is political gain to be made from pointing this out.

[The SDP] should attack the present government by saying: they talk about the free market, but we’ll do it. Conservative rhetoric has its virtues, but the reality of the Conservative Party makes it incapable of living up this rhetoric. We’ll do something they’ll never do; we’ll apply the free market to them!