>I am continuously amazed that anyone thinks any (major) party, in any country really, is going to give a damn about anything besides staying in power. The primary purpose of government is to ensure its own survival and, indeed, expansion. It does that by doing whatever it takes to stay in power, including fostering the illusion that the general public are able to influence real significant change. Why does anyone even bother with any of this BS posturing, sound-bite garbage.

"The very existence of elections is proof enough that they can't change anything - if they could, they'd be replaced with something else"

(the gist of what someone said last year, can't remember where)