There has been mutual egotistical adoration at how wonderful certain people are by other wonderful people. David Cameron admires Tony Blair, and Tony Blair admires Margaret Thatcher (or something like that). They say that imitation is the best form of flattery, and, for all the difficult decisions taken by Tony Blair, it is still possible that a donkey might have won against John Major in 1997. A retrospectoscope is a wonderful thing.

So what precisely did we emulate or try to imitate? Strangulation is supposed to be copying the best bits of the opposition party, but did we go too far? I suppose the working hypothesis is that the public likes market forces, because by introducing choice and competition, prices go down and quality improves.

This of course is a rocking farce. This has not happened in the privatised railway network, and it has not happened in the privatised utilities. An idiot with the most basic knowledge of economics can work out that there are hardly any competitors in these crowded industries, raking up profits for themselves by setting prices in a way that favours them (in the nicest possible way), there is not much choice, and the customer can frankly lump it.

So Labour took the bold move of not distinguishing itself markedly from the Conservatives in 1997, securing ‘competitive advantage’ as the corporate strategists would call it. They decided instead to copy a winning formula, on the assumption that once they got into power, they could do what they want. And then did until the clock ran out. In doing so, they did not reverse anti-Union legislation, introduced tuition fees, and introduced market forces into the NHS. Of course, there was much that they did right, for example not allowing so much private industry in the NHS, and limiting the amount a University student would have to pay for their course, but it was essentially an imitative strategy. It was not a collaborative strategy; such a strategy is often seen by parties who go into strategic alliances or partnerships, to increase their market share in business.

As a result of this strategy, Labour now, using business principles, offers no competitive advantage to the voters. Sadly for the voters, nor does the Conservative Party or the Liberal Democrats, as you can only put a cigarette paper between them. This is highly irritating for the voter, because like the privatised industries there is little choice and actually remarkably little competition. The Liberal Democrats are now a party about to go out of business, leaving just two major entities in an oligopolistic market of political parties.

There is still a sense of ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’. This is what fans of David Miliband wished might be the ‘midas touch’, because the media apparently ‘loved’ David Miliband, and were virtually euphoric over his possible performance at the despatch box, overcoming David Cameron. This is somewhat akin to Samsung locked-in to their fieresome dispute with Apple. Intellectual law has been trying to stop confusion in the customer’s eyes from arising between Apple and Samsung due to lack of distinctiveness, resulting from a similar global identity, and resulting from representing similar goods or services. In the world of intellectual property infringement, Labour has got as close as it has got to copying the Conservatives, without utterly alienating its core voters including the Unions. It has been the version of ‘vote for us because we’re very similar’.

The material difference is here there is genuine affection for the Apple brand, in terms of its dynamism, apparent youth, innovation, flexibility, novelty, to name but a few. The Conservative brand is in fact objectively characterised by economic incompetence, demonisation of the disabled, and a hugely unpopular privatisation of the NHS. Labour will secure no competitive advantage by merely copying the Tories, and in fact could successfully disenfranchise many voters this time for good.