Marriage of convenience

Once upon a time traditional British politics was neatly divided into two camps. One lot was Nice but Wrong while the other lot was Nasty but Right.

This was always a jolly convenient and an easily understandable system, even for MPs. The downtrodden and paid “helpers” of the downtrodden would elect Nice but Wrong MPs. Once in power, those MPs would, with a impeccable rationale, seek to correct social ills via complex publicly-funded schemes which inevitably made things a lot worse and much more expensive.

This comfortable yet somewhat rickety arrangement was a huge boon for those whose ambition it was to put things right without the remotest risk of succeeding, all from deep within the warm and cosy confines of the public purse.

Eventually the Nasty but Right crew were supposed to come in to patch things up, but being Nasty they tended to feather their own nests - as a reward for being Right I suppose. Unfortunately they weren't often Right let alone right, so the two camps drifted into a strangely incestuous embrace.

Eventually they acknowledged their deep and abiding love for each other, although they never actually came out. Even so, they got married under a special dispensation from the EU and promised to love, honour and obey whatever might be appropriate at the time. 

So we ended up with Nasty and Wrong.