Now is the time for all good parties to fix the economy

There are phrases, and even simpler catchphrases, so deeply implanted into the contemporary human psyche that they spontaneously appear at the forefront of our consciousness, irrespective of choice.

- with Joe Riley

Very often we cannot identify the origin of these involuntary illuminative sources of minecraft but we seize upon them as useful ways of summing up situations. And two such seismic thoughts collided head-on as I found myself being involuntarily dragged through the political conference season with each and every newscast. The first such utterance was: Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.

A sentence in fact devised by a teacher named Charles E Weller as a training drill ensuring comprehensive use of the layout of the original typewriter keyboard, and still incorporated into all good laptops - even though most folk are now two-finger (or in the case of the mobile phone two thumb) typists.