I am toying with the idea of re-joining the Conservative Party; an organisation for which I have very little current sympathy. It is a violent, statist party; interested far more in power than justice, honour or integrity. I have no doubt that I would feel rather soiled to be in its ranks.

David Cameron has systematically repudiated everything that ever passed for a principle among British Conservatives without winning a single vote from the Guardianisti and Mirroristi he was trying to triangulate. In consequence, his party's membership is now dangerously low. It could perhaps be taken over by people who are genuine believers in free markets and individual liberty; the very things Conservative politicians like to bandy about dishonestly in sound bites!

It is currently engaged in concealing its own membership numbers, which are widely believed to have fallen below 100,000. This is a number so low as possibly to comprise only those old biddies too confused to cancel their standing order! For a party that was once a mighty multi-million election-winning machine this is a humiliating fall from grace. Is it too fanciful to hope that from the ashes of British Conservatism the phoenix of British Liberty could rise? Perhaps so, but is it more fanciful than any other scenario you can plausibly devise?

To the extent they are aware of us at all most British electors see Libertarians as (in the American idiom) "Republicans on dope". Maybe it's time to get our hands dirty in an organisation they may not love but have at least actually heard of?

Thoughts for and against please?