These days we all dance to the same tune

No contest, said our friend in ubiquitous baseball cap, fleece and trainers. Labour has the best tunes and always has done.

I mean, the Tories are a stuffy old crowd, obviously quite devoid of rhythm. And the Lib-Dems are also pretty stiff in the old boogaloo department, insisted our journo, who had the look of a man convinced that his female interviewer had developed a distinct appreciation for the cut of his jib.

The journalist was pressed to elaborate but to no avail. A partisan analysis prevailed and he would not be deflected. Conclusion? Stuffed-shirt wallflower Tories are condemned to the edges of the ballroom while Labour supporters always dance like Dervishes at the first hint of the opening riff to Brown Sugar.

In between, presumably, are the Lib-Dems, who, after weighing up all the advantages, are capable of shaking a tail feather to Abba's Waterloo, but only if there is proportional representation around the piled handbags and one appreciates all points of view.

I'm not so sure. It's perfectly true that a few years ago, retired colonels, estate agents and solicitors would never have been found gyrating to an Eddie Cochran track or flinging partners over their heads as Jerry Lee power-pumped his way through It'll Be Me.

A stilted bit of clod-hopping to the sound of Joe Loss's March Of The Mods might have been the only nod in the direction of popular culture.

FOR it was so much simpler then. Fusty old crusts recoiled in horror as youths with coal-scuttle hairstyles and Vox guitars shrieked over the airwaves.

Meanwhile, former-grammar school types clad in corduroy, leather elbow patches and black polo necks started drinking red wine, going on Aldermaston marches and developing a taste for trad jazz, despite the new broom of Merseybeat that was about to sweep all before it.

Down in the south-east, London r&b was starting and this would meet up with the Liverpool movement somewhere north of Watford. This was not just a passing fad but something far more suspect... no mere transient frippery but revolution, brothers and sisters!

This fantastic daydream, the first major case of mass hallucination since the Pied Piper's unique form of audience participation at his celebrated Hamlin gig, proposed changing the world with guitars instead of guns. I should know - I was that man.

The lines were clearly drawn between the squares and the hip cats. The old guard found itself facing an impossibly groovy onslaught by films such as Hard Day's Night, Help, Up The Junction and Poor Cow.

How could anyone under 30 possibly be a Conservative, smarmed Britain's new establishment-in-waiting.

TORIES? Fossilised relics from Britain's imperial past. Labour? White-hot heat of the technological revolution set to the soundtrack of Sergeant Pepper.

Tories brushed their hair back and used brylcreem. Labour washed its hair in Vosene and combed it forward. Yeah, yeah.

Tory wasn't sexy. Labour very sexy. Liberals? Well, of course, we can see both points of view...

Yet I suspect such easy pigeon-holing is a thing of the past. For a start, there is no sartorial difference between the major parties. Once, the Saville Row suit marked out the True Blue.

Despite being the party of Disraeli, the Conservatives remained a little short on dandies. Labour MPs all appeared to be a variation of the Dennis Skinner school of haute couture.

But now, all MPs dress like businessmen. Goodbye crumpled jackets and shiny trousers... hello Hepworth Sapiens. Out goes follicular experimentation in the cranial adornment department. Beards are definitely banned, especially on the Labour front benches.

Is it a Tory, Labour or Liberal? You can't tell the difference these days. So there is only one conclusion - the parties also dance to the same tunes as well.

After all, it's now commonplace to comment on the similarity between the major players - so why not a uniformity in dress and musical taste, too?

Let us, therefore, imagine the scenes on the dance floor as election fever sets in. Honky Tonk Women cuts through the function room babble like a scythe, that razor-sharp staccato riff provoking the only response possible.

Down goes the drink, the cigarette is left smouldering in the ashtray, and the soul is marinaded in three minutes of madness as Tracey and Darren go ape.

The Rolling Stones' narrative about a gin-soaked borrowed queen gives way to Credence Clearwater Revival's Bad Moon Rising. The young, middle-aged and elderly are now possessed, going bonkers under the crystal chandeliers.

Music unites the dancers, age becomes irrelevant as Debbie from accounts dances like a demented chipmunk with Mr Wilson from packaging.

The point is that the old frontiers are now blurred. The Berlin Wall of social division is mere dust, former certainties have been cast aside like so much chaff in the wind.

IT is no longer credible to present political diversity as being defined by musical taste or a lack of it.

For the grim reality facing the spin doctors is that music no longer toes the party line. It is about the only aspect of political life that is free from the Party Whip.

A Tory is just as likely to have Led Zeppelin on the record rack as any diehard Labour activist. A penchant for Stairway To Heaven is of no significance whatsoever. Yet once, it was worn on the lapel like a club membership badge.

A short time ago, we were known by the music we played. Now all the old certainties are blurred. And woe betide the political party that tries to be hipper than its competitors in this coming contest and attempts to make out everyone else is out of step, uncool... grey.

For it's undeniable, there's no shadow of doubt. These days we all dance to the same tune.