A lot of what a party is, is in its supporters.

The UK Independence Party, for example, is supposedly a libertarian party which also believes in withdrawing from the EU. The Liberal Democrats, apparently, are a partially libertarian party that believes in social justice and support EU membership with mild reform.

The Conservatives believe in many things being a broad-[cough] church but mostly it is the free market and (currently, in any case) liberal attitudes to how people live their private lives. And the Labour party traditionally believes that the solution to everything that needs a solution is to take state control.

But these descriptions — which may be debated, I admit — do not tell the full story. For example, the local Liberal Democrats here in Lancing and Shoreham-by-Sea appear to err when it comes to telling the truth (Beach Green, Adur and Worthing Council Services) and appear not to have any opinions on anything else (at least not cogent opinions that they feel able to debate in meetings).

The UK Independence Party locally fielded a candidate at the 2005 elections whose performance at a hustings would have marked him as a BNP candidate if it wasn’t for the ‘UKIP’ sign in front of him.

And the Labour party… well, they actually have a man who stands by his convictions locally and means what he says even if, inevitably, I don’t agree with him most of the time.

So the local parties and members do not reflect the nation-wide parties and what they claim to stand for. Rather than being about politics, actually, local party membership appears to be tribal and party-preference down to the party their friends and family belong to. It is, if you like, as if everyone whose Dad supported Manchester United supports Manchester United despite preferring everything about Manchester City.

I like to think I have thought deeply about my political convictions not only in the last three years as a Councillor, but also before-hand when I chose to join the Conservative Party in 1996.

But since 1996 I have changed my convictions quite strongly. In 1996 you would have spoken to a bigoted and not-entirely, but mostly, unpleasant (politically) Gavin. It is curious to me now that I had such strong opinions that I believed I could defend with argument. And it is mostly by argument and debate (with myself and with others) that I believe my opinions have softened and become, as a friend said earlier of me, “wetter”.

But some things do not change. Take, for example, Scotland’s preferential treatment by the British Parliament. Today four stories were pointed out to me:

• More clarity over free elderly-care in Scotland
• Free prescriptions in Scotland
• Scottish crime scenes clean-up funding
• British government rejects EU subsidies for England

In all these cases English taxpayers have either lost out or not gained to the same extent as Scottish taxpayers.

For some reason, when I mention this topic, I always have to make a disclaimer as I get attacked by an offended Scot. To be clear, I don’t blame the Scots as a group or, with the exception of Gordon Brown, as individuals. Scotland benefits from devolution not because the Scots have done something wrong, rather because the English do not have devolution and no-one actually sees fit to offer them a referendum on the subject.

Now nationally David Cameron has not endeared himself to supporters of an English Parliament but he has at least indicated that the Barnett Formula would go. The Liberal Democrats, with many seats in southern England, are currently taking a great risk by continuing to ignore the problem in favour of the status quo plus English Regional Assemblies. The UK Independence Party solution is interesting but I doubt practicable.

And Labour’s opinions are not really in doubt: the Labour Party do not support an English Parliament because they would be unlikely to run it and, more importantly, it can be supported as a solution using logic.