this is "naive" for several reasons.

For one thing, in the long-run, competition between parties tends to be replaced by a kind of 'political cartel'. The booklet quotes Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer arguing that: "The previous outsiders quickly realise that many advantage are to be gained by tolerating the politicians' cartel, and even more by participating in it".

In current politics, this brings to mind David Cameron in his current bid to lead the Conservative Party. He has, like Tony Blair before him, put himself at the political centre. Much of the media, including the BBC, likes this, having previously itself responded to incentives to be centrist (or left of centre). So there we have a kind of political cartel of media, New Labour and New Conservative - each of them covertly supporting the other to a surprising degree. (The thing that it really new about this New Conservatism, incidentally, seems to be that, while being very charming and aspirational in tone, it avoids suggesting any radical change whatsoever - to taxation, to education, to the NHS or anything else.) The Liberal Democrats are so much a part of this 'political cartel' that it is only just seems worth mentioning the fact.

What is the real solution to the centralising (even totalitarian) tendency? The one which has most credibility with the authors of the booklet is competition between central and local government. A key part of this is the possibility of 'exit' - that is the chance that a part of a country (or union) could entirely depart from the control of the central authority. Canada is cited as an example of a place where there is this competition between the central and local powers. The possibility of the secession of Quebec has helped to bring this about. Spain has a similar situation.

The relevance of this to the European Union is obvious. The authors wold contend that the only effective check to continuously growing power for the centre would be strong subsidiarity and the possibility to leave without cost or penalty.

The authors conclude:

The most effective counterweight to any centralist tendency is of course the option to ignore the centre as a region, city, or - most effectively - an individual.

The booklet is rather misleadingly called The Regulation Race . It is really about central government, not regulation. It is by Rahim Taghizadegan and Grego Hochreiter and published by the Research Centre Free Europe, PK 4231, Tallinna Peaspostkontor, Tallinn 10510, Estonia. The website is http://liberty.li. Email: info@liberty.li. The booklet is published in association with the Democracy Movement as part of "Vision Europe", for which the website is www.visioneurope.ee.

I picked up the booklet at the Conservative Party Conference last month. It could have been at the meeting of the Freedom Association where I spoke.