Applied to politics, the terms ‘ideology’ and ‘ideologue’ have started to warp. It cannot be long before ‘idea’ goes the same way, and becomes almost entirely pejorative. The concepts that these words signify stand in opposition to pragmatism, the polite word for an entirely unprincipled and opportunist approach to politics, in which the sticking plaster of expediency is applied whenever necessary to injuries sustained in the normal rough-and-tumble of politics. Simon Heffer