That's what put the kibosh on Colm O'Gorman, as far as this column is concerned. Beware anybody who is going to "add value".

Then, Mary Harney said her party was looking for "green-field sites". Holy smoke.

Is that Harney woman a politician or one of those business heads who talk gibberish about "going forward", as if the rest of us are running to standstill?

The spiel lays bare the nature of politics today in this country. It is a business, and just as the bottom line in business is profit, so in politics today it is power.

Policies, principles, any class of a vision thing, are all mere tools. You don't like our policies? We can change them.

The ethos is the same whether talking about individuals getting into politics or parties hunting votes.

Take O'Gorman. Man with a fine pedigree. Great record for advocacy and one who has displayed more bravery than many of us would ever be capable of. One minute, he's ringing up Labour looking for the start. The next, he's joining the PDs, applauding the party's thirst to reform society.

Take Tom Parlon at the last general election. Would he or would he not join Fine Gael? In the end, he spurned them and denied that he had been promised anything by the PDs, a party he was joining for their vision of society, blah, blah, blah.

As it turned out, Tom was handed a junior ministry, and ultimately put in charge of decentralisation. These days, rumour has it, he has erected a dartboard around an image of Charlie McCreevy in a disused cowshed, and takes out his frustration at his current station on the board. Be careful what you wish for Colm.

Take Martin Cullen. No, do please, take him. When the PDs appeared to be en route to the knackers' yard in the early 1990s, Cullen looked within his heart and saw that deep down he was really a soldier of destiny. He also noticed that Fianna Fail had no ministerial material in the south east.

Since those turbulent days, Cullen did indeed tie down a senior portfolio and made a hames of it. So Bertie transferred him to Transport to put a brake on the privatising exploits of the previous Fianna Fail minister, Seamus Brennan. How could a man who once was a Progressive Democrat move to the left wing of Fianna Fail?

It's no different with parties, except in this sense everybody wants to be Fianna Fail. At the PD conference last weekend, one motion proposed removing the cap from Community Employment Schemes. The PD party leader was the one who imposed the cap, but the public don't like that policy, so it has changed.

Another proposed scrapping electronic voting. The system is not popular, so best to chuck it and get a jump on Fianna Fail in doing so.

There was a motion backing the construction of one-off houses, again a policy the old PD party would not have contemplated. If you closed your eyes, you might well have been at a Fianna Fail shindig, except these people are getting adept at out-Fianna Failing the Soldiers of Destiny.

Fine Gael are copping on too. Just this week, they performed their own Galway Races number at the Punchestown Races, throwing up a tent and hosting a fundraiser.

Labour are no different. In 1992, Dick Spring wouldn't contemplate government with the PDs. Too right-wing for his liking. Next year, if the numbers stack up, Pat Rabbitte will waltz them into office with a face as straight as the truest soldier of destiny.

Michael McDowell says Fine Gael would lead a "slump coalition". Yet after the last general election, he was privy to top-level talks aimed at merging the two parties.

That's about as Fianna Fail as politics gets.

Okay, there are a few niche parties on the left, but The Greens and Sinn Fein haven't yet tasted the elixir of power.

Then there is Joe Higgins, who is an important voice in the wilderness but will never be in power.

Apart from that, everybody just wants to be like Fianna Fail, adding value, going forward, with precious little to distinguish them.