While I understand the instinct to regard the strength of two party politics of 1950 - 51, or the
broader 1945 - 70 period, as the natural order of things, there is as much or more
reason to think that the type of more pluralist party system which has arisen since 1974 (despite the
systemic barriers to it) is here to say and the idea that any 3 + party system is always a death match to find out which the two «real» parties will be is somewhat ahistoric and unlikely.