WHICH party does Tony Blair belong to - Labour or Conservative? A stupid question of course. But if you had just arrived in Britain from the political vacuum of outer space it might not be easy to immediately discover the answer.
And when the differences between the two principal parties become blurred as they have in Britain the result for the incumbents can be fatal. As one cabinet minister commented this week: ''I could easily vote for Tony Blair.'' The European vote showed even traditional Tories are fed up with their squabbling, their scandals, their dithering. If Mr Blair could come up with policies even those in the Tory party could agree with then he is at least half way home.
Mr Blair believes in a market economy, he is cautious on Europe, he is fiercer on crime than most Conservatives.
Much of his message could come from the centre left of that party. The net result is that it is getting difficult to put so much as a ballot paper between them in many areas.
Ironically this first week of the Labour leadership contest has also shown that the differences between the candidates, Mr Blair, Margaret Beckett and John Prescott is, on the surface at least, just as marginal. There is little doubt that Mr Blair will win with 154 of Labour MPs' votes so far compared to 42 for Ms Beckett and 46 for Mr Prescott.
It is a genteel, sedate affair with all three principal candidates coming across as bastions of moderation. They talk the same language. It is developing, in the words of Labour left-winger Ken Livingstone, into the ''bore of the century''.
