Politicians, as we know, are not the most popular people in our society and most people, by extension, would no doubt rate political parties as of little value to us. But they would be wrong - political parties are vitally important aspects of our parliamentary democracy.
Without political parties, a parliament would comprise no more than a collection of disorganised individuals, lacking any ability to work together in an agreed and organised fashion. Without political parties, we would have no idea of who might form a government or of how to recognise an alternative, that is, a government in waiting.
Political parties enable people of like mind to come together and to identify the elements of a programme to put before the voting public. Political parties have, beyond anything that individuals alone could muster, the organisation and resources to engage expert help, to understand the latest research, to engage with special interest groups, to take a wider view and to devise new solutions to old problems.
It is no exaggeration to say that parliamentary government as we know it could not operate without political parties - a truth that is an important part of the case for the public funding of political parties.
But this is not to say that a political system that depends on political parties is free of fault or defect. The basis on which individuals join a political party and on which some of them seek to enter parliament as representatives of that party is that they are prepared - in most cases, at any rate - to subordinate their individual interests and views to those of the party.