Communications executive Paul Sweeney once quipped that "self-delusion is pulling in your stomach when you step on the scales." Which brings us, of course, to NDP Leader Jack Layton's absurd bravado at his wrap-up speech at the party's weekend convention in Halifax. Layton wants Canadians to buy his argument that the NDP is not only new and improved, but is ready to accept the role as a "centrist alternative" to the Conservatives and the Liberals.

Oh please, Jack. The NDP is what it always has been - a fringe player on the federal scene; a party which garners enough votes, at its' very best, to hold the balance of power position in minority governments. But even that role has been tough to come by since the party continues to be outgunned for third place by the Quebec-only Bloc Quebecois.

And whatever chance Layton himself may have had to bring the party's fortunes to a higher tier, he blew that after the last election when he lusted so much for power that he was more than willing to join the Liberals and the Bloc in a coalition which would have given him a cabinet position and afforded the separatists a virtual veto over the government. (Mind you, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is equally guilty in endorsing that horrid idea. He just wasn't as obvious about it as Layton was.)

The NDP have had some strong leaders in years past - David Lewis and Ed Broadbent come to mind - but even then, they had no chance, none at all, of coming close to forming a government.

During one stage of the Mulroney era, the Broadbent-led NDP actually ran ahead of its rivals briefly in public opinion polls, a blip which prompted Maclean's magazine - to its everlasting chagrin to run a cover picture of Broadbent suggesting he could be Canada's next prime minister. He didn't make it.

It's not likely that many Canadians even noticed that the NDP was holding forth in Halifax last weekend.

But it is instructive - and completely typical - that the one resolution which prompted at least a smattering of public interest, i.e. a proposal for the NDP to drop the "New" from its name - never did make it to the floor for discussion because, well, the windy delegates simply ran out of time.

If there's one thing that a socialist can do better than anyone else, it's natter on for hours over the most obscure point. So it's hardly a surprise that, since some of the delegates didn't even want the issue raised, they just talked and talked and talked until the bell rung.

Not that changing the name would have helped them anyway. It's there ideas which don't appeal. Not their name.

At the end of the convention, Layton told journalists that the NDP represents "new thinking versus old and a government that's on your side," saying

"there is no other party offering that hope."

What's he talking about, you ask? Who knows. The NDP hasn't had a new idea since its founding convention in 1961 which is worth talking about, and there's precious little evidence that anything new came out of the Halifax gabfest.Layton says the party's plan to bridge the gap between the environment and the economy is new and exciting. No it's not. It's the same old, same old.

And, according to news dispatches, the convention spent most of the weekend railing against the banks and Bay Street. This is new? And improved? Layton argued that Canadians should remember that "this recession was triggered by a carnival of greed among bankers and speculators and mortgage companies."

Actually, the only reason those suspects were able to operate the way they did was because of the "carnival of greed" among the general public, particularly from people who were so desperate to live beyond their means that they bought into the cheap and easy credit. Whatever the bankers offered, if there were no takers, then we wouldn't be in this mess.

In the U.S., actually, the recession began with the collapse in the housing market, and that collapse was triggered - more than anything else - by government mandated rules demanding that mortgages be approved to people based not on their ability to pay but on their membership in certain designated groups.

That's what happens when government runs the economy, which is why the NDP will never, ever, get the chance.

The guys we have are bad enough. The NDP would be unthinkable.