Politics

by Patrick Casey Brexit and a nascent English populism have split conservatives, made anarchists of some of them, then handed them the reins. Dominic Cummings in Number 10; Boris Johnson babbling in his pocket; a Cabinet assortment of crank and crook – one third fanatical, two thirds ornamental – soldier and shopkeeper thrown in with the usual lawyer and toff. And what a torrid time they’ve had of it, the poor devils. Chasing the science, manoeuvring activist lawyers, mutant algorithms, the law. Cometh the hour, cometh the man – but they must have put him on furlough.  Matthew Hancock, health Hancock is the brains behind Britain’s world-class and massively successful public health response to Covid-19. Charismatic, astute, good with numbers – all are term...

 by Robert Clough Corbynism has sunk virtually without trace. Corbyn himself has almost disappeared. His followers and supporters pretend that this is just a setback in restoring what they call the ‘soul’ of the Labour Party. Quite what that soul is they never bother to explain. Instead, in their social media chatter, they manically characterise Sir Keir Starmer as an MI5 or MI6 plant, and his allies variously as ‘Red Tories’ or ‘Blairites’, implying that they are foreign to the Labour Party and this mythical soul. A plethora of left Labour organisations urge disaffected members to remain in the Party to continue to fight for that soul. They disregard the fact that they have lost position after position within Labour, and that in practice they are now a marginalised force. And all th...