The United Kingdom is not a happy place at the moment. This has been a strange, unsatisfying election campaign. People feel ignored and distrustful of politicians. But more than that, they don’t feel that they own what passes for democracy.
Underneath all the noise and fury profound tailwinds are eroding our old sense of what Britain is, and leaving the British state and politics hollowed out – with massive consequences for the future.
In this tumult, this election becomes about an England that dare not speak its name as England, allowing the Tories to continue the old Britain/England combination which has served them so well in the past. The forces of radical reform and democratisation do not have a coherent or convincing alternative for now.
