Politics

Fifteen years ago, populist politicians and parties were seen as a reactionary blip which would soon fade. They are instead not only still present but rapidly gaining strength and power across the developed world. It’s well past time to wonder if populist sentiments will fade. It’s rather time to consider the heretofore unthinkable: perhaps populism will be to the twenty-first century what labor union-backed social democracy was to the twentieth. All of us grew up in the world that social democracy created, so it’s hard to grasp that it has not always been with us. But that’s not so. As late as the 1890s, social democratic parties were either weak or non-existent in most of the (admittedly small) democratic world. That changed quickly as industrialization gained steam.

Did Gillian Keegan need to apologise? The Education Secretary thought her ITV interview had ended and she could speak frankly. She insisted the schools’ concrete crisis was down to ‘everyone else’ who had ‘sat on their arse’. It was a fair point, inelegantly expressed. It’s been almost 25 years since the order first went out from Whitehall to inspect schools and hospitals for crumbling reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac). When a roof eventually collapsed at the Singlewell Primary school in Kent in 2018, the government sent out surveys to inquire about building material – but that was largely it. Like lazy homeowners, or dodgy landlords, successive administrations assumed the problem would be dealt with by somebody else at a later date.

Stilwell, Oklahoma Out of the ancient belly of the earth and through the pitch-black night, the giant wigwam rises, gold-tinged and glorious, the glint of rare winnings and the sound of 2,000-plus slot machines rolling toward despair rollicking through the dark in east Oklahoma. Inside, the electric-fused honkytonk band blares Del Shannon’s “Runaway” — “And I wonder, I wa- wa- wa- wa- wonder” — from a starlight backlit stage above the sea of penny slots, the bald lead singer strumming a skull-festooned full bass as he sweats through his camo shirt. Outside, there is a distinct noise coming from beneath a neon-yellow Maserati where a timber rattlesnake has found a warm asphalt home.

Most prime ministers fall out with the civil service at some point. David Cameron attacked the ‘enemies of enterprise’; Tony Blair spoke of ‘the scars on my back’ from battling the public sector. But the premiership of Boris Johnson brought relations to a new low, with prorogation and partygate fuelling paranoia on both sides. Under Rishi Sunak, tensions have been reignited by Dominic Raab’s resignation and the Cabinet Office’s attempt to hand over Johnson’s pandemic diaries to the Covid inquiry. For some Conservatives, the mandarins involved in these dramas are the embodiment of ‘the Blob’. The etymology of this term shows how Tory criticisms of the civil service have changed throughout their time in office.

Ever since Biden took office, immigration has been one of those things his administration would rather not talk about. It’s not hard to understand why. The polls show a consistent and heavy slant in favor of the Republican Party on the issue; internal Democratic Party divisions (between pro-immigration liberals and open-border absolutists) make for awkward conversations; and a president and party that opted for moral outrage on the issue in opposition struggled with the transition to power — which brings with it the difficult tradeoffs inherent to immigration policymaking.