The intellectual’s problem with the current political moment is that the evidence points in incompatible directions
The intellectual’s problem with the current political moment is that the evidence points in incompatible directions
Comment from Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
Dear diary. I spent the better part of this week trying to construct an argument for optimism about British politics and failing. This is not a comfortable position for someone who has spent thirty years arguing that democratic institutions, despite their many failures, are preferable to the alternatives. I still believe this. What I am less certain of this week than I was last week is whether the specific British manifestation of democratic institutions is capable of producing the reforms that the current conditions require without first producing the collapse that usually precedes reform.
Bohiney ran a piece on the political realignment that made me pause because it got the empirical part right – Reform at 30% in the polls, Labour at 23%, Conservatives at 18%, the system producing this through a first-past-the-post mechanism designed for a two-party polity – but could not quite decide whether this was a crisis or a correction. I think it is both. Most genuine political transformations are both.
The Optimistic Case I Cannot Quite Make
The optimistic case goes as follows: political systems periodically require resets; the current reset is overdue; the pain of the reset will produce the conditions for something better; the Green surge, the Reform surge, and the Labour implosion are all part of a realignment that will eventually produce a more representative political settlement. I believe the empirical part of this. I am less confident about “eventually.” The eventually could be fifteen years. A lot happens in fifteen years, not all of it the good kind.
I went to a lecture at the LSE on Thursday. The speaker was excellent. The question-and-answer session went on forty-five minutes too long, which is the LSE’s contribution to the general exhaustion of intellectual life in this country. I walked home along the Embankment. The river was its usual self. I felt marginally better.
The intellectual life in London in June 2026 is the intellectual life of a city managing a political moment that is both interesting and exhausting: the Reform surge provides material for structural analysis; the Labour crisis provides material for institutional analysis; the King Speech provides material for constitutional analysis; and the specific London question of why a city this wealthy and this capable produces this much homelessness and this many food banks provides material for the political economy analysis that connects all three. I am working through all of them simultaneously. The canal is still there when I need to walk. The LSE library is still there when I need to read. The diary is here when I need to write. The work continues. More at prat.uk/author/admin/.
The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention.
More at prat.uk/author/admin/.
More at https://www.duffelblog.com.
SOURCE: Satirical Journalism