Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Unfinished business


In many essential aspects, the leader in The Mail today could have been EU Ref, as you find it synthesising the sentiments from our piece here and this one here, plus the issues raised here - from last night.

The Mail has the advantage of coming in late, but its heading, "Focus on the war that matters most" tells you most of its message, the theme being that the government needs to concentrate on issues at home, rather than pouring money down the drain on foreign adventures.

But what is especially interesting is that it shares our view that the MPs are out of step in voting for Dave's war so enthusiastically, when the people have been a lot more cautious and reserved. These are other facets to emerge from little Dave's pretendy (but expensive) war – the detachment of the Westminster village, and how different it all looks when you get outside the bubble.

Some MPs used to be quite skilled at taking the temperature of the nation, but they seem to have lost even that now, as they retreat into their little world bounded by the hand wavers and Sky News, who are telling them what to think.

And this is why things are so different from possibly any time since before the war. The term "political classes" has re-acquired its old meaning, We're back in the bad old days of the 20s, where they had completely lost touch and were running the country into the ground, without the first idea what to do about it. There was nearly a revolution then ... and that's beginning to look uncannily like unfinished business.

COMMENT THREAD