Britain’s political centre of gravity is moving left
IN HIS speech to the Labour Party conference in Brighton last year, Jeremy Corbyn argued that British politics was moving inexorably leftward. With the neoliberal orthodoxy that had held for decades blown up by the financial crisis, Britons were demanding a more active role for government, in the name not just of fairness but also of efficiency. “It is often said that elections can only be won from the centre ground,” he told his adoring audience. “And in a way that’s not wrong—so long as it’s clear that the political centre of gravity isn’t fixed or unmovable, nor is it where the establishment pundits like to think it is.”
Jeremy Corbyn has done a dismal job of redefining the centre ground—dramatically worse than Margaret Thatcher did during a similar period of upheaval in the 1970s. Thatcher devoted her years as opposition leader to moving the boundaries of the possible. Mr Corbyn, an intellectually lazy man with little interest in domestic policy, is devoting his to fighting fires lit by his...