A very clear message is being delivered to centrist governments across the western world, but, after multiple failures at home and abroad, they still don’t get it. They are deaf to the roar of popular protest.
It is this: governments which have been in power since the end of the Second World War are failing to tame capitalism’s worst excesses; they are presiding over a growing wealth gap.
They are failing to sustain the welfare state and the essential services their populations demand. They indulge in wars they do not win. They clock up record levels of national debt. They are failing repeatedly to produce stable societies.
They can’t allow banks to fail, but they throw their pensioners to the dogs. In defence of what they call liberal democracy – it is neither – they turn increasingly to illiberal means. This collapsing political order is primarily responsible for the rise of the far right.
In France at the weekend, this message came through loud and clear. A quick election called by the Blairite Emmanuel Macron turned into an electoral disaster for him, but happily not for France. ….more
