The Right Dishonourable

I won’t have been alone in enjoying some of the end of the decade pieces emerging in the dying gasps of the last ten years. To take one example, the declinists at the Guardian have published  this immense piece by Andy Beckett, citing signs of disaster as diverse as phrases like ‘trigger warnings’ and the growing presence of puffer jackets.

History is written in and about the present, and the left is looking to a second decade out of power as much as it is the lapsing first in its gloomy reviews. For a rightwing contrast you can find Matt Ridley of the Spectator, who argues “we’ve just had the best decade in human history”. His optimism must be informed by the fact Boris Johnson, a former editor of that magazine, has 365 seats in the House of Commons, the highest Conservative count for 30 years.

When people criticised the democratic deficit inherent in the EU’s structure, many remainers responded that Britain was hardly an example of unvarnished democracy itself.

They were correct about this, although wrong about the implications. First, having two layers of flawed democratic government is worse than having one. Second, the UK has a much better claim to represent a political ‘people’ than the EU, which is a desirable quality in a democracy. And third, even if the UK were less democratic than the EU, the prospects for Britons to reform it are much better.