This may be partly why there's such anger at those who foreground imperial history: they puncture the comfortable bubble of forgetfulness in which so much of empire has been encased.
"Nostalgia" and "amnesia" are not, of course, mutually exclusive. Nostalgia actively requires the forgetting of difficult histories. But we need more attention to what Stuart Hall called "the plug-holes down which so many troubling things about ... colonialism have disappeared".
For more on these, see my recent article on "Brexit and Empire", which explored the relationship between nostalgia and amnesia. tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
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This has never been true (think Callaghan, Major, Brown, May, Johnson...) Its logic - that the mandate belongs to the PM, & that MPs alone have no right to remove it - would disable the core principle of a parliamentary constitution: that a PM must have the confidence of Parlt.
What Rees-Mogg is arguing for isn't just a presidential premiership. It's an unconstrained premiership, shorn of one of the few safeguards against the abuse of prime ministerial power.
Hence also his desire to shut Parlt down in 2019 (when the PM had no electoral mandate at all)
If Rees-Mogg wants a presidency, he should think through the implications: direct elections, with candidates from outside the Big Two; legally defined limits to presidential power (replacing the constraining role of Parlt); & a separately-elected legislature, with its own leaders
In 2019 I wrote a piece for the @NewStatesman on "The Closing of the Conservative Mind". I argued that Conservatism had become intellectually rudderless & incapable of serious thinking about policy. Johnson's rise was a symptom of that crisis, & it will survive his fall. [THREAD]
2. Johnson's lack of direction is not a glitch in his politics. It's intrinsic to them.
Policy decisions are about choice. But Johnson is a "cakeist": he's never believed choice is necessary. You can cut taxes AND boost spending. You can have a hard Brexit AND frictionless trade
3.This is where Johnson's "boosterism" differs from, say, "Thatcherism".
Thatcherism (love it or hate it) was a serious policy programme. "Boosterism" is a state of mind:a vague call to "believe in Britain".
It's politics as faith-healing, driven by the power of personal belief
I fear that 2022 may be the year when a section of the Tory party turns decisively against Net Zero. It's a rallying cry that can speak both to the tax-cutting, libertarian wing of the party and to culture warriors looking for a new front against "experts", "elites" and "wokery".
Tory hostility to Net Zero has been constrained thus far by loyalty to Johnson, but that's fading. As the cost of living rises, the temptation will grow to blame "elitist" and "left-wing" environmental policies (not Brexit or NI rises) for driving up costs for "ordinary people".
There is already a "Net Zero Scrutiny Group" in Parliament, staffed by ERG veterans, while campaign groups on social media consistently cast Net Zero as an elite project that should be halted by a referendum.
Can the UK survive the rise of "muscular Unionism"?
Excellent piece by @ciaranmartinoxf on the danger to the Union from a tone-deaf, "know-your-place" British nationalism, keen to reorder the Union "on the terms of an English majority in a unitary state". journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…
"Muscular Unionism" is intolerant of anything that limits the power of the governing party in London. In that respect, it's part of the "executive power project": a way of thinking that rejects the democratic legitimacy of any counterweight to the majority party at Westminster.
This is especially problematic when the "Westminster Model" allows a single party to rack up huge majorities in Parliament, with only a handful of seats outside England. Westminster elections are increasingly contests between English parties for Eng votes
Big constitutional news: the cross-party Public Administration & Constitutional Affairs Committee has called for the controversial Elections Bill - which imposes Voter ID, allows ministers to direct the Electoral Commission & extends FPTP - to be suspended committees.parliament.uk/committee/327/…
On Compulsory Voter ID: "there is currently no evidence of widespread personation at UK elections". Voter ID "risks upsetting the balance of our electoral system & making it more difficult to vote". "The Govt should not proceed" until it has shown evidence to justify the change.
Allowing ministers to set the direction of the Electoral Commission "risks undermining public confidence" in the electoral system; yet there was "no formal or public consultation". The whole section, it concludes, should be "removed" from the bill, pending further consultation.