Far from No 10, Nigel Farage has been amassing power in the sprawling, networked space where 21st-century politics happens
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ith a buzz of activity in parliament and mandatory back-to-school metaphors, a new political season opens in Westminster, but is that where politics really happens? Yes, in terms of people making policy and law in buildings that are world-famous for that purpose, the SW1 postcode is where it is at.
But the heart of the machine beats with a weak pulse. The UK state is heavily centralised by the standards of most democracies, yet the people at the centre don’t feel powerful. Ministers can’t enforce bin collections in remote areas or call a halt to Middle East wars but they are made to feel answerable for all that is ill in the world, from hyperlocal to geopolitical.
Convention portrays the chancellor as commander-in-chief of the nation’s economic wellbeing, but her arsenal of fiscal weapons has limited range in a world of volatile global markets. A gust of headwind from gilt traders blows Rachel Reeves’s budget plans miles off course.
