Janan Ganesh on the difference between the commentariat and the electorate…
“Political animals, above all commentators, overvalue charisma, oratory and big ideas. For them, politics is a source of meaning in life. For the marginal voter, it is an exercise in sniffing out the lesser evil.”
Janan Ganesh on problematic democracy…
“The problem is systemic. The tolerable price of democracy is its pesky resistance to strategic government. Every policy is an amendment upon an improvisation upon a half-forgotten contingency, agreed by quarrelling interest groups amid the blare of the electorate.”
Janan Ganesh on the next five years:
“If David Cameron showed up to parliament in his Bullingdon Club tailcoat to announce the sale of Great Ormond Street’s children hospital to a consortium led by ExxonMobil, his Conservatives would still be competitive against Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour at the next election.”
Janan Ganesh on Labour’s soft left…
“Ms Cooper does not believe the previous Labour government was wrong to run a fiscal deficit after 15 years of economic growth. Both she and Mr Burnham think families should be entitled to tax credits for a third child. These views are not mad. They are just a bit too left-wing for Britain. For any serious party, that amounts to the same thing. The soft left is more electable than the hard left but then Mars is more habitable than Neptune: neither planet will host human life anytime soon.”
