In the paranoiac fantasies of modern progressivism, the most widespread and deeply-seated is that of the egalitarian conceit, the blank slate notion of equivalence between sexes, races and cultures. There being no basis to differentiate, there can be no basis to discriminate or compartmentalise. However, as natural differences diverge from each other, specialities and deviations emerge that don’t fit this paradigm. The conceit becomes an enforceable norm, and from it come discursive and coercive instruments of multiculturalism, anti-racism and feminism.

Individualism as the sine qua non of liberalism is one the great shibboleths of the modern era. The unmoored individual, a mythical creation in its own right, is both protagonist and antagonist in the various ills of society. From “society does not exist” and greed is good to deaths of despair and anomie, individualism serves a dual purpose in relation to liberalism as a governing ideology.

Time-space compression is the apex of globalisation. Yet it sits over a paradox – the vast resources required to maintain and expand this compression require a greater expanse of space to conquer. The aim of a boundless globe requires the existence of a vast frontier from which water to cool server farms and nuclear reactors and rare earth minerals to feed electronic arrays is extracted. This paradox is tearing globalisation apart. The post-globalised world slowly growing through Chinese and Russian revanchism and US consolidation is becoming acutely aware of the need for space and the resources it provides.

“The Khmer Rouge command had ordered the evacuation of all cities and towns to the countryside (an estimated 20,000 people died of snap executions, hunger and disease in the emptying of Phnom Penh alone); the liquidation of anyone who had served the pre-revolutionary government; the abolition of money and markets; and rapid, forced collectivisation”[1].

The fallout from the Committee of Privileges’ report on Boris Johnson’s conduct has descended into farce. The image of Conservative politicians, many of whom having been in or currently are part of government, sniping at the sidelines calling the committee a kangaroo court while never having mentioned or actioned during their time in government any attempt at parliamentary reform or changes to the Ministerial Code is only trumped by the pathetic response of the committee to these politicians’ claims.

The end of Boris Johnson’s membership of Parliament, much like the end of his premiership, should not be mourned. A vast opportunity for radical reform of the British state and economy could have been built on the back of an 80-seat majority and achieving nearly 45% of the popular vote. It wasn’t[1]. Instead opportunity was wasted as Johnson’s government vacillated between technocratic authoritarianism and governing incompetence. Getting Brexit done meant leaving Britain’s sovereignty over Northern Ireland in limbo. It meant maintaining net zero delusions and asset-stripping the British state of manufacturing[2] and energy storage capacity[3]. Overall, it was a continuation of British sclerosis[4] that has been a recurring theme[5] for decades[6].

The neutral veil of governance is the prevailing myth of modern politics. An array of agencies, organisations and bodies are legitimated as governing entities because of their neutrality on a number of subjects. Post-politics is the centring of expertise that goes beyond dichotomy. By having entities that govern in an abstract interest (for the public but not for a people), an area of governance is foreclosed from scrutiny. Whether it is called the blob or the deep state, it “comprises ‘a hybrid association of elements of government and parts of top-level finance and industry that is effectively able to govern the United States without reference to the consent of the governed as expressed through the formal political process’”[1].

COVID-19 brought to light an unacknowledged but widely recognised truth – the Western model of government is incompetent and unwilling to look beyond a limited ideological window. “The dreadful fact which has burst, uninvited, into the salons of right-minded discourse, shattering the Overton window. It’s the fact that failure in the face of COVID-19 was bipartisan. It was universal. It was unanimous. The so-called ‘Trump administration’ failed. The media-industrial complex failed. The conservative media apparatus, its purported counterweight, has likewise failed. The FDA: failed. The experts, failed. The circus of American politics? Failed. And the apparatus behind it, which does the alleged work of governance, has also failed. That ‘the whole machine has failed’ is irrefutable reality”[1].

The British state is in the grip of a tangled web of sectoral interests and ideological contestation within its technocracy. “Tensions have emerged between a liberal, managerialist civil service and a series of governments with a populist veneer in their legislative programmes”[1]. Inaction is winning out in these battles, as the stalemates over immigration, policing and economic policy show. The UK is homeostatic, its governing class content to rule over stagnation and mediocrity.

Accusations of bullying would be attendant on serious misconduct, relating to personal insults and harassment, persistent acts of demonstrable aggression and potential physical threats. Unless you’re an unpopular or controversial government minister, in which case bullying equates to being terse and impatient, demanding work be done on time and, at its most serious, raising your hand to interrupt someone speaking. Such are the conclusions of Adam Tolley’s investigation into the Dominic Raab bullying claims. And at the end of it, Raab wasn’t a bully. He was rude, and the action of suggesting that a civil servant may have broken the Civil Service Code was interpreted as a threatening action (although this wasn’t the intention).