Writing in the Times today, Hugo Rifkind charges that centrists do not want to smash up the existing order and start again. As someone who runs a centrist think tank, I can only say: guilty as charged, your honour. And if it please the court, I’d like a further crime to be taken into consideration: I like Britain. By that I mean I don’t recognise the bleak caricatures of this country offered by many people who define themselves as Right or Left.
The Right’s description of a country enfeebled by regulation and tax and divided by migration is a nonsense that ignores the necessary role of the state in making markets work fairly and in providing essential services. At worst, it is a view that is dishonest about the benefits (economic and social) that come from being open to ideas and talents from other countries.
The Left’s story of a brutal neoliberal economic battlefield where the rich get richer and the poor are ground into the dust by unconstrained corporations and cackling bankers overlooks the awkward fact that income inequality has been falling.
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