Will the real radicals please stand up?

At the next election, all parties will agree that Britain is in a mess. They will disagree about is who is to blame. Both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats will say that Labour left behind an even bigger set of problems than people realise; their government has started to fix things, they’ll argue, but they need more time. Labour will claim that the ‘austerity coalition’ has choked off growth.

But what’s odd — given that we’re heading for a second election where the voters will say ‘no’ when asked whether they’re better off now than five years ago — is the lack of radicalism in British politics. The ideas doing the rounds in Westminster do not meet the test of the moment. To be sure, the coalition is doing some radical things, including making significant changes in education and welfare. In the long run, these will boost Britain’s competitiveness.

But David Cameron, by temperament, is not a rip-it-up-and-start-again man. He prefers to work with what’s there already. Indeed, what is striking about his plan for a renegotiation of Britain’s terms of membership of the European Union is how much he intends to leave alone. He has already ruled out the idea of Britain negotiating some status outside the single market.

Nick Clegg is a radical in the proper sense of the term; he wants to change the constitutional order. But as the referendum on the alternative vote and the lack of public enthusiasm for Lords reform showed, this kind of reform isn’t in fashion. This country’s most pressing problems aren’t constitutional ones.

In both Cameron and Clegg’s case, though, there is something else going on: it is very difficult to take on the established order when you’re in charge. If you are not careful, you take on responsibility for the system.