On left and right, our politics is now dominated by nostalgic gestures | Martin Kettle

From rail nationalisation to grammar schools, rather than look to the future our parties seek to reclaim a lost postwar British greatness

If only we could bring back grammar schools, say Tories. If only we could renationalise the railways, laments Labour. And this yearning to return to the past seems hardwired into the human brain in lots of other ways, not just in politics. The blue-remembered hills where life seemed simpler, summers more summery, winters more wintery, people more trusting, children more childlike, sport more sporting, and where pop music was simply better than today, have us all under their spell in different ways.

That’s certainly true of the BBC, which with an uncanny feel for British retrophilia has embarked on a project to remake classic comedies that feels like a well-timed tribute act for post-Brexit Britain. Whoever thought that the camp smut of Are You Being Served?, the liberal naivety of The Good Life or the racial edginess of Till Death Us Do Part could find a new niche in 21st-century Britain? It’s as though the most important invention in modern technology is the rewind button.

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