The Retreat of Western Liberalism

by Edward Luce

hypocrisy, as they say, being the compliment vice pays to virtue),

morphed into the founding myth of Western liberalism.

History will resume normal business after a brief interruption. How I wish they were right.

A better term is the ‘precariat’ – those whose lives are dominated by economic insecurity.

liberal democracy’s strongest glue is economic growth.

‘I am convinced that voting for the National Front must be interpreted, at least in part, as the final recourse of people of the working classes attempting to defend their collective identity, or to defend, in any case, a dignity that was being trampled on – even now by those who had once been their representatives and defenders.’

It took several decades for suffrage to spread to the majority of white males, and only then by accident rather than design. The founders set the threshold at ‘forty shilling freehold’ but forgot to index it to inflation. As property values rose, so the electorate grew.