Ed Looks Backwards To The Future.

Yesterday, on his keynote address, Ed Miliband rather cheekily invoked the name of Benjamin Disraeli. Today the name of Robert Peel is to be given an airing. What Ed is trying to get at is obvious - one nation with a government governing for all and not simply those it regards as "important." All very laudible but it suffers from more than a few weaknesses. Not least is the problem of "one nation." What was true in the 19th century is no longer true in the 21st. We are not "one nation". The divide between rich and poor has widened since the end of the 19th century and the culture that sustained a national identity is no longer there. Ed is suggesting that the wealth divide can be repaired and he might be right, but what about the divide in culture? That is fractured beyond retrieval and, short of imposing a standard of "Britishness", can never be reserected. That is the weakness of multiculturism - the clue is in the name. So why is Ed looking back to the 19th century for his inspiration? The answer to that is that the Labour party, indeed all the political parties, are the creation of the 19th century and, in many ways, are about as relevant to modern Britain as the 19th century itself. Shoehorning the present day into a distorted image of the past is not the answer. Modern Britain needs new answers not retreads of the old, otherwise we are heading towards the fate of all fractured societies - conflict and, ultimately, civil war.