The Return of the Stiff Upper Lip
Normally, British politics is a ferocious sport. But the agenda articulated by David Cameron's coalition government has captured a deep, if mostly unspoken vein of popular feeling – a consensus that something has been amiss in “broken Britain,” and that something needs to be done about it.
LONDON – Normally, British politics is a ferocious sport. Its parliamentary debates are often pugilistic and personal. The British media have been described as “feral” (a word used by Tony Blair, among others). The questions asked of politicians by journalists are often so aggressive or implicitly insulting that one wonders why their recipients don’t walk out of interviews in a huff, or wither on the spot from humiliation.
LONDON – Normally, British politics is a ferocious sport. Its parliamentary debates are often pugilistic and personal. The British media have been described as “feral” (a word used by Tony Blair, among others). The questions asked of politicians by journalists are often so aggressive or implicitly insulting that one wonders why their recipients don’t walk out of interviews in a huff, or wither on the spot from humiliation.