The death of political authority

Are we living in the age of the strongman – or the weak man? Politics in the 21st century has so far been defined by a global drift away from liberalism, whatever that was, and towards authoritarianism – Xi in China, Putin in Russia, Erdogan in Turkey, Modi in India, Orban in Hungary, Bolsonaro in Brazil and that delightful Mr Duterte in the Philippines. In the 2020s, however, in our supposedly more advanced democracies, the political leitmotif has been one of feeble and failing leadership.

Look around the world. Boris Johnson is often accused of being a wannabe dictator – an egomaniac desperate to achieve his childhood ‘world king’ fantasy. That doesn’t seem to be going very well. Last week, he begged his party not to ‘dance to the tune of the media’ and to support him in a confidence vote. Forty-one per cent of Tory MPs ignored the plea.