Sunak and Truss have no answer to the big problem facing the West

You will never measure the depth of our troubles if you listen to the contenders for the Tory leadership. Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss talk as if the 21^st century never happened. They cannot see how the world has changed. Like the devotees of an ancient cult, they imagine that it is possible for a prime minister in the 2020s to follow the programme of Margaret Thatcher from 40-years ago. Their lines sound so antiquated because they have no plausible vision for creating a modern, united country. Then, who does?

Rather than watch the contest, I have been reading the best modern historians as they struggle to find order amid the confusion. Phil Tinline’s The Death of Consensus covers how the UK tore itself apart in the 1930s, 1970s and 2010s, and tried to put itself back together. Gary Gerstle’s The Rise and Fall of the Neo-liberal Order performs the same task for the United States.