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Confronting an angry public, politicians have two options: stoke the anger to exploit its energy for electoral gain, or develop policy to calm the rage by addressing its causes. Boris Johnsonâs government dabbles in both. Some ministers would apply dollops of exchequer balm, spending in deprived areas to heal wounds on the body politic. Others prefer to rub in salty culture war reaction, reminding Brexit-supporting voters why they abandoned a âwokeâ, open-border, Europhiliac Labour party.
Before Brexit was even a word, David Cameron was feeling his way around these issues. His âbig societyâ agenda and assertions that we were âall in it togetherâ contained some recognition that politicians ought to care about egregious inequalities. But that insight did not survive contact with more potent ideological imperatives: hawkish fiscal conservatism, allergy to state intervention, and mistrust of the public sector.