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The eternal sunshine of the centrist mind
SOLOMON HUGHES asks who the real political grown-ups are: the straight-talking Laura Pidcock or the neoliberal ‘moderates’?

THERE is a regular, plaintiff cry from the “moderate” centre of politics that goes like this: “Can we have the grown-ups back?”

It’s a cri de coeur from those who believe in their hearts that centrist politics comes from sensible, grown-up heads. Their ideas are adult, thought-through, sensible. The left’s ideas are naive, silly, childish and unachievable.

But drawing the left as the Kevin and Perry of politics and the “moderates” as their long-suffering parents is itself based on a deep strain of naivety among the supposedly “sophisticated” technocrats. A naivety that has been on display for decades.

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