United Kingdom
by Adrian Bingham
Polity £12.99

THE convulsions being induced in the United Kingdom by its latest Conservative psychodrama are a timely example of the underlying theme woven throughout this book.

They are a dramatic illustration of the secular decline of a country badly failed by its political establishment, so limited in their vision they have been unable or unwilling to fashion a narrative about a collective future compelling enough to escape an omnipresent past.

The absence of that narrative, while largely survivable as the country grasped temporary lifelines to mitigate the loss of empire — Commonwealth trade, the EU, Cold War alliances — may now have created the conditions for a terminal fever to consume a prostrate patient.