FROM the twisted forms that emerge from the dregs of artificial intelligence to the oldest folk tales, the apparition of a not quite human face is one of those universal horrors.
Democracy without widely dispersed knowledge is impossible. How, then, is it supposed to function when the individuals at the centre of that system are essentially unknowable? And let’s be clear: there really is nothing worth knowing. Starmer’s favourite term is indeed “service” – a cipher for the dutiful centrism of his new electoral coalition, free of all radical thought and invoking Middle England’s nostalgia for a more deferential and ordered society.
These singular political careers have always been a fundamental threat to pluralistic democracy by elevating power for its own sake and – through an ever-narrowing horizon of credible electoral choice – confirming the total dominance of markets over politics. This is the precise opposite of playing it safe. By emptying a seismic electoral moment of meaningful content, the Labour Party are threatening democracy itself. As a result, this is the most profoundly dangerous election in British history.
Politics is all about shared acts of recognition. In a Britain that increasingly struggles to know itself, Labour’s coming victory – as empty as it will be total – speaks to a general lack of power and agency that is abroad in the land. In these anxious times, sweeping political power often means paralysis.