The world has changed.” The reliably dog-ate-my-homework excuse before Rachel Reeves’ Spring Statement has the bracing advantage of being unarguably true. But its truth matters far, far more than simply for civil service numbers or tax rates. We are living through a new world, one of competing empires, in which old language and thinking fails.
The most obvious example today is the Ukraine war negotiation in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which asks hard questions of London. Consider Keir Starmer’s mysterious 31-nation “coalition of the willing” whose military planners have been hard at work, yet which is being derided in Washington.
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