Yesterday

New year, old politicians. Yesterday's men will loom large in the politics of 2023. British politics has a nostalgia problem, often to the benefit of our ...

It shows the political urge to believe that things are never as good as they used to be. The headlines around that launch – ‘Labour to abolish House of Lords’ – left some Labour people wishing Brown would return to a quiet retirement in Scotland. Starmer shows no sign of sharing the concerns about Brown’s propensity to bulldoze his own ideas onto the agenda. The Conservative Democracy Organisation backed by Tory donor and Johnson supporter Lord Cruddas looks to many like a campaign to recapture the party in opposition. Yet for now there are people keen to recall him as a calmly competent technocrat who can teach others to rule well: he was recently hired to teach about ‘politics and government in an age of disruption’ at Abu Dhabi University, whose leaders clearly have a good sense of irony. They may have disappointed in office, but the urge to rose-tint our memories means failure is no bar to a lucrative or influential post-premiership.