Superficially, it’s disappointing that a Labour leader is way more timid than a Canadian former central banker turned centre-right PM.
More worrying is how the UK government’s slithering exposes nakedness where UK state capacity should be. Surely Treasury and FCDO considered the end of neoliberalism and contemplated the breaking-down of the post-War rules-based order? The “Error. Press any key to restart” status of the UK establishment now - which we witnessed a decade ago after Brexit, and then again at the start of the pandemic - is a painful reminder of how unserious and irrelevant the country has become in the years following the global financial crisis: out of ideas, without a plan, and desperately seeking the magic key combination that reboots to normalcy.
But like Mark Carney said, “nostalgia is not a strategy”.