So says Guardian columnist Jackie Ashley about the British scene. “It is easy to be progressive on the back of a long boom and in a time of post-cold war security; real leadership means fighting for progressive values through the dark days too.” But the British Labour Party is deeply divided over Iraq — and the feeling of insecurity threatens to obscure liberal successes. Ashley sums up the basic danger to liberal politics: “The state can say: ‘It’s all right, we’ll look after you’ but we don’t believe them any more.”
Update 2.18.05: Are you looking for Martin Peretz’s New Republic essay, “Not Much Left” (2.18.05)?