A moment for democratic hygiene

And for perspective too: however bad things have been in Britain, they're worse elsewhere.

It is election day in Britain and independence day in the United States of America. A new dawn beckons in the former; a calamity in the latter. This much has been obvious, in both cases, for quite some time. In Britain, the Conservative party has never recovered from getting what it wanted; in the United States, smug delusion now imperils the republic itself.

Or, to put it another way, British politics is increasingly out of step with its international peer group. A period of comparative normality beckons. It will not be without its share of difficulties but, for the first time in nearly a decade, the United Kingdom is in a happier place than most other countries in the G7. Britain is tilting to the centre-left just as other nations are tipping right. And not just right but to the far and, in some cases, extra-constitutional right. Sir Keir Starmer is going to find himself an outlier.

This British election has been a ponderous affair. From its earliest stages it was clear the ruling C…