When politics was restricted to a straightforward Left-Right political spectrum it wasn’t too hard to cobble together a coalition on the centre-left or centre-right. However, the rise of populist, separatist and environmentalist parties has complicated matters.

That maybe because the mainstream parties refuse to deal with the hard Right or hard Left. Or it might be because with so many extra dimensions to politics, parties that could have compromised on economic policy find themselves at opposite ends of a cultural or constitutional divide.

Writing about the new normal for Bloomberg, Leonid Bershidsky warns that moderate parties are running out of time to sort out the mess:

He suggests a number of ways in which countries can achieve effective government in the absence of parliamentary majorities. I’d add another: radical localism. Majorities that don’t exist nationally may well exist locally — especially when government is local enough to allow consensus-based, collaborative decision making.

If it wants to do anything at all, central government must do less.

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Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.

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