In a comment piece for the Telegraph last week, Robert Jenrick says that there’s “too much doom in our politics” and that he’s “bullish about Britain”. Reading his words, one initially expects him to trot out the cliché that “our best days lie ahead of us”. Boris Johnson used it; so did his successors Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. But rather than resort to the same mindless boosterism, Jenrick goes off in a more interesting direction.

The Shadow Justice Secretary has a deep sense of history, proclaiming the end of one era and anticipating the next: “The times are changing. The old order is collapsing — and its architects like Tony Blair are yesterday’s men and women.” Then comes his description of where we are now: “We live in a political interregnum,” which he defines as a “period of stasis between two orders”. This is an almost Marxist analysis, an echo of what Antonio Gramsci said about the old world dying and a new world struggling to be born.

However, history teaches us that an interregnum is usually anything but static. It may be characterised by chaotic struggle, as when ancient Rome was convulsed by the self-explanatory Year of the Four Emperors in AD 69. Another example is the bloodstained instability between the French Revolution and self-coronation of Napoleon Bonaparte. Alternatively, in place of strife, an alien force can fill the power vacuum — as when 17th-century England had a Lord Protector instead of a king, or when the Mongols ruled China between the Song and Ming dynasties.

That’s the trouble with a collapsing old order: you never know what’s going to happen next. Indeed, it’s worth remembering the Gramsci quotation in full: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”

On the face of it, Jenrick’s monster is Keir Starmer, whose misrule he itemises. But in referring to the decay of the Blairite old order, Jenrick is also implicitly condemning the 14 years of Conservative government which followed Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. In other words: five successive premierships, each of which in its own way proved unwilling or incapable of establishing a new order. One might add that it’s impossible to read Jenrick’s verdict on Starmer — “after a wasted year he is in office, but increasingly not in power” — without fearing that the same applies to the current Tory leadership.

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage also has monsters on his mind. In a Sunday Times interview published at the weekend, the Reform UK leader expresses the hope that it’s him who gets the chance to provide a voice for ordinary Britons — young men, in particular — “because if I don’t, you wait till what comes after me”. In an intriguing contrast to Jenrick, Farage portrays himself as the defender of the old order: “Those who try to demonise me could be in for a terrible shock once I’m gone. That’s why we say we believe that we are the last chance to restore confidence in the democratic system, to change things.”

Of course, a new order doesn’t have to be undemocratic. On the contrary, it could fundamentally rewire the British state so that governments can actually deliver on the promises they make to the electorate. If Jenrick truly understands this point, then he, not Farage, is the better agent of change.

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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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