ALTHOUGH ANGELA Merkel argues that history does not in fact repeat itself, it sometimes seems to come remarkably close.
Last Friday week as Britain’s Conservatives were preparing for their annual conference in Manchester, Irish votes altered reality and exposed an unaddressed weakness in their party’s preparations for power in the UK.
Political party annual conferences have long ceased to determine major policies, mutating instead into mere marketing opportunities and slogans.
Rarely can the basic policy assumptions of a country have faced such a cocktail of urgent and profound questions as does today’s United Kingdom. Its fundamental economic choice has revealed serious flaws, the foundation of its foreign policy has crumbled, and global realities challenge its antipathy to consistent long-term planning.
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