Turn away from the mob. Ignore the angry brigade. Let their spittle run down the walls. This is the moment for the coalition to rise above the yells of the left. The government is about to be tested to what it must not allow to be its destruction. If hollow outrage is all Labour cares to offer, then reason and calm explanation must be the coalition's answer. Outrage fails in the end. It poisons rationality, it repels the moderate, it frightens the balanced. It lures zealots into a world where everyone inside thinks the same way and no one outside wants to enter. It is where Labour is going now.
The coalition mustn't follow. Its members must steel themselves for abuse. It is tempting, of course, when you are sniped at, to snipe back. David Miliband, who has taken to Twitter like a duck to quacking, is spending his days typing out edgy little digs at the coalition, particularly the Lib Dem part of it, puffed up by righteous indignation. But a political movement cannot be sustained by resentment. Rage against the machine is an emotion, not a policy.
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