Janan Ganesh i Financial Times är en vass och intressant politisk kommentator. Idag har han ett härligt utbrott riktat mot den negativa brittiska självbilden:
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way,” sang Pink Floyd in 1973. Stoicism was a national trait back then and Britain, the sick man of Europe, needed it.
There is no longer anything quiet about this country’s negativity. The ambient noise in Britain today is a drone of complaint: about migration, unspecified “elites”, politics itself. The electoral sensation of the moment, the UK Independence party, feeds on a popular view that things are bad and getting worse. Ed Miliband, the leader of the opposition, is running against the modern economy. Even David Cameron, a prime minister of sunny temperament, indulges the sour mood.
This indulgence is so hard to forgive because the sourness is so misplaced.
Därefter fortsätter han redovisa de goda skälen för att läget är gott.
En ovanlig kommentar i dagens Europa.
Mer kongenial med tidsandan är kolumnisten som döljer sig bakom Charlemagne i The Economist:
The populists are not about to win power; indeed, their distance from government helpfully protects them from scrutiny. That leaves the business of governing in the hands of traditional parties, which must conduct it in good faith under the gaze of an increasingly sceptical electorate. As the euro zone pursues deeper integration to keep itself together, that means asking voters to place trust in institutions they have come to loathe. It would be a tricky balancing act at the best of times—which these most assuredly are not.
Tuffa tider för regeringar med andra ord.