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Around the world, population growth rates are declining, and in many countries fertility rates are sufficiently low that the population is shrinking. Fertility decline has been happening for centuries in America and other developed countries, but it has recently attracted renewed attention. Liberals and conservatives alike, albeit for different reasons, have rallied around policies that might increase fertility, such as expanding the child tax credit or implementing federal paid family leave.

In Libertarian Land, a different perspective obtains: governments treat having children as a private decision whose main costs and benefits accrue to the individual or couple in question. So, as with other personal decisions, government avoids policies that discourage or encourage fertility, as either kind can generate undesirable outcomes from a personal or societal perspective.

This approach does not deny that having children might benefit society overall. Some evidence suggests that a higher population generates more innovation and technological progress. A larger population would mean a larger workforce and greater economic output, which might facilitate national defense or trade negotiations.

Yet a larger or faster growing population can have negatives as well. Under existing policies, a larger populace means higher costs for funding public schools, social services, and old age benefits. A higher population, other things equal, means more pollution, crowding on highways, and carbon emissions. Absent conclusive evidence regarding the net benefit or cost, therefore, policy should neither penalize nor subsidize fertility.

This perspective implies scaling back or eliminating numerous policies that subsidize children, such as the child tax credit. At the same time, it suggests eliminating policies that raise the costs of having and raising children.

Examples include occupational licensing, zoning, and immigration policies, which raise childcare costs; land use regulations, which raise housing costs; import tariffs on food and baby formula; and even excessive child safety regulations, including car seat requirements that increase financial costs but provide little associated safety benefit.

This laissez-faire perspective also recommends other smaller-government reforms that would make family life easier, including expanded educational choice, reasonable independence laws that allow children to play outside and walk to school alone, and protecting independent contractor status which facilitates flexible work schedules and working from home rather than imposing employee status, as proposed in both state and federal initiatives.

Even if increased population nets out as beneficial, population policies have serious potential for unintended consequences. The one child policy in mainland China led to sex-selective abortions and, decades later, a population decline that worries current leaders. Prohibitions on birth control that aimed to increase birth rates in Romania led to a surge of orphans. Although draconian policies are not currently being proposed, dasnt policymakers forget that meddling in personal areas of life can have damaging consequences.

Considerable evidence, moreover, suggests that pronatalist policies have limited influence on fertility and little long-term effect; often they increase fertility in the short-term by moving births forward in time for couples already planning to have children; thus, these policies do little to increase long-term fertility once births revert to baseline. Instead, these policies mainly transfer wealth to persons who want children from the general population, which may explain their political popularity.

None of this is meant to discourage having children or to raise warnings about population growth. The Malthusian prediction that growing populations would produce mass starvation made when world population was 1 billion, compared to almost 8 billion now has proved stunningly wrong.

The lesson, however, is not that we need policies to promote population growth but instead that neutral policies regarding private fertility decisions would be better. Government does not know best, and even if it did, past efforts to manage population have had limited effect at best and catastrophic outcomes at worst.

In Libertarian Land, policy makers recognize the limitations of population policy and instead liberate families by removing the many and varied government-imposed obstacles to family life.

Original post:
Is It Wise for Governments To Encourage Fertility? - The New York Sun

Ive been thinking about Frank Meyer lately. Among other things, Meyer was one of the founding editors ofNational Reviewand played an outsized role in the mid-century conservative disputes, arguing forand winninga synthesis, or fusion, between the traditionalist and libertarian camps. Meyer himself was more of a libertarian, but he argued that while traditionalists emphasized certain aspects of conservatism and libertarians emphasized others, no contradiction or repudiation was required. Its a fascinating history, and I recommend George H. NashsThe Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945to learn more.

Fusionism won at the time, but we know that a non-insignificant number of contemporary conservatives, perhaps especially the young, view it as defunct. Maybe, maybe not, and Im not here pursuing that problem. However, I would suggest a read of his 1956essay, Freedom, Tradition, Conservatism, not only for his take on fusionism, but for his description of the great tension facing conservatives in his timenamely, when we live in a time of Revolution, the conservative tendency to preserve, continue in tradition, and maintainpious modesty about our cultural accomplishments is largely defunct. In Revolutionary times, when institutions are corrupt and custom and habit off-kilter, we cannot, he suggests, rest in natural conservatism but must give rise to new attempts to preserve ordered liberty, even though these attempts differ from what we are used to seeing.

No one doubts that conservative thought has fragmented, and we are seeing an explosion of new schools of thought. This is to be expected, and is perfectly normal response to our age of Revolution. Some efforts will be more profitable than others, some will fail, some are unwise, but in many ways these efforts are to welcomed. We are thinking again. We are attempting to respond. We are attempting a struggle against a dehumanizing revolutionbut we really are all pushing or attempting to overcome the same common threat. Civilization saving isnt easy.

AtPublic Discourse, we intend to play the role of moderation and calm. We know our society is in the middle of a Revolutionand not a good oneand we know conservatives are experimenting and fracturing in their responses. We try to read and understand all the trends, all the possibilities, and stay calm and reasonable as we host debate and conversation about the best way forward.

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Public Discourseis completely free of charge to readers, which means we rely on the generosity of our donors. Please consider supporting our work.

Recent Highlights

This past month we continued this work. A great example was Kelly Hanlonsinterviewwith Samuel Gregg on Americas Commercial Republic, and Its Detractors. A good many contemporary conservatives arent so sure about free markets and free trade, and Gregg is someone to take seriously as he considers the issues.

OurLong Readwas from Baylors Thomas Hibbs, tackling the evident problem of contempt in online exchange and suggesting much of this anger stems from the sadness, isolation, and fear experienced by so many Americans. This is not an internet problem so much as a human problem, and the wisdom of the past, including from Thomas Aquinas, offers us sound advice.

If you cant keep up with the publishing houses output of excellent books, you might enjoy Matthew J. Francksreviewabout a book on a giant of constitutional law, James Bradley Thayer, or Richard Garnettsreviewof Philip HamburgersPurchasing Submission, orTerence Sweeneyon Michael Lamb and Augustines political thought. Joshua Katz provides an excellentcommentaryonJohn Agrestos new book on liberal education. Of course, its always worth the time to read Matt Francks column, The Bookshelf. This month on the idea and challenge ofinclusion, a word much in the news.

And be sure to read some of my favorites of this month:

From Our Archives

Since Ive been reflecting on Meyer, I also took some time to re-read Toward a New Consensus, an invitation from thePublic Discourseeditorial team to thinkers from the various conservative schools to lock themselves into argument. Argument is not cheap tricks, online scores, or owning anyone. Argument is fundamentally a sign of respect and equality, a commitment to the view that you and I both are capable of the common good of truth and knowledge. We atPDhavent changed our view on that, and I dont think we ever will.

What Were Reading around the Web

Miscellaneous

We have two announcements. First, to our readers in Washington, DC: on Monday, April 24 at 6:00pm we are hosting a panel with the Catholic Information Center featuring Mary Harrington on her new book,Feminism Against Progress.Alexandra DeSanctis,Christine Emba, andLeah Libresco Sargeantwill offer responses. Registration will open shortly, and we will send out a link once its available. For readers not in DC, we will publish everyones remarks as a symposium shortly following the event.

Second, weve put together a reader survey, which is quick and easy to complete.Wed be extremely grateful if youd click here to share your views.Because we value your input and your time, readers who complete the survey will be offered the opportunity to win two books, along with aPublic Discourse bookmark and mug. We will select ten readers who will each receive these items.

Sincerely,

R. J. SnellEditor-in-Chief,Public Discourse

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From the Editors Desk - Public Discourse

~by Sen Jesse Green

March 24, 2023

The past couple weeks have been the busiest of the year so far at the Capitol. The second deadline is approaching, so lawmakers are frantic trying to get their priority bills out of their respective chamber and advocating for them in the other chamber. If a bill does not pass out of the other chambers committee by the end of next week, those bills cannot be taken up again until next year. This week we saw many high-profile bills pass out of the Senate for the House to consider next week within their committees.

SF 547, the hands free driving bill, is a controversial one among libertarian-minded folks. I never dreamt I would support this bill until I saw more data that came before me this year. For starters, it is estimated nearly 25 percent of all crashes can be linked to one of the drivers using their phone while driving.Virginia Tech University did a study that showed a driver on their phone is 6X more likely to crash than a driver that is intoxicated. As a result of some of this data, 24 states now have hands free legislation.Our border states Illinois and Minnesota both passed their versions in 2019. Reports show crashes in Minnesota were reduced by 31 percent in 2020 and 22 percent in Illinois as a result. The reality is that our friends, family, and neighbors are put in danger by others when someone is driving distracted. We are a nation of rights, but those rights can only be maintained with responsibility. Our lack of responsibility can result in depriving someone else from their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

Another bill policy debated this week roots out error, fraud, and abuse in Iowas welfare system. The Senate took a strong step forward in solving some of these problems with the passage of SF 494. This bill refines asset limits to ensure wealthy people without typical income are not abusing the welfare system by collecting benefits, while also enjoying a lavish lifestyle. Eligibility will be examined through employment information, income records, incarceration, and other information from federal and state sources. SF 494 puts policiesinto effect by implementing electronic verification used in the private sector every day and saving the taxpayers millions of dollars per year. Iowans have routinely shown their support for common-sense safeguards on public assistance programs. We look forward to seeing this policy continue through the legislative process.

A couple of my personal bills made it out of the Senate and are now advancing in the House. SF 219 would eliminate the requirement to have a high school diploma to be a tattoo artist. On the surface this sounds like a bad law to get rid of, but with more context this makes sense. Within rules, the Department of Public Health (DPH) already has common sense educational requirements for people desiring to become an artist. Requiring a diploma is unnecessary in light of this. We are one of only 4 states that require this. The DPH say they generously hand out waivers when needed, so in response, I believe we need to save the paper, the department staff time, and eliminate this red tape.

My other personal bill now in the House is SF386.This bill eliminates the ability for a court to order college tuition to be provided to a child in a divorce situation. In most cases this is voluntarily done. In others, this provision in code can be weaponized to harass a spouse that may not afford to pay for the tuition of a child.This was first put into code in 1970 when divorce rates and college tuition was low.Now, both rates have skyrocketed, which allows more room for harassment to take place. If our desire is to encourage students to attend college, I do not think that divorce law is the healthiest way to accomplish this.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve you. It truly is an honor. Please reach out to me if there is something I can help you navigate with your state government.

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The Capitol Roundup - Greene County News Online

Many observers expect New York authorities to arrest former President Donald Trump this week. It's hard to imagine this being anything but a boon for Trump, who is running for president again.

Decisions about whether to bring criminal charges against a politician or authority figure certainly shouldn't hinge on whether it will help or hurt the person's political fortunes. But it's tough to see why Trump opponents would actually be cheering for this arrest.

As it stands, the Republican establishment and electorate both seem much more enamored with the thought of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as their party's future than with the continuance of a Trump-helmed GOP. But Trump's arrest could boost his claims of unfair persecution in a way that Trump supporters find sympathetic, compelling conservative officials to rally around him and delegitimizing future attempts to prosecute Trump for more serious offenses. And for what? The expected charges in this casefalsifying business recordswill hardly lead to major punishment even if Trump is convicted.

And setting all politics aside, the charges are pretty weak.

The expected indictment stems from money that Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016. The money was intended to keep her quiet about a past Daniels-Trump tryst.

In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to paying Daniels $130,000 at Trump's direction "for the principal purpose of influencing the election." This counted as an excessive contribution to the Trump presidential campaign. (Individual donors are permitted to give only relatively small amounts to a candidate each election cycle. There was a $2,700 limit in 2016, though its since been raised to $3,300.) Meanwhile, Trump admitted to reimbursing Cohen for this payment, using his own (not campaign) money. It was "a simple private transaction," said Trump, seeming to believe this made everything legal.

And indeed, experts have been divided over whether this payment counted as a criminal act, a campaign finance law violation, or nothing. As Reason's Jacob Sullum points out, "there is nothing inherently illegal about that payment." The theory underlying the case against Cohen was that he paid the money to influence the 2016 presidential electionbut the money could just as well have been "to avoiding personal embarrassment for Trump or [to spare] Melania Trump's feelings."

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) investigated the matter as a possible violation of election law, but eventually decided not to pursue it.

Now, around seven years after Cohen paid Daniels, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is pursuing criminal charges against Trump. This time, the case rests on whether Trump falsified business records and with what intent.

In court, Cohen said that Trump's company had "falsely accounted" for the reimbursement payments he received, calling them legal expenses and citing a retainer agreement that didn't exist. Cohen has also claimed that Trump knew about this deception.

"In New York, falsifying business records can amount to a crime, albeit a misdemeanor," notes The New York Times. "To elevate the crime to a felony charge, Mr. Bragg's prosecutors must show that Mr. Trump's 'intent to defraud' included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime. In this case, that second crime could be a violation of New York State election law."

But proving that Trump intentionally violated campaign finance rules is hard, considering Trump's statements that he thought the personal payment was just a private transaction. The lack of evidence that Trump "knowingly and willingly" flouted election law seems to be why a federal case was never pursued. (It's also unclear how New York election law would cover a violation of federal limits on campaign contributions.)

"Even if Mr. Trump is indicted, convicting him or sending him to prison will be challenging," comments the Times. "For one thing, Mr. Trump's lawyers are sure to attack Mr. Cohen's credibility by citing his criminal record. The case against the former president also likely hinges on an untested and therefore risky legal theory involving a complex interplay of laws. Combining the falsifying business records charge with a violation of state election law would be a novel legal theory for any criminal case, let alone one against the former president."

The idea that New York prosecutors will somehow succeed in showing what the FEC and other federal authorities couldn't is suspect. They're also running up against statute-of-limitations constraints. "In New York, misdemeanors have to be prosecuted within two years, and Class E felonies have to be prosecuted within five years," writes Sullum, who points out that the "legal expenses" payments to Cohen were made sometime in 2017. "Prosecutors would have to cite records that were falsified more recently, which maybe they can do, but to what end?"

Considering all of this, prosecuting Trump now would basically be an exercise in chest-thumping to score some political points, not a pure effort to see that justice is served. Which means that Trump's claims of a politics-based persecution could, in this instance, be right.

Ballot access battles. Republican lawmakers are maneuvering to stop abortion measures from appearing on ballots, reports Politico. Meanwhile, third parties in New York are fighting efforts to keep their candidates off the ballot. Specifically, they're asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

"After watching the pro-abortion rights side win all six ballot initiative fights related to abortion in 2022including in conservative states such as Kansas and Kentuckyconservatives fear, and are mobilizing to avoid, a repeat," write Politico's Alice Miranda Ollstein and Megan Messerly. To this effect, "legislatures in Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio and Oklahoma are debating bills this session that would hike the filing fees, raise the number of signatures required to get on the ballot, restrict who can collect signatures, mandate broader geographic distribution of signatures, and raise the vote threshold to pass an amendment from a majority to a supermajority."

In other ballot access news: "The Supreme Court this week officially docketed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the case Libertarian Party of New York, et al. v. New York State Board of Elections, et al.," reports Reason's Brian Doherty. This means that the Court will at least consider hearing the hearing case, which challenges ballot access restrictions in New York state:

A press release from the New York Libertarian Party (NYLP) sums up the tightening of ballot access requirements in its state that led to the lawsuit, in which it is joined by the Green Party of New York: "The threshold for a party to maintain recognized party status and ballot access was increased from 50,000 votes to 130,000 votes or 2% of the vote in the previous gubernatorial or presidential election, whichever is higher."

This led, the press release points out, to four parties that used to have ballot access in New York suddenly losing it: the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, the Independence Party, and the SAM Party. The NYLP press release points out that of the four, only the L.P., whose 2020 presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen got 60,000 votes in the state, would have kept the party's ballot access under the pre-2020 lower threshold.

The NYLP's gubernatorial candidate in 2022, Larry Sharpe, failed to make the ballot under the new rules after gathering 42,000 signatures when he needed 3,000 more to make itmeaning, as the NYLP's press release put it, that Sharpe "actually got more signatures than any other candidate, and yet he was denied a ballot spot due to the increased thresholds for ballot access." The signatures requirement prior to the challenged 2020 change was just 15,000. The signatures must be gathered in a 42-day window, making it even harder. Thanks to the new tougher signature requirement and threshold for staying a recognized party, New York saw only two candidates on the ballot for governor in 2022, for the first time since 1946.

You can find the petition to the Supreme Courtwhich comes from the Libertarian Party of New York, the Green Party of New York, and several individualshere.

Wyoming bans abortion pills. Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, has signed a law explicitly banning abortion pillsa first for a U.S. state. "The pills are already banned in 13 states that have blanket bans on all forms of abortion, and 15 states already have limited access to abortion pills," reports the Associated Press. "Until now, however, no state had passed a law specifically prohibiting such pills."

Twenty years ago today, then-President George W. Bush ordered airstrikes on Baghdad, thus beginning the Iraq War. "The United States spent an estimated $2 trillion in Iraq over the two decades, a price tag that barely begins to express the toll it has taken on both countries," writes Robert Draper at The New York Times. "Roughly 8,500 American military personnel and contractors lost their lives there, according to Brown University's Costs of War project, and as many as 300,000 others returned home suffering from post-traumatic stress disorders. Iraq lost nearly half a million civilians in the war and the subsequent eight-year American occupation."

Two decades later, the war in Iraq is overright?

Bills in Hawaii, New York, and Vermont would decriminalize prostitution.

California is making its own brand of insulin.

See the article here:
Little Upside to New York's Expected Criminal Charges for Trump - Reason

Observer book of the week

The politics professor deftly chronicles the errors and ideologies that have brought the post-Brexit Conservative party to the brink of ungovernability

Sun 26 Mar 2023 02.00 EDT

Napoleon was history on a horse. Since the Brexit referendum, Britain has been history in a clown car. We are now on our fifth prime minister in the six tumultuous years since that fateful vote. Some describe this revolving door of chaos as the Italianisation of our politics. Many have marvelled at how a country that used to have an international reputation as boringly predictable has so often resembled a banana republic with crap weather. And these years of almost unremitting mayhem have been unleashed by the Conservatives, a party that traditionally marketed itself as made up of hard-headed realists who could be relied on to provide stable, credible and professional government.

A lot has been written about what the Brexit misadventure has inflicted upon our country. Here, Tim Bale, one of the very best of our political historians, examines what it has done to the Conservative party. He contends persuasively that the Brexit virus has transformed the Tories from a mainstream party of the centre-right into an unstable amalgam of radical rightwing populists, hyper-libertarians and market fundamentalists.

The Conservatives the clue was in the name used to be the party that revered and defended the institutions. Now Tories act like or at least think it convenient to pose as an anti-establishment outfit. Which requires epic amounts of cheek, given theyve been ruling for nearly 13 years. They rage not just about the woke and lefty laywers, but also against the judiciary, the civil service, parliamentary scrutiny, the universities, the BBC, the Bank of England, the CBI and any of the other shadowy forces determined to deny the people the common sense policies they supposedly long for. Traditional Tories used to flinch at ideological fanaticism, thinking both themselves and Britain best served by the pragmatic adaptation to circumstances. Juvenile zealotry and extreme partisanship have become very prevalent in todays Tory party.

The author is an expert, deft and fluent guide to the story. He brings clarity of explanation to even the most tortuous twists of the tale while offering penetrating and frequently caustic commentary on the consequences, many of them never intended by their architects.

One of his compelling themes is the disproportionate power of what he calls the party in the media by which he principally means the rightwing press. They have been significant actors by being hugely influential over Tory members and MPs as well as possessing an outsize voice in the national conversation. Without their clamorous support for the enterprise, which had been preceded by years in which they fomented hostility towards the EU, you can make a strong argument that Brexit would not have happened at all. The rightwing media also played a critical role in propelling the UK towards a much harder form of Brexit than could be rationally justified by the closeness of the referendum result (52-48) or the great economic hazards entailed in opting for an especially severe form of rupture with the UKs most important trading partners. It was in part to pander to them that Theresa May embarked on the withdrawal negotiations with delusionally uncompromising positions. When she declared, to the horror of key members of her cabinet, that she would be prepared to walk away with no deal at all, the rightwing press was ecstatic. STEEL OF THE NEW IRON LADY blared the front page of the Daily Mail, with an accompanying cartoon of May standing in defiant pose on a chalk cliff, the union jack fluttering on a flagpole behind her and the EU flag underfoot. Even the usually more temperate Times went with: May to EU: give us a fair deal or youll be crushed. As Bale drolly notes, it was never convincingly explained how the UK was going to crush the collective strength of the EUs 27 member states.

The Tory party in the media played an equally baleful role during the pandemic by allying with the anti-lockdown libertarians in the Conservative parliamentary party and amplifying their opposition to life-saving restrictions. On the telling of Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson regarded the Daily Telegraph as his real boss. It was not just Johnsons own libertarian impulses, it was also fear of provoking opposition from the rightwing media that resulted in him introducing measures to curb the virus later and more feebly than he ought to have done.

Another theme of these torrid years is weak prime ministers presiding over hideously dysfunctional regimes at Number 10. The strong and stable May became flimsy and ever more wobbly after an atrocious election campaign in which she threw away her parliamentary majority. Johnson won a near-landslide in December 2019, but had little idea what to do with office other than pig out on its perks. Truss was an excruciatingly bad communicator with a calamitously dreadful plan. A run of low-calibre leaders has been accompanied by a collapse in the deference Tory MPs used to display towards their chiefs to the point where it is now regularly suggested that the party has essentially become ungovernable. The factionalising of the parliamentary party has seen its MPs divide themselves up into an alphabet soup of agitative groups. Theres the belligerently anti-woke Common Sense Group. The anti-lockdowners organised themselves into the Covid Recovery Group. Then theres the Northern Research Group, representing red wall Tories. These titles were adopted in conscious imitation of the most potent of the parties-within-a-party, the European Research Group, the voice of the Brextremists. The ERG has often been lampooned as a collection of monomaniacs, oddballs and fruitcakes, but by god, have they been successful in imposing what was once a very fringe agenda on the government and therefore on the country. At the time of the referendum in 2016, the great majority of the Cameron cabinet and most Conservative MPs backed remain. By the time of the exit from the EU, the cabinet was packed with Brexiters and the ERG had played an instrumental role in impelling the UK into a rock-hard form of departure that had never been on the original prospectus of the leavers.

Yet what exactly has their triumph been for? The penalties for Brexit are as legion as they are more and more manifest. Pollsters report that increasingly large majorities of the public now wish the UK had never left the EU. Even the fiercest advocates of the enterprise struggle to enumerate any tangible benefits. This excellent book opens with an apposite quotation from Polybius: Those who know how to win are much more numerous than those who know how to make proper use of their victories. May interpreted Brexit as being centrally about taking back control of Britains borders. For Johnson, it was, at least rhetorically, if not much in reality, about levelling up the left-behind areas of the country that had expressed their discontent by voting leave. For Truss, it was all about purging Britain of the EU-inspired rules and regulations that had purportedly been holding back the UKs growth potential for decades. She grabbed the premiership by persuading Tory party members that she knew where to find the end of the rainbow and the pot of Brexit gold that had eluded her predecessors. At the time of the maxi-disaster of the mini-budget, the rightwing media was in raptures. AT LAST! A TRUE TORY BUDGET enthused the Daily Mail in gushing admiration of Truss and Kwamikaze Kwarteng and their slug of recklessly unfunded tax cuts. KWARTS NOT TO LIKE? asked the Sun. Financial markets answered that question by dumping UK debt, crashing the pound and pushing mortgage costs up to levels not seen in decades. Truss sacked her chancellor. A few days after that, she was obliged to sack herself. The foundational myth of Brexit, that British governments would henceforth have the freedom to do pretty much what they wanted, ought surely to have been exploded by Trusss self-immolating experiment.

Mad Queen Liz gained the unenviable distinction of becoming the briefest prime minister in our history. That was not the only dismal new record set in this period. Bad King Boris was the first to be sacked as prime minister by his own MPs for lacking the basic probity to hold the office.

The arrival of Rishi Sunak at Number 10 has prompted debate about whether we are witnessing a reversion to something more resembling an orthodox Tory government. Boring is back, claims Michael Gove. Bale cautions us against investing too heavily in this idea that the Conservatives are morphing back into a more conventional centre-right party. He registers the irony that they are now led by an incredibly rich Atlantic-hopping member of the global elite, precisely the kind of citizen of nowhere scorned by May in her first conference speech as prime minister. Yet Bale also notes that in his appointments, such as Suella Braverman as home secretary, and in some of his rhetoric, Sunak is as ready as May, Johnson and Truss to try to exploit populist tropes at the same time as being ultra-Thatcherite in many of his attitudes towards society.

Bale concludes with another warning, this time for all those who ache to see them out of office: support for the Tories in their current incarnation might just prove more resilient than many of their opponents imagine. He would not yet bet the farm on them losing the next election. However dreadful they so often are at governing, the Tories have a history of being scarily successful at winning power.

Andrew Rawnsley is Chief Political Commentator of the Observer

The Conservative Party After Brexit: Turmoil and Transformation by Tim Bale is published by Polity (25). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

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The Conservative Party After Brexit by Tim Bale review why conservatism turned into chaos - The Guardian