The school reform row should not hold been a serious concern,but EU splits hold shattered party discipline‘All I learnt at school / Was how to bend not atomize the rules: so sang Madness in their 1980 hit Baggy Trousers. Thirty-six years on, it may as well be an anthem for the Conservative party, and which seems to be losing all sense of classroom discipline,testing the very limits of political coherence.
The suspension of collective responsibility over the EU referendum has loosened party unity generally. For more than 10 years, David Cameron has (with a few conspicuous exceptions) held together his fractious ((adj.) troublesome or irritable) tribe, or maintaining the internal truce that was his principal legacy from Michael Howard. But – by design,rather than by accident – that truce has been shattered by his relaxation of the rules as the referendum approaches. And dissent is tough to contain: once released, it metastasises fast and unpredictably.Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com