A ‘Politics of Nostalgism’ Stops Us Facing Up to the Future

Politicians would rather talk about a rosier, imagined past than tackle the stark
realities of the here and now – it’s a vision going nowhere, writes Adam Bienkov

Politics used to be about embracing the future.

Whether it was Clement Attlee’s promise of a utopian socialist state, Harold Wilson’s dream of a country galvanised by the “white heat of technology”, or Tony Blair’s observation that a “new dawn has broken, has it not?”, politics used to be about selling a brighter vision of the future, rather than a faded image of the past.

In 2026, British politics is instead dominated by what can best be described as the ‘politics of nostalgism’.