For most of the past half-century, the dominant political response to large-scale problems has been deferral: the conviction that the problem would either resolve itself or become somebody else’s problem in somebody else’s term of office.
That strategy has run out of time. The floods are not projected floods. The heat is not forecast heat. The institutions that are failing are failing now, in this parliament, in front of this generation of voters.
This creates, paradoxically, a political opportunity: a moment when the cost of inaction is as visible as the cost of action. Whether this moment will be seized or squandered is the central political question of the next decade.
