Illustration by Nate Kitch

We are living through a political theatre of cruelty and hatred. We have a broken Prime Minister, a ruling party that is eating itself and at local level, elected councillors who joke about melting down black people to fill potholes and believe the Jews are at the centre of international conspiracies.

As I write amid a fast-changing tumble of events at Westminster, we are close to a full-on left-vs-right battle for the soul of the Labour government. As MP after MP, junior minister after junior minister, deserts Keir Starmer, the authority of the state is visibly crumbling in a way all too familiar after the downfall of Boris Johnson. The bond markets have been watching and are already jacking up the price of British debt.…