Liberalism, once the shining force behind Western democracy and global progress, now finds itself in a state of disrepair. It’s like that beloved cardigan we once wore proudly—it stood for rationality, order, and fairness, but now it looks tired, threadbare, and borderline embarrassing to wear outside. It’s not just an old-fashioned fashion statement but an ideological crisis.

The world we inhabit in 2025 bears little resemblance to the one we envisioned in the Blair years, when politics had a sheen of optimism. Tony Blair strode across the global stage with the calm confidence of a leading man in a Richard Curtis rom-com, promising “Cool Britannia” and an ever-brighter future.

On July 5th 2024, Labour took office with a mandate to apply Value Added Tax (VAT) at the standard rate of 20% on private school fees, and to revoke the charitable business rates relief currently enjoyed by England’s fee-paying schools . Since then, this policy has faced a more sustained and intense wave of opposition in the media than perhaps any other proposal in the party’s platform. Despite opinion polls indicating that the plan has garnered widespread public support, outlets like the Daily Mail continue to insist that a ‘class war’ is somehow being waged by the government.

During every single day of the Trump administration, I will very simply put America first” declared the 45th and now 47th President, standing in the same Capitol rotunda that his supporters rampaged through four years ago. The President’s triumphant resurgence – winning the popular vote, all seven swing states, and a governing trifecta – represents a total usurpation of the former, liberal world order. Biden’s presidency will now be seen by history as an interlude, a brief intermission in the Trump story, not the grand liberal revival many hoped for in 2020.

Modern Britain prides itself on placing ordinary, working-class people at the forefront of society since its adoption of a meritocratic social agenda in the late 20th century. It would be ignorant to dismiss the rapid social progression that has followed. However, the popularisation of inclusivity initiatives has uncovered numerous shortfalls, creating an invisible working class.

We appear to live in an age of media games, of rhetoric, of the sound bite and the one-liner. An age of Brexit, of Boris and of a Britain that everyone seems to agree isn’t going so well. An age of identity politics, the Ben Shapiro’s, the TikTok debates, and of Elon musk buying twitter in the name of “free speech”. Through all this, I wonder, have we lost the point?