There is something corrosive happening in British politics. Not in any single policy decision, nor in any one government department, but in the way governing itself now seems to unfold with these latest U-turns. U-turns are not, in themselves, a sign of bad government. Sometimes they reflect learning, listening, or legitimate correction. But when reversals become habitual and almost ritual; they point to a more serious problem: a politics that has lost confidence in its own ability to persuade.

This provokes a very deep question: Are we becoming ungovernable?

In a country that feels increasingly fractious, and perhaps voters that might something you’d hear from a “Yes, Minister” episode ‘unreasonable’—but I think more broadly it comes down to this; politics has lost the art to argue, persuade, and inform.

With the latest U-turn on ID cards on top of the recent U-turn on business rates on pubs and then on the farmers tax; all policies I am glad they amended or dropped; much ink has been spilt on describing Starmerism as managerialism politics with seemingly lost the capacity to manage. Managerial politics, at least in its classic European technocratic sense, while yes technocratic all involved something crucial: the willingness to stick with unpopular decisions under the claim—sometimes arrogant, sometimes justified—that the experts knew best and benefits would follow in time.

Seeming here in the UK, we see not a technocracy but a politics hollowed out by hyper-responsiveness. A governing style so attuned to opinion polls, and social media sentiment that it has lost any sense of anchor. Policy announced, floated by rough seas of public reception, before immediately being parachuted out before the ship sailed—less like a programme for government and more like A/B test.

The digital ID saga is emblematic. I am not here to defend ID cards, there were legitimate civil liberties concerns and would not have helped with irregular work when we already must prove proof of right to work already. The way it happened did matter. The policy was not defended, refined, or argued through. It simply collapsed under pressure. Even Blair, carried on months for his own initial mandatory ID cards scheme, until he managed to get a compromise.

This isn’t because the public is uniquely impatient, though impatience is undeniably part of the picture. Its one of low-trust, high-stress political culture, shaped by years of broken promises and permanent crisis. Voters want results now and want it fast.

But blaming the public, while sometimes understandable, just becomes bad politics.

The real failure lies with politicians who have forgotten how to argue for things. And while I am also guilty of getting excited when I see a new Opinion poll on the state of the parties or public policy, I fear this Government has for far too long used it as diagnostic tool of all things, which compromises the art of governing. Governing which Starmer seems to relish more than politics supposedly but seems to have fallen down by the weight of the politics of opinion polls.

History can often provide useful contrasts. Thatcher and Blair shared one crucial trait: they were prepared to divorce themselves, at least temporarily, from polling turbulence. They made arguments. They articulated beliefs. They asked the country to come with them, rather than constantly checking whether it already had.

That didn’t make them always right in this author’s opinion. But it made them legible. And legibility is a prerequisite for democratic consent. And with time, we’re able to make some unsavoury policies to become more savoury and popular, because the public given it time.

There is a lesson here for the Liberal Democrats too.

There is still a vital space in British politics for a party that understands reform as both radical and moderate: radical in its willingness to challenge broken systems, moderate in its respect for pluralism, civil liberties, and democratic consent.

I think our Party and public might seem ready for this. And I would ask LibDems with chances to form a Government, they must go in with that hindsight of ideas rooted with values and sailing the course on things that might temporarily not popular, but articulate your case and bring people together. I think we need to be ready not to make the mistakes like this Government. Too many have forgotten that leadership is not the avoidance of conflict, but the art of navigating it with conviction.

Politics cannot survive on permanent retreat.

* Andrew Chandler is the Digital Officer for North Staffordshire Liberal Democrats