A plea for civility, compromise and cooperation in post-Covid Britain

A Duty of Care: Britain Before and After Covid
PETER HENNESSY
(ALLEN LANE, 256 PP, £20)
Tablet bookshop price £18 • Tel 020 7799 4064

Talking recently to an old friend, whose view at almost every stage of the Brexit saga was the polar opposite of mine, we found ourselves agreeing that one of the strangest effects of this national ­psycho-drama was the extent to which it had unhinged previously rational and courteous folk on both sides of the argument. Among protagonists, it became fashionable to abandon lifelong habits of civility, and to castigate those who happened to be in honest and honourable disagreement with them as traitors or barbarians.

Now, thank goodness, we have a cri de coeur against such “coarse and undignified” attitudes. Peter Hennessy’s A Duty of Care is a call from the deep for civility, compromise and cooperation. Coming from one of our most distinguished political historians, it can hardly be ignored.