All Glory Is Fleeting

Here's some exceptionally cogent analysis that ought to be daily required reading for politicians of all parties and ideologies, courtesy of Matthew D'Ancona, writing in the U.K. Daily Telegraph:

Labour has grown used to the limelight, and has forgotten that nobody has a right to the public's attention. It is a paradox that the longer a Government lasts, even as it suffers cellular damage and approaches invalidity, the more convinced it becomes that its beliefs are obvious, that its arguments are plain common sense, that it does not have to win the battle daily....

The election of a Government does not represent a collective swoon before an ideological blueprint, but something much messier and more numinous: boredom with or suspicion of the other lot, intuitive enthusiasm for what the victorious party represents. That enthusiasm is provisional, probationary, and must be renewed constantly.

H/T: Michael Barone.