Maurice Cowling always believed that the proper study of political behaviour requires one to see through issues of domestic and foreign policy, and to ask the question: ‘Who rules?’. The answer, at Charles’s III’s accession, seems to be that self-interest rules, manifested in the use of rhetoric for rehashed plans for growth which thinly veil the striving for positions of influence. Indeed, Truss and Kwarteng’s 44-day immolation scene has flooded the banks of the Tory party with the redemption and serenity of Rishi Sunak. The Götterdämmerung scenario for the Conservative party seems to be passing; the Tory Rhinemaidens have their ring back in the form of ‘sensible’ leadership.

But politics, although operatic, continues after final acts; and the closing of internal rifts is by no means inevitable. To most internal and external observers, the UK seems, from post-Brexit to upturning fiscal orthodoxies to the Union, making high-political decision making something of a crash course. Polycrisis has met high politics in the UK and has been exploding in its proponent’s faces – how right was Dominic Cummings to nickname Truss ‘the human hand grenade’, or Johnson an out-of-control ‘trolley’, for that matter. So how on earth did our political class get in this mess, and are they equipped to deal with it? The answer, strangely enough, is all around us. We have to remember think of politicians as students a bit more, because it helps comprehend their failures.

A mindset that makes passable hacks and dreadful statesmen

Understanding British politics since the last decade and a bit requires looking at the cast list. Those in power, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss were all of a generation that studied at Oxford in the 1980s, to say nothing of Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt and David Frost (former Brexit Secretary, not the host of TW3, who was a Caian). It’s not like this is unique – indeed, Oxford has a long history of educating weak leaders. You often hear that modern British political life has an exceptionally weak lower calibre of politician. There is a grain of truth here, but the politicians of the past like Denis Healey, Michael Foot, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan had just as many faults, and just as many scandals.

But nonetheless the present cast list is unique, for, if nothing else, its exceptional mediocrity. And they’re notable, also, because they act as if they’re still in their Oxbridge political associations. Boris Johnson most certainly ruled as a Union president rather than a prime minister – dinners, debating, and dither. This may have been a good thing during peacetime, but not for a pandemic. Liz Truss, moreover, reflects that sort of society president that is not unique in any such way other than by holding on, eventually falling into a position of power because there is no one left in the circle to be President, a sort of inert musical chairs in which none of the chairs are removed.

If I were cliched enough I would say that ‘this is why we need politicians forged with fire from the Cambridge Union’, but I have been a member of the Union long enough, known enough people in it, to know that it can’t be any better. They’re just as scheming and unprincipled, even if they have less books written about them. The endless machinations to appoint year-long, unelected vice-presidency comes to mind, as does the interminable negotiations with every which political faction to win votes for a minor role. I like a handful of them, and rate a handful very highly, but it’s a rarity; common adjectives tend to be ‘boring’ or ‘reptilian’.

The mindset of a Union or political association is like a low-stakes card game player.  You get to the table by making a name for yourself – perhaps by incoherent floor speeches or actually good speeches. Then you realise most players are tacitly colluding. Each player has in the fore of their minds not just the present, but what the future holds if they choose to go on this slate. Back the right player and you’ve a royal flush; lay yourself bare on the wrong slate and your career in student politics is over and you write for Varsity. But regardless of talent, naked, unembarrassed ambition always wins over in student politics. It's a mindset that makes passable hacks and dreadful statesmen.

Not that I want to abolish the union – I have accepted it as a fact of life, part of the theatre of University life. But as a mere spectator, it terrifies me that some of its bigger names want to end up in politics, on either side of the aisle. God help us.

The endless striving for position and status that defines Oxbridge Debating Unions has made British politics a wasteland. And if the Cambridge Union now is anything to go by, I would be able to show you the future of politics in a handful of dust, dry and bourgeois, no more equipped to deal with the complexity of modern political problems than they are to organise a panel event.