>>513412592
Gladstone was probably the best of them, but the issue isn't the leadership. British people, and English people in particular, approve of expansive state authority and of regulation of private affairs. They'll say that they don't if asked about it in principle, but in practice they'll never fail to salivate at the prospect of expanding the state's powers of surveillance and state policing of their private lives. Don't forget that while political radicals are railing against the current Internet crackdowns because it disproportionately targets anti-migration and pro-palestine speech, it remains broadly popular with the British public. This has popular assent.