As one poll this month placed Nigel Farage’s Reform UK ahead of Labour and the Conservatives for the first time, I sought distraction on holiday in Jonathan Coe’s latest novel. Set during the brief seven-week premiership of Liz Truss, The Proof of My Innocence is a Graham Greene-style “entertainment”, rather than another Coe state-of-the-nation book like Middle England or Bournville. But it does deal with a serious political theme: the morphing of British conservatism, from the 1980s onwards, into the radical, insurgent force that culminated in Brexit, Boris Johnson and Kwasi Kwarteng’s budget.
Coe writes wonderfully well, and with empathy about very different social worlds. But his overall perspective generally stays within an embattled liberal-left comfort zone. Towards the end of the book, a twentysomething character offers her take on the disruptions that led to our present discontent: “Britain changed. What we had before: consensus more or less. What came after: libertarianism/individualism. Every man and woman for his/herself.” Earlier, the revelation of a secret plot to sell the NHS out to big pharma – involving a high-profile Brexiter – underlines a gradual eclipse of public virtue by private monied interests.
