Back in what seems a political lifetime ago (September) there was a new insult du-jour for hardcore Corbynistas to throw at anyone they didn’t like on Twitter but couldn’t easily label an outright fascist: Centrist Dad.

A Centrist Dad was a nasty subset of Centrism. You didn’t even have to be an actual dad. Just to be old (40s would be plenty) and to have been dreadfully condescending to a young Momentum-type - usually by suggesting their dogmatic certainty about stuff may be the product of inexperience.

Corbyn’s former adviser Matt Zarb-Cousin helped coin the term. Centrist Dads, he said, are “middle-aged men who cannot come to terms with the world and politics changing, and think that they must know better because they are older and wiser.”

(If you are tempted at this point to wonder if being wiser is, by definition, to know better and that wisdom is frequently one of the very few benefits of the ageing process, don’t bother. It’s really not worth it.)

Centrist Dadism hibernated for a while, but came back into the vocab recently when GQ’s Stuart McGurk got Jeremy Corbyn, spritual guru of all Centrist Dad-haters, to admit to being a Centrist Dad himself, albeit a radicalised one.

Since then Ed Miliband and Tony Blair have both felt the need to come out and publicly deny any Centrist Dadism leanings, though neither seemed entirely clear about what it was they were denying.

The only thing anyone, bar Jeremy himself who is unwittingly trolling his own Youth Wing, can say for sure is that to be a Centrist Dad is a very bad thing indeed.

And yet, in my typically woolly, extremaphobic, condescending way, I’m not sure I fully agree. What the world needs right now is a Spartacus-like uprising of Centrist Dadism.

In times where, to borrow from Yeats, (William Butler, not Ron) those of passionate intensity on both Left and Right seem hellbent to launch us into either a social revolution or a nationalistic uprising, then bringing people over the barricades of entrenched party dogma to actually sort out this infernal mess could be what we’re missing in our national political discourse.

Save The Revolution for later. For when there isn’t quite so much hostility and confusion in the air, so many sick people in hospital corridors, so many neighbours utterly at odds with each other over Brexit, such lousy infrastructure and investment in parts of the country as to beggar belief, so many chubby little fingers on big red nuclear buttons, and such a normalised state of twisted morality in public office.

There’s nothing easier that espousing a Revolution when people are angry. There’s nothing radical in it at all. The difficult thing in a time of trauma is to resist the call to arms and instead be level headed, pragmatic and bring talents to bear on a common problem. Yes, let’s say it out loud; to be a bit more grown-up.

The real radicals today are the ones who take what would be, in any other sphere of our lives save the one that threatens to hobble the UK for a generation to come, European politics, the common sense approach: keeping options open, understanding the consequences of our actions, having a Plan B up our sleeves.

And meanwhile, come together in some centre ground to fix the immediate and manifest problems our nation faces. That’s what the Daddy of Centrism would have done; Winston Churchill.

British Nationalist when times suited, European federalist when times changed, he was all over the shop politically, bouncing between parties and policies like a pinball.

(“I’m an English Liberal. I hate the Tory Party,” declared the Tories Greatest Ever Hero in 1903.)

But he was driven by a clear sense of principled pragmatism - idealism without illusions, as that other great Centrist Dad JFK would describe it - most obviously on display when coalescing a government of national unity, uniting the best of the talents across politics to focus on the problem at hand; saving Britain and Europe from Nazis oppression.

As Gary Oldman’s portrayal in Darkest Hour illuminates so brilliantly, it was Churchill’s ability not only to speak for himself, but to then speak for us all, that brought the world salvation.

Winston Churchill didn’t go out and poll people about how we should respond to the Nazi hordes, then fritter years (because it is years now!) trying to mollify his party about the way forward.

There wasn’t time. There isn’t time now.

Oh for a leader like Churchill today. Not to man the barricades, but to bring the barricades down. Not to think of career and party but to put our problems in their right order and fix the things that matter most, first.

Not to think of poll-pleasing. But to think for The People in this time of crisis. There’s a difference.

And if that sounds like a patronising Centrist Dad sort of thing to say, then fine. If it bothers you, just try growing up a bit.

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