F ive years ago, I remember voters saying that they wished for more disagreement in British politics. It was impossible, they felt, to tell the difference between one politician and another. Blair, Cameron, Clegg – all said the same things. Some Conservatives claimed to be nostalgic for the days of Tony Benn. “I disagreed with him,” they said, “but at least he had conviction.”

They wouldn’t say that now.

So much has changed so quickly, Labour lurching to the left, the Conservatives to the right, both shedding many of their centrist figures along the way, into retirement, into independence, or into the shifting sands that led past Change UK.

Meaningless slogans have triumphed in defiance of tradition (and even constitutional conventions). Even the Liberal Democrats have rebranded as a radical party. The Humpty Dumpty of the centre has fallen off the wall, and it hardly seems it can be put back together again.

But there is still a logic to the lost centre – an almost overwhelming logic. It is a far wiser and saner position, particularly at a time of division, a time of politicians pitting Leave against Remain, parliament against the people, Scotland against England, young against old, London against the rest. Even as we struggle to find someone to represent it, we still have a sense of our common ground.

Big beasts lose their seats: Prominent MPs gone after election Show all 10 1 /10 Big beasts lose their seats: Prominent MPs gone after election Big beasts lose their seats: Prominent MPs gone after election Dennis Skinner - Labour Labour MP of 49 years Dennis Skinner lost his Bolsover seat to Conservative Mark Fletcher, losing 16% of the vote share PA Big beasts lose their seats: Prominent MPs gone after election Jo Swinson - Liberal Democrat Leader of the Liberal Democrats lost her Dunbartonshire East seat in a 6.8% swing to the SNP PA Big beasts lose their seats: Prominent MPs gone after election Anna Soubry - The Independent Group for Change Leader of The Independent Group for Change, formerly Conservative MP, Anna Soubry lost her Broxtowe seat, coming third behind the winning Conservatives and Labour PA Big beasts lose their seats: Prominent MPs gone after election Dominic Grieve - Independent Prominent Remain-backing MP Grieve lost the contest for Beaconsfield, coming second to the Conservatives, his former party AFP/Getty Big beasts lose their seats: Prominent MPs gone after election Luciana Berger - Liberal Democrat Luciana Berger lost the contest for Finchley and Golders Green, coming second to Conservative Mike Freer PA Big beasts lose their seats: Prominent MPs gone after election Laura Pidcock - Labour Prominent Corbyn ally Laura Pidcock lost her Durham North West seat to Conservative Richard Holden PA Big beasts lose their seats: Prominent MPs gone after election Chukka Umunna - Liberal Democrat Prominent anti-Brexit MP Chukka Umunna lost the contest for the Cities of London & Westminster, coming second to Conservative Nickie Aiken Getty Big beasts lose their seats: Prominent MPs gone after election Zac Goldsmith - Conservative Former candidate for Mayor of London Zac Goldsmith lost his Richmond Park seat to Liberal Democrat Sarah Olney PA Big beasts lose their seats: Prominent MPs gone after election Nigel Dodds - DUP Former leader of the DUP Nigel Dodds lost his Belfast North seat to Sinn Fein AFP/Getty Big beasts lose their seats: Prominent MPs gone after election Gareth Snell - Labour Labour MP Gareth Snell lost his Stoke-on-Trent central seat to the Conservatives PA

But the centre will only emerge again when it rediscovers its emotion and energy. It must prove that it can respond quickly and effectively to what is going wrong in individual lives. It must find its anger again – anger that people are sleeping rough on our streets, that so many are caught up in knife crime, that our air is so dangerous. It must cease to use complexity as an excuse for inaction. It must believe that things can, indeed must, be improved.

And it must not again become a soft centre, a weak fudge between right and left. If the right stands for economic growth and the maximisation of utility and the left for redistribution from rich to poor, then the centre has to stand for something more than second rate-growth and second-rate equality.

It must find its own hard, independent vision of the world, with its own logic and morality. There is such a position, quite different from left or right.

It could begin, in my view, with the idea (after Amartya Sen) that the state is there simply to create the conditions that allow each and every one of us to flourish fully as human beings.

The production and distribution of growth should be secondary to that aim. People can flourish in a context of slower growth. They can flourish where gaps exist between rich and poor. This vision is based not on cash, but on an idea of what is necessary, what is dignified, and what is acceptable.

The government’s task should be to provide, in the broadest possible sense, the infrastructure to live a fulfilled life. This includes traditional infrastructure (building Crossrail 2 in London, for example, would help hundreds of thousands of people over the next two decades). But it also includes social infrastructure – the police and community programmes to ensure that we’re safe, the emissions policy that allows us to breathe the air, the counsellors for mental health and addiction.

The battle should not be fought on GDP growth or income distribution, but on decency and dignity. And it should not be about who can promise the most billions; in fact, the centre may often be more fiscally conservative, less willing to borrow or spend than either right or left, because it senses the obligations due to future generations.

As things stand, the centre must be rescued from itself. It has become a byword for indecision, for sloppiness of thought, for the defence of the status quo. It must become once again the space with the smartest ideas with the best ethical foundations.

It needs to demonstrate that it has its feet more firmly rooted on the ground – that it is intensely rooted in practical detail. It needs to display impatience, anger, and courage. If it can do those things, it may even achieve something even more precious: a politics that is more decent, and for which we might one day vote.