Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves claim to be dealing with the world as it is, but their choices betray yearning for a world that has disappeared
Hollywood has stopped betting on original ideas. Sequels and remakes dominate the box office. Among this year’s Christmas movie releases are Zootropolis 2 (the first Zootropolis came out in 2016), Avatar: Fire and Ash (third in a series that began in 2009), and Wicked: For Good (part two of the adaptation of a musical that premiered in 2003).
New stories are risky. It is safer to retell old ones. British politics feels similarly afflicted by paralysis of the imagination, intimidated by change, stuck in a narrative loop.
Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist
