The painter, the police, and the silence of “liberal” Britain
When Metropolitan Police stopped satirist Kaya Mar outside Downing Street on the day Andy Burnham arrived as Prime Minister, a small, telling line was redrawn. Drawing on Hannah Arendt, Levitsky and Ziblatt, and Timothy Snyder, Edward Torsney argues the incident is not trivial — it is a sign of liberal Britain’s quiet slide into something more sinister, where satire is tolerated only when it knows its place.