Political Realignment
Cummings Thesis (Feb 2025): Both major parties and Whitehall are in simultaneous crackup. A "Third Force" of constructive talent - brokered by external catalysts - is required to break the doom loop.
The Stakes
"We're on a path to serious internal violence and financial meltdown with pure Idiocracy 'in charge'. Without Third Force: get ready for riots and the IMF." - Cummings, Feb 2025
Third Force
Required CatalystKey Characteristics
- "Aggressively constructive" - Ron Conway, builders not blockers
- "Truth-seeking" - Li Lu, Charlie Munger, evidence over ideology
- "Talent-optimizing" - Bob Taylor, assembles high-performance teams
- From business, private research, former armed forces - NOT SW1
Without external catalyst, system cannot self-reform. "Riots and IMF intervention."
Bureaucracies defend power
Bureaucracies will prioritise defending their powers even when pathological. Without willingness to remove people fast, you have no leverage.
Experience < Getting things done
In jobs like No10, experience of politics matters less than experience getting difficult things done. SW1 selects against this.
Pile work to find key men
"You find your key men by piling work on them. They say 'I can't do any more' and you say 'Sure you can'. Pretty soon you have men you can rely on absolutely." - Kaiser
Speed beats perfection
WW2 rule: Get something 80% right fast rather than 100% right too late. Britain's crisis needs wartime urgency, not peacetime process.
System beats personality
Individual talent matters, but talent without systems thinking fails. Thatcher succeeded partly because Hoskyns built the analytical framework.
Realignment Pathway
Third Force Emergence
emergingSilicon Valley elites model (2023-24 US). Independent power bloc of builders, not politicians.
External Brokerage
speculativeExternal catalysts (Trump/Elon model) broker deal between Tories, Reform, and Third Force talent.
Talent Recruitment
requiredRecruit aggressively constructive personalities from business, research, armed forces - NOT SW1.
Regime Replacement
goalNew coalition implements Hoskyns-style analytical framework with wartime urgency.
Key Analysis
"We're on a path to serious internal violence and financial meltdown with pure Idiocracy "in charge". Without Third Force: get ready for riots and the IMF."
"The Civil Service are the real enemy of hope for the future and they are therefore my enemy."
"A Third Force must recruit aggressively constructive talent from business, private research, and former armed forces - personalities effectively barred from SW1's obstructionist wordcel games."
"If you want British politics to have a better chance of escaping its farce, probably the main thing you can do is help the Third Force do what Monnet called "preparing the future"."
"History doesn't repeat but it rhymes. For all those thinking about the next regime, Hoskyns' memoir will be fascinating."
Further Reading
Just In Time
by Sir John Hoskyns
The only post-1979 British book showing how regime change actually happens
TSP-5: What comes in 2025-6
by Dominic Cummings
Party crackup analysis and Third Force merger mechanics
Read ↗People, Ideas, Machines XIV
by Dominic Cummings
WW2 production lessons, Hoskyns case study, super-compressed tokens
Read ↗Party Crackup Thread
by Dominic Cummings
Real-time analysis of simultaneous Tory/Labour/Whitehall crackup
Read ↗Make Britain Rich Again
by Matt Clifford
The builder's case for renewal - permissionlessness, talent backing, AI-driven growth
Explore →Prepare the Future
"If you want British politics to have a better chance of escaping its farce, probably the main thing you can do is help the Third Force do what Monnet called 'preparing the future'."