Alex Hesz: ‘It’s time to embrace the radical middle’

It was perhaps the defining image of Cool Britannia. Noel Gallagher, champagne, no tie, huge eyebrows, chatting amiably to a grinning Tony Blair at a Number 10 reception, the PM’s hands clasped in front of him, head tilted in studied attention. The middle of the middle. A centre-ground politician with a mandate the size of Knebworth, a centre-ground musician who only needed to trot out four familiar chords to send the NME into paroxysms of glee, meeting at the centre of British power. Outs