In the mid-19th century, many thinkers regarded the “condition of England” as dire. Carlyle called it ominous. Established beliefs were waning, communities were being destroyed by industrialisation and poverty was increasing amid plenty. Macaulay gave warning that the discontented were growing as social order dissolved. There was rage, he declared, below the surface.

Today the condition of England is arguably worse. Few can even say with confidence what England is; and the 19th century was spared an Archbishop of Canterbury and a Lord Chief Justice ready to concede legitimacy to Sharia. Increasing inequality, the debauching of public institutions - now by privatisation - and social disintegration are again with us. Although some remain complacent, a diminished sense of national identity, economic insecurity, alarms over violent crime and dismay at abuses committed by our parliamentarians are widespread.

Anxiety about the nation's condition is exacerbated by the public knowledge that all three main political parties are inadequate both in leadership and thought. It is clear, too, that millions think that none of these parties truly represents their views. Vox pop, reflected on many websites, regularly wishes a curse upon all their houses.

The creed of our times is to be non-judgmental. It is not shared by legions of discontented in Britain, whose contempts, fears and frustrations surface daily on blogs. Here is public opinion at its most direct: “They are unprincipled,” such voices typically say of the political class, a “bunch of jobsworths troughing at the public expense”. Or, again, “none of our leaders gives a toss for the will of the people”, while Gordon Brown and David Cameron are seen as equally “shifty”. After years of “Blairism”, much of this angry public is looking for integrity in its politicians.

We should pay attention. Coherent and strong parties are needed as the nation's condition deteriorates. Instead, political principles have become increasingly redundant, with policymaking subordinated to the needs of market “branding” (or “rebranding”). In consequence, the parties have withered and come to be perceived as little more than loose coalitions of competitors on the make. Like the nation itself, they have lost their individuality as marketing methods converge.

Convergences of party policy are not new. Peel and Disraeli stole their opponents' clothes when it served their interests. Today this convergence has erased differences of substance between the main parties. They now share the overarching belief that a “market economy”, espousal of the “values of the market” and exercise of the “right to choose” are preconditions of human progress and wellbeing. Instead, as the internal social condition of free societies worsens, we can see that free enterprise and moral licence are now two sides of the same coin. The free market and the free lifestyle go together; the privateer and the libertine are birds of a feather.

Giving pride of place to the entrepreneur, the consumer economy and the global age has wrecked Labour. It twists and turns between its old instinct to help the disadvantaged and a readiness to increase taxes even on the poorest; between its enthusiasm for privatisation and its former respect for the public service ethos. Moral trimming and duplicity have come with it. In October 1960 the Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell invoked the honesty and dignity of “our great party”. It is not possible now. “Bliar”, as vox pop calls him, saw to that.

This politics has also cut away the ground upon which Conservatism once stood. Its principles were once concern for nation, defence of established institutions and upholding an inherited value system. Today such principles have atrophied under the imperative to be inclusive, mainstream and the rest of it. You cannot be for “change” and “modernisation” and at the same time stand for continuity and tradition. Free-marketeers would buy the Crown Jewels if they were for sale. Yet the Conservative Party is also expected to be the party of Queen and Country.

These incoherences add to the dangers that the nation faces. As for the Lib Dems, voters are clearly hard put to say what their political philosophy is, if any. But Conservative confusions are the most threatening, since office beckons.

Britain's social crisis demands more public spending, not less; as the country falls into recession, more intervention is needed, not less. A small state and low taxes will not cure the ills that are daily increasing public alarm. Only a strong state can. You cannot repair the “broken society” while simultaneously “leaving people to live their own lives”, as Mr Cameron has put it.

In the 19th century, thinkers articulated the people's anxieties. Now intellectuals fail in their duties or go unheard. Instead, politicians waffle together about aspiration and empowerment, opportunity, hope and change. And who could make any sense of Mr Cameron's pronouncement in August 2007 that “you will not have a society in which individuals are big and the government is small unless you have a stronger society”? It is twaddle that insults the intelligence of a worried public as the sky darkens over the national condition.

The 19th century's oppositional movements - communism, socialism, trade unionism - have been defeated or humbled. These outlets for public action have gone. This, too, is a danger in times that have much in common with the Thirties. They are times when national self-repair is required, when the “free society” needs to be protected from itself, and when Islam is advancing into our moral void. When the “condition of England” was last seriously debated, the issue was reform or revolution. It still is.

David Selbourne is an author and historian

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