Malcolm Gladwell makes American basketball sound like British politics

Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book – David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants – contains, as you might expect from the subtitle, some stories rather relevant to the Liberal Democrats. Most notably, there is the use of the full court press tactic in American basketball – and that’s a story with themes very familiar to Liberal Democrat ears.

Requiring huge amounts of hard work, the full court press strategy lets teams that are more poorly resourced beat nominally far stronger opponents through sheer bloody-minded repetitive slog.

Balls and hoops, leaflets and letterboxes, rushing about energetically – it all sounds analogous, especially when you get to the part where other teams complain that this just isn’t how things should be done.