The culture war cannot be won if its opponents don’t know the rules Nesrine Malik

Early last week, it looked like the England football team had lost to Italy but scored against Downing Street. As the abuse of England’s black footballers poured forth on Sunday and Monday and public outrage mounted, senior Tories had to shimmy away from their tacit approval of the racism the team had taken the knee against.

After Tory hardliners began to side with the Black England footballer Tyrone Mings – who accused the home secretary, Priti Patel, of hypocrisy over the issue – there was a growing sense that the all-conquering Tory culture-war machine might