The second is Burke's undeviating commitment to justice. And it is in relation to the theme of justice that we encounter moments when Bromwich — himself a respected commentator on contemporary American politics — allows his exposition of the 18th-century British scene to resonate with our present discontents. Sometimes these connections with the present are introduced gently by way of an explanatory analogy, as in this helpful guidance about how to grasp Burke's insistence that, in politics, the means must justify themselves, and that consequently means "always alter the character of the actor":

Thus, if you justify the torture of suspects in order to assist a war against a wicked enemy, you will find that in doing so you have incorporated torture in your idea of justice.  You have come to an understanding with yourself, and the utmost savagery will be compatible with your nature thereafter.  You have become one of those who can acquit themselves of any wrong by appealing to a result in a plausible future.

This is clear, although implicit. Eventually, in connection with Burke's insistence that representatives are not delegates and therefore should resist mandates, Bromwich makes an explicit connection with the present:

A representative not only has a duty to resist mandates; he must pry himself loose from intimidation by political threats, popular insurgencies, and all that two centuries later goes under the American name of lobbying.

In moments such as these Bromwich impels us to reflect on what it would mean to make Burke really active now in our political life (as opposed to being an occasionally invoked name in our political discourse).

Really to revive Burke in 21st-century British politics would demand the allocation of a much greater role for the imagination in our public affairs, and a much greater appreciation of the power of the imagination in the actors who bustle in (one hesitates to use the word "govern") those affairs. This in its turn will entail on the part of those actors a much greater understanding of the power of language, not just as persuasion, but more profoundly as a medium for the apprehending of both crises and solutions.

Finally (and lest the lash should seem to fall on only one cohort), really to revive Burke now will require also a much greater power of attentiveness in the populace — or at least that dwindling fraction of the populace for whom politics is something more than a reality television show set in the Houses of Parliament.