Kierkegaard's Lunch

What even is a democracy? In Britain at the moment, two groups of people act like they know the answer, constantly pouring abuse over the other group. This goes to the very heart of the mess - constitutional, political, personal - that we are currently in. Until we get to the bottom of it we are as a country in mortal peril of either falling prey to violent populists who will, despite what they say, take power for themselves and ruin millions of lives, or of descending into a state of disempowered sullen and permanent hatred of unaccountable politicians who seem to ignore the people, until one day the people have had enough and revolution breaks out. What you think is currently happening in Britain is possibly strongly shaped by which way you voted in 2016 (disclosure: I voted Remain, but that's immaterial to this I hope). Everyone is fighting for that slippery spot at the top of The High Moral Ground and there isn't room for us all. There's not much analysis going o...

I remember the day in 1997, in London. A much younger Tony Blair, fresh from the landslide that swept the decaying and useless government of John Major from power, walking along Downing Street shaking hands with supporters. The party that evening, where they played 'Things can only get better'. The country had finally lost patience with a dessicated and incompetent Tory government, empty of ideas and crippled, then as now, by xenophobia and nativistic hatreds of Europe; a government that knew it was all over and was begging to be euthanised. I won't even start to chart the story since then. How could I? There are plenty of books out there with titles like 'How did everything get so screwed?' or 'How this disaster unfolded'. I remember a few months after Blair took office, the Princess of Wales died in a horrific pile-up in Paris, and our new baby faced Prime Minister seemed to judge the national mood perfectly, whilst the Royals clung on to ritual and remo...