claytoncast

There’s something rather touching about a week in which everybody is encouraged to have their say. We call it democracy, though increasingly it resembles a family Christmas, people storming off in a huff, someone crying near the Quality Street, and at least one elderly relative muttering that things were better before Brussels invented bananas. Still, the principle matters. The important thing is not whether we agree with what people say, but that they get to say it. We have, after all, survived Brexit, the longer passport queues, the vanishing ease of working in Europe, and the curious national achievement of making a weekend in Spain feel administratively similar to invading Poland. But by God, we protected this sceptred isle. Or at least put it behind a velvet rope and made everybody queue for it. And that’s democracy. You vote, you earn the right to complain. If you didn’t vote, frankly, you should sit quietly and eat your fish fingers. That’s the deal. What struck me, though, w...