The origin of the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes is difficult to pin down: could it be 19th century Denmark or 14th century Spain, 13th century India or the 500s BC in Greece? Perhaps the fact that all of these cultures and times are viable options confirms the truth of it: never underestimate the capacity of those in power to believe their own nonsense.

One of the inherent problems with the government’s strategy to ‘educate’ people out of their concerns about immigration is that the narrative it requires is based on myth, not history

British politics is an excellent example of this. I’m fascinated by Angela Rayner’s words – leaked from a cabinet meeting in the midst of the Epping hotel fiasco – about needing to ‘repair the social fabric’ and foster ‘better integration’. She’s not wrong, but the fact that something so self-evidently true even needs to be said at cabinet is telling. Surely no one who hasn’t been in a coma for the last 25 years would need reminding of this. It was redolent of one of Basil Fawlty’s better put-downs to his wife; ‘Next contestant: Sybil Fawlty from Torquay, special subject the bleeding obvious’.

You detect a belief, in some quarters of government, that people are somehow imagining the........

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