It is a truism that in a democracy the voters get the government they deserve – and so we should probably not complain too much if our next prime minister is a snaggle-toothed halfwit who presents to voters an infantile diorama drawn from fairy tales in which dancing is more important than manufacturing, people can be whatever they want to be, the military should be abolished and everyone will be happy except for the Jews, who are to be hounded and vilified and attacked.

Zack Polanski’s Greens are the embodiment of what the American writer Rob K. Henderson called “luxury beliefs,” which are beliefs in the main based upon fictions – and they are soaring in the polls. This is an indication that while our polity might be sclerotic, ineffectual, utterly blind to realities, the electorate is even more so. The truth is we need to wake up, sharpish. But there is no evidence that either at the top or the bottom anybody is willing to do this. The alarm clock is put on perpetual snooze.

While our polity might be sclerotic, ineffectual, utterly blind to realities,the electorate is even more so

While our polity might be sclerotic, ineffectual, utterly blind to realities,the electorate is even more so

We have been here before. In 1930, the UK’s defense spending amounted to about 2.5 percent of our GDP – only slightly above what it is now. The country was still recovering its breath from a hideously brutal world war and would rather pretend that another even worse one was not just around the corner. In........

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