What would be really interesting is the mental state people reach, before they decide they are right about these difficult issues.

That's what I think was the real giveaway with Sir Alan Walters. He was so sure he was right - even as terrible irreparable harm was being done to the social fabric of the country.

The trouble with politics and democracy to some extent - is that we are continually being sold simplistic answers to complicated problems. Blair was going to solve the country's illiteracy problems (which in my opinion lie at the heart of many other problems) - how was he going to do it....PHONICS. Like trained teachers have never heard of phonic reading systems.....!

Thatcher was going to solve all our union problems with 'free collective bargaining'. Arthur Scargil found out how free that was.

Politicians are like salesmen who have somehow started to believe their own phoney catchphrases. At what point the public are going to realise that they are all bullshit artists, I don't know. I don't expect it in my lifetime.