A chap came to my house today to do some work for me (no names, no details, no pack drill). While he was here the news came through about Dominic "Slimeball" Raab and Esther "Devil-Incarnate" McVey. I commented on the news to him. He told me he didn't follow politics and didn't understand any of it. But he'd voted leave, for chrissake. I told him to come round my house in the event of another vote for a ten-minute chat in which I'd tell him why he should vote remain next time. He doesn't need it. He assured me that he'd changed his mind. Good thing, but the exchange hardly cheered me up. Let's redefine democracy, mused I after he'd gone, as a system in which ignorant people can be kept ignorant so that they can be manipulated, but make them feel good by "giving them the vote."

We are in a nightmare. What is happening to this country is insane. I want to hear politicians saying what is blatantly, bleedin' obvious: that staying in the EU is by FAR the most beneficial outcome for the national interest. There is no-one here on this forum that can make even the weakest argument as to why we would be better out. They can quote Tory rags and Tory blogs until they're blue in the face. But not one of them, not Iains, not Nigel, not Keith, not Stanron, can make any sort of case that we will be better off out. They can offer only vacuous and faux-hopeful aspiration. Nothing else. It's been like that for over two years, but the issue is crystallising fast before their eyes. Time to ditch the hubris, chaps. We are better off by a million miles in the EU. Apart from the clear economic benefits, look at the rest of the world. We have Trump destroying democracy in the rest of the western world, and he's going to get a second term. Six more years. We have a dictator for life who tramples on human rights in the biggest country in the world. We have Putin who is determined to turn Russia into a corrupt and dangerous superpower. We have far-right populism in Brazil and, worryingly, in some European countries. We have a horrid regime in Israel that is at the root of all middle-eastern conflict and we have an antediluvian, murderous regime in a country we daren't criticise because they have oil. The EU, for all its faults, which are legion, is a democratic bulwark against these horrible trends. If you can't see it, you're blind, and you are not thinking about the nasty world you're unconsciously arguing should be visited on your children and grandchildren.