Vote-winning insight of Trump and Corbyn

FARMS minister George Eustice warns that pet ostriches must be registered. Don’t comply and you’re burying your head in the sand. Jez and Prez boosted by how ordinary folk detest elites

THE end of the world is nigh. I say that not out of religious fervour but on scientific evidence.

Historians and scientists studying the collapse of ancient civilisations have found disturbing parallels with our own.

American anthropologist Peter Turchin pinpointed cycles which heralded the demise of civilisations in Egypt, China and Russia.

As populations grow, the supply of labour outstrips demand, making labour cheap, he told New Scientist.

Then living standards of workers fall while wealthy elites flourish.

Unrest

As natural resources become scarce, the effect is felt first by low-income groups, while the better off are cushioned from the immediate blow.

That breeds resentment and political unrest. Similar signs are out there now. Half the world’s wealth is held by one per cent of its population, and fossil fuels are harder to come by.

Traditional politicians couldn’t see the danger to Western civilisation. David Cameron and George Osborne introduced austerity following the 2008 bank crash by making the poorest pay for it in wage caps and Bedroom Tax.

It took the maverick Jeremy Corbyn to spot that progressive taxation redresses the balance – and millions flocked to his banner.

In America, workers paid for the financial elite’s foul-up in lost jobs – and Donald Trump became President by promising to get them back.

In their own ways Corbyn and Trump offer answers to preventing civil unrest or worse. If you want to know what the world’s elite look like in their natural habitats, the slimy species was on show last week at London’s Roman orgy known as the Presidents Club, and at the World Economic Forum.

Among 3,000 Davos participants were 900 company chief execs and 70 world leaders. Tickets cost £20,250 but still gave no access to meetings where the future of the world was discussed.

If these were the richest, cleverest, most switched-on people on the planet, they demonstrated spectacular stupidity. Take the signpost emblazoned with “committed to improving the state of the world” giving directions to the “Private Car Pick-up” alongside “A Day in the Life of a Refugee” exhibition.

If organisers can’t recognise such hideous inappropriateness, the end of the world really could be nigh.