This growing gap between the governed and the governing

British society: every class, every income level, every age group and every ideological leaning. The titled, the humble and the dogs in the street alike know that our democracy has gone wonky. The country is poorly run, by people who give the impression they are largely motivated by the prospect of personal advancement and the next opportunity to slip the dagger between one another’s ribs, by careerists who take a short-term view of big issues that properly require long-term responses, by parties that in the 21st century are outdated, unworkable coalitions of people who often have more in common with those who are nominally their opponents.

Too often, actions make a mockery of rhetoric, leaving the door open to the extreme, simplistic politics of the empathy-free right and the sinister hardleft. Britain is a country that has forgotten how to talk to itself and – for all the quoting of Jo Cox – that there is more to unite us than divide us. We are, truly, ill served. The causes are varied, but linked. The crash of 2008 is like an insidious, unshakeable virus, which still wreaks havoc a decade later. It exposed how capitalism had been hijacked by what was in effect a global cartel, the members of which feather-bedded themselves even as the real incomes of the rest stagnated or declined. That no one was punished beyond losing their job, a chunk of their pension and their knighthood, added insult to injury. The subsequent failure of moral leadership by those at the pinnacle of finance, who have continued to scoop up undeserved millions much as great whales hoover up plankton, has been a ticking timebomb.

The crash revealed that globalisation had hollowed out nation-state agency – national legislatures found themselves hidebound in their response to the crisis by the supranational nature of business’s modern behemoths. Suggestions of a fairer tax system or new rules on remuneration were met with threats that companies and individuals alike would simply flee, or at least rearrange their affairs to avoid an increased burden. It has become harder and harder, even for those of us who would defend the principles of democratic capitalism, to view it in its modern condition as anything other than – in Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi’s deathless phrase – a vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.

This sense of helplessness, coupled with the liberating force of social media, kindled new movements and reinvigorated old ones. The great deregulations and privatisations of the 1980s were seen to have given away too much power. The World Bank, the WTO and Davos were all parts of the globalist conspiracy. The European Union was an arrogant, centralising project that had little to recommend it. Westminster was focused on the South-east and big capital. The Tories were anti-Scottish. Immigration was a free-for-all. It was time to take back control – either from the private sector, from the EU, or from Westminster.

This instinct, though understandable, has in turn led to our current precarious state. We have been exploited by those with an ulterior motive: Brexit at any cost, Scottish independence at any cost, big-state at any cost, No 10 at any cost. Our energies are diverted into debates about difference, and our politics into proving it. At Westminster, grammar schools and foxhunting were dangled to show Ukip voters that a version of Ye Olde Torie Englande was back. Almost every announcement by the SNP has seemed calculated to prove Scotland isn’t England. Jeremy Corbyn’s answer to each problem we face is higher taxes and more central command. It is hard to identify the moments at which the interests of the people have been put ahead of the ideological hobby-horses of the politicians.

And, of course, it hasn’t worked. Nicola Sturgeon is huddled away in

Bute House wondering how on earth she can force an independence referendum on a population that doesn’t want it. Theresa May is crumpled in Downing Street, her worthless manifesto chucked into a corner, desperate to leave but aghast at the idea of handing Britain over to Boris Johnson. Jeremy Corbyn and his sidekicks plot one more heave that, if successful, would see them pursue the Venezuela-isation of our economy.

If there has been a revolution in British politics, it hasn’t been the revolution that’s needed. In an era that demands frankness, there is still a lack of truth-telling. A world grown dangerously unsafe and unpredictable is used as an excuse to withdraw, to close doors, to leave the heavy lifting to others. The definitive issues of our time – intergenerational unfairness, austerity fatigue, the digital revolution and its impact on the workforce, how to manage all these things without rupturing the economy – are mere political footballs. The old games are still being played in the old ways.

For as long as this continues, the gap between the governed and the governing is only going to grow. We are far from the end of this period of upheaval and only a fool would predict where it ends. For my money, though, things are going to get much worse before they get better.