Brexit won the battle. But now we’ve lost the war

When Jonathan Swift wanted to mock the immeasurable superficiality of British politics, he imagined it as a contest between the Big–Endians and the Little-Endians. That is, between those who believed fervently that the only way to open a boiled egg is at the pointier end; and those certain that the only proper way to attack it was from the larger, more rounded end.

But that was in the 1720s and Swift was joking. Not in his most extravagantly cynical fantasies, I dare venture, could our greatest satirist have conceived that 300 years on a British prime minister would be chosen on the basis of the following question: ‘Do you think that it was injudicious and horrid and career-ending of female candidate B to mention in an interview that she had kids, knowing that female candidate A did not?’ And that apparently the only reasonable answer would be: ‘Yes!’

I followed the debate (mainly via Twitter) from a villa in Sicily. Being abroad can give you a perspective sometimes lacking when you’re too close to the fray. And what I saw, I must say, left me as planet-struck as by anything I have ever witnessed in the decades I have spent spectating on the festering roach-pit that is Westminster.

Most especially what disgusted me was the behaviour of the commentarati: the people (you had just one job, FFS) charged with holding our political class to account. Not all of them (props to Louise Mensch and a handful of others); just most of them, including more than a few who’d taken the right side on the Brexit. I watched, amazed, as they piled in with their tuppenny ha’pennies’ worth on this most pressing of issues. ‘Oh definitely she meant it. Listen to the audio!’ ‘What? She’s trying to defend herself? How very dare she?’ ‘Kill the witch! Burn her!’ etc.