Would you pay £80 for a video from John Bercow?

There is much to be said for meritocracy, and Adrian Wooldridge, in his new book, The Aristocracy of Talent, says it very well. He is right: a society organised on anti-meritocratic principles will decay, making life worse for all, not just for the naturally successful. And yet I feel that meritocracy is inadequate. Most of us, sensing our lack of merit, feel left out. It takes small account of things that matter in real life — love of family and friends, relationships across generations, enduring ill health and bereavement, beauty, landscapes, animals, flowers, kindness, joy, pleasing idleness, traditions, prayer, being silly, jokes, song, meals, bed. Meritocracy rightly seeks results. But life is better understood as a predicament, not a race. The Book of Common Prayer asks God to consider us ‘not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences’. Meritocratic leaders show less mercy, weighing our merits and finding Hillary Clinton’s famous ‘basket of deplorables’.

Wooldridge writes: ‘Few people would begrudge the meritocrats their success in wresting control of the civil service from dim-witted aristocrats in the mid-19th century.’ I suppose one must reluctantly agree. But at least dim-witted aristocrats are less likely to believe they are right about everything than brilliant brainboxes who, by their own efforts, have climbed to the top. Consequently, the dimwits are much less interfering. What shocked me about our meritocratic elites over Brexit was not that they supported Remain — a reasonable position — but that they despised Brexiteers and did everything they could think of, through civil service, courts, BBC and Mr Speaker Bercow, to reverse the voters’ decision. This arrogance of the successful is bad leadership: who will follow people merely because they are clever? A secret of monarchy’s popularity is that the royal family are not intellectual giants. The Queen’s leadership is based on service, not superior qualifications.