... even if you are wrong, even if you take everyone else down with you? I can’t say I am signed up to what seems a dangerous new tone. I’ll fly a Yorkshire flag now and then, plug on about science and faith working well together or the virtues of a liberal education ... but even when my rhetoric gets the better of me there’s liable to be an undertone of irony, self-deprecation and humour. It’s how we were brought up. And it’s at risk if we’re not careful. Which is not a problem in itself - it’s just a cultural mannerism - but it is a problem if shoutiness and confrontation becomes the norm and society becomes a competition as to who can shout loudest - or shoot hardest.

But what else should we expect when we abjure any foundations for a shared morality, and see only our chosen positions? The only arbiter left is power. And yet again the weak go to the wall - even if it is a death that’s dressed up as glory.