Those of you who are old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis – those of you who were old enough to more or less understand what was happening in the world at that time and what the implications of a global nuclear war might be – invariably have told me how frightened you felt. How you, as children, read the fear in your parents’ faces. Those of you who were adults at the time tell us how, in those last few days before Khrushchev backed down, you looked down at the abyss and thought that these madmen in power might well lead the world you lived in in a mindless rush over the cliff. I have watched good documentaries that cover these dates and seen fearless, brave, grown men in positions of power – be it military, political or economic – reflect on those days with wild, glassy eyes… their voices breaking like adolescents out of emotion…as they tell us how in the rush of the events what was foremost on their minds was what would happen to their loved ones once the balloon went up. In his day branded as “The Butcher of Hanoi”, I recommend everyone watch “The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the life of Robert McNamara”; beautifully directed by Errol Morris and to the accompaniment of a moving soundtrack by Phillip Glass. Far be it from me to defend “Western” ham-fisted foreign policy of the likes we have witnessed over the last century and more but here is a man, in the twilight of his life, reflecting profoundly on his life as a major player in world events and on the consequences of our political actions, offering us priceless nuggets of wisdom, humanity and temperance. A man much maligned in my opinion…but that is beside the point.

Do any of you remember a fantastic film based on a book of the same name by John Le Carré called “The Russia House”, starring Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer? I no longer remember the exact line but in the story, the character that Sean Connery plays is challenged by a Soviet dissident to be nothing other than a decent human being when the time comes. And yes he comes through, in the plot…although in a rather unexpected way. But he comes through as a decent human being. And in doing so he utterly check-mates “them” (the Soviets) and “our lot” (the British and American secret services) proving that they are all bastards and interested in nothing but their own political gains. The main MI6 agent, played by James Fox, at times is portrayed as something closer to being human than his CIA counterparts but when he asks them if they remember what having a clean conscience is they don’t care.

The man now sitting in the Oval Office is the tragic-comic clown to an operetta we never imagined we would have to watch. Were he running some tin-pot third world failed democracy we would all be torn between fits of laughter at his ridiculous enunciations whilst feeling the tragedy of what he is intent on inflicting on his country. Unfortunately, and evidently, this is all much, much greater than that. I earnestly believe that even the GOP’s electorate of largely ignorant, parochial, monoglottic bigots and racists might actually be starting to really think about the consequences of having this sociopathic lunatic holding the reigns of power. He is clearly and categorically unfit for office – in every sense – and he should be removed forthwith.

Last June, the result of the British referendum on whether to remain in the EU might have seemed to many as nothing other than an expression of democracy in action and the will of a nation to steer its own course. It has, however, uncovered the nastiest, latent aspects of bigotry and narrow-mindedness in our national psyche and this is something to be thoroughly ashamed of. English is a mongrel language and British identity is the result of an agglomerative process of cultural assimilation over hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years; a process that can only have been for the best as it has shaped and defined our unique and diverse and valid identity. Nigel Farage, ironically enough, is a descendent of French Huguenots. So much for being “British”. What does Britain propose to do – drifting off into the Atlantic – in light of an increasingly aggressive Russia and an economically muscular China? It is time us British got over our sense of superiority – the Empire has been gone for seventy years – and stopped looking down at “those shifty continentals” as being less than our equals. Our interests, and our natural cultural ties, lie with Europe and as part of a strong, inclusive and diverse Europe.

We stand at a critical moment in history where those traditional and stupidly restrictive political postures of “left” or “right” need to be urgently discarded in favour of something closer to a politics of humanity and decency…to try to be nothing other than decent human beings. If we can manage that, we might yet have a chance to show these populist, bullying scumbags up – Farage, Le Pen, Wilders, Putin, Trump et al – for what they are.