The old is dying — can the new be born?

Is the current chaos the precursor to structural change?

For those of us who relish politics it is great times to be alive. This is what it must have felt like to live through the 1920s and 30s — a pervasive feeling that we are living through existential crises, that the stakes are high, that it matters what happens next, not just for ourselves or our immediates, but for the planet, humanity and life itself.

What we see on the theatre stage is stranger than fiction. The tragi-comedy which has produced the Trump-Johnson axis looms large in direct opposition to the reality most people face. Many of us turn away in disgust, rejecting the orgy of greed and destruction our leaders are bent on promoting. Others have convinced themselves that they want this — a cut-throat survival of the fittest, where only the strong survive. Society is rejected as a snowflake’s utopia belonging to the realm of dangerous dreaming and reckless spending. In that world we are encouraged to fear those calling on us to rethink our priorities so we can create something slightly more positive.

Greta becomes a naïve, angry, hypocritical kid who refuses to go to school and has never learnt proper manners. A surprising number of people are so confused that they cannot but imagine this must all be a conspiracy. There is…