I conclude by suggesting that a growing sense of English disaffection in relation to West Lothian and the distribution of public expenditure across the UK should be understood as a sign that a deeply held sense of procedural fairness has been violated, rather than dismissed as a species of the ‘sour me too-ism’ which much commentary continues to identify as the core of English national consciousness.

Yea! for such sights and acts do tear apart / The close and subtle clasping of a chain, / Form’d not of gold, but of corroded brass, / Whose links are furnish’d from the common mine / Of every day’s event, and want, and wish; / From work-times, diet-times, and sleeping-times: / And thence constructed, mean and heavy links / Within the pandemonic walls of sense, / Enchain our deathless part, constrain our strength, / And waste the goodly stature of our soul.

SEPTEMBER 10 Conference with Madame. She went in to Ti Hua ³⁵ and did the dickering with the Sinkiang governor. Got him back in the fold. [He] hadn't been out of his yamen [courtyard] in six years. Heavily guarded. All [his] servants wear two guns. Suspicious of poison, examines wine corks before drinking, looks melons all over to see if they've been needled. Ti Hua a dump. Looks like a bedraggled old tart, says Madame.]

Get to the story and make sure that line 6 or 7 is a grabber. TV viewers have attention spans of fifteen seconds, and then they hit the remote.