In 19^th-century Britain – and probably around the world – ‘democracy’ was opposed and resisted mainly on the grounds that it would enfranchise the unlettered and stupid, who were unfitted to make the sorts of intelligent decisions on which stable government depended. As well as this, they would likely vote for what today we would characterise as left-wing, worker-friendly or socialist policies, which both Conservatives and Liberals assumed was what the ‘great unwashed’ wanted.

Nonetheless, democracy eventually came to Britain, by stages (1832, 1867, 1884…), albeit excluding poor people and women initially, and never entirely satisfactorily. Which only exacerbated the problem. One of prime minister Benjamin Disraeli’s solutions to the danger of democracy was better schooling: ‘we must educate our masters’ was the way he put it; leading to some major educational reforms after the 1860s.

But he also had another cunning plan. That was to appeal to the plebs’ more visceral or tribal instincts over their material needs; especially to patriotism, morphing later into imperialism: ‘Make Britain Great Again’ (although of course he never used that resonant phrase). This worked a treat, helping to keep the Tories and the Liberal Imperialists in power for another half-century, despite the growing challenge of Labour during those years. Later on it helped keep Thatcher in power too.

By then the Right had learned that they could control the Great Unwashed – divert them from socialism – by means of propaganda, developing out of commercial advertising, and seeping into the political world through the new (circa 1900) ‘yellow press’, now largely owned by capitalists with amoral commercial motives, and with reactionary political agendas. Throughout the 20^th century the Daily Mail was the main exemplar of this type; joined in Thatcher’s time by the infamous Murdoch press.

So, that’s the situation as it stands today. And it leaves Britain’s ‘democracy’ no better off, essentially, than it was before the plebs won the vote. If Disraeli’s ‘masters’ are more formally ‘educated’ than they used to be, it is not in a way that renders them necessarily better able to take political decisions; largely because their school curricula often exclude ‘Politics’, for fear of being accused of ‘bias’. At least, this was the situation when I was at school; it may very well have changed since, which will perhaps account for young people’s more ‘progressive’ inclinations today. That’s judging by their relative support for the EU in the 2016 Referendum, and by the several polls that found that support for ‘Brexit’ was, and is, at its greatest among the more elderly, and the relatively uneducated.

Mention this, however, and one is accused of being ‘élitist’; which is difficult to counter, because it’s true. In this case it simply means that you have been schooled in politics and history and – crucially – critical thinking more than the non-élite, which should by rights and in logic give you more authority over the latter. Gary Lineker is not accused of being a football élitist because he knows more about the game.

There is, surely, no better explanation for the general state of British (and American) politics today, on all sides but mainly on the Right. This includes the clownish personnel; the lying propaganda, appealing to feelings and instincts rather than to evidence and argument; image valued over reality; the cheating, faking and general amoralism of so many politicians and the tabloid press; the idea that all opinions are equal, however crazy – ‘I’m a free American and I can believe anything I like’, as I heard on a US phone-in programme years ago, from a contributor being challenged on his claim that the London blitz was in retaliation for the bombing of Dresden (!) – and all the other nonsense that we’re seeing on social media today. It all comes from the ‘great unwashed’ presumably; but exploited by better-educated men and women who should – and presumably do – know better.

It’s called ‘stupidity’, and should be called out for that. But it’s not entirely the stupids’ fault.