David Behrens

It took just four weeks from the by-election in Makerfield to the arrival of Pickfords at Number 10. That’s how fast we can remove a powerful figure from office when we set our minds to it. So why is it taking so long at Yorkshire Water?

We seem to have crossed a threshold in national life. The promise of what is possible has begun to burn off the miasma of what is not. I may be jumping the gun; check back in a year to find out.

It’s those involuntary reflex actions that knock you sideways when the water goes off: reaching for the kettle, trying to flush the loo or wash your hands when you pick something nasty off the floor. It took me nearly 24 hours to get used to it.

Fifty years ago, when I first came to work in the West Riding, people complained that if they carried on building houses at the rate they were going, the whole area would merge into a single, soulless settlement. There was even a name for it: Cleckuddersthorpe.

There’s a fine line between comedy and condescension. Someone really should explain it to the people at the Met Office who thought they could make us all laugh by naming acts of God after cartoon characters.

ITV was one of Britain’s better ideas, despite Churchill’s ill-concealed contempt. Without it we would never have had The Sweeney, Coronation Street or Brideshead Revisited. We’ll gloss over The Jeremy Kyle Show.

There have been many scare stories lately about artificial intelligence wiping us all out because it’s cleverer than we are. Even within the AI industry, executives are urging governments to put up guardrails against reckless development.

It’s hardly in doubt that political debate has dumbed down in recent years. The dubious art of reducing complex ideas to game show catchphrases has become the first recourse of politicians who think we’re incapable of taking in more than three words at a time. Get Brexit Done. Take Back Control. Points Mean Prizes.

No wonder there’s a backlog in the courts system, when people endowed with privilege but not principle think they can commandeer it for their own convenience – as if judges were slot machines that can be made to pay out with a pull of the handle.

So now we know. It was wrong of us to write off Reform UK as merely a bunch of racists; it’s so much more. It’s also misogynist, amateurish, violent and deeply, disgustingly dishonest. And it’s not just a few bad apples, as its leader tried to kid us – the whole orchard is rotten.