it features secret police blacklists - and a business sector eager to ruthlessly enforce them, leaders who lie without shame or apology, superinjunctions, the imminent death of the jury system, an irremovable judiciary bereft of any trace of democratic legitimacy, the debanking of state enemies - in a financial system where it is practically a death sentence, the murder and hounding of Jews, workers and Russians, imprisonment for speech criminals and - right at the bottom - perhaps beyond where even the Gestapo might willingly tread - Rotherham. And the twenty more like it. And the state apparatus that fed it, nurtured it, hounded its enemies and employed a lockstep omerta practically without exception across its many thousands of initiates that kept it safe from prying eyes.

On the other hand there's still Paddington Bear, Benedict Cumberbatch, Nandos and Bake Off so, y'know? Swings and roundabouts.