Disloyal toast

Drink and democracy have one important point in common: an ambivalent relationship with discord. They can mitigate it. They can also exacerbate it. Events at last week’s Tory conference led me to ruminate on that theme, as a little good wine did indeed mitigate political depression: these bottles I have stored against my ruin.

In a modern society, by giving legitimacy to governments, democracy can underpin political authority. But that depends on two related outcomes. The government must be worthy of authority, and those who lose an election must accept the result. By transforming pluralities into sizeable majorities, the British voting system has encouraged all that. 1945, Wilson’s first governments, 1979, 1997: relatively small net swings in voting behaviour produced not only electoral landslides, but moral ones as well. It was as if the losers had been written out of history (something similar happened with Mr Obama).