Protest all you like. I won’t listen until you burn

I think on balance I would prefer people to demonstrate their opposition to political developments — Brexit, the forthcoming state visit of Donald Trump and so on — by setting fire to themselves in the manner of outraged Buddhist monks, rather than simply by clicking ‘sign’ on some internet petition. I think the self-immolation thing carries more force.

It is true that a mass conflagration of a million and a half people in Trafalgar Square would, in the short term, greatly exacerbate the appalling smog afflicting London as a consequence of wood-burning stoves. But as most of the signatories of the petition against Trump coming probably own all of those stoves, we would be killing two birds with one stone. A forceful protest, which would make us sit up and take notice, and within a few days an end to the polluting effects of the liberal middle classes.

We have still not got to grips with click democracy, how we should weigh its import and who is it who is doing all of the relentless and asinine clicking.