The hypocrisy of Nigel Farage’s supporters

Much heartened by the barrage of criticism I’ve been receiving from both Spectator and Times readers, I’m returning to the subject of Coutts’s customer selection. I’ve learned over the years how to spot the emergence of a herd opinion, not just by the volume of shouts but also by how members of the herd begin copying and repeating – often word for word – each others’ phrases; and what we now call ‘memes’ take shape. My experience is that when public sentiment begins to attract these characteristics, it is almost always wrong. I never forget the advice of my late grandfather, Squadron Leader Leonard Littler: ‘Whenever I hear of a great wave of public indignation, I am filled with a massive calm.’

I’ve especially relished the spectacle of my own journalistic colleagues gathering up their skirts in moral horror at the idea that someone might be so indiscreet as to leak information to a journalist, and the meme that even a lowly bank clerk would be sacked for doing so.