The Spectator’s Christmas appeal: donate internships, not money

Perhaps the most insightful piece of political analysis since the turn of the century came from the Queen in a speech to the United Nations a few years ago. She first addressed the UN in 1957 and returned in 2010 to reflect on what she had learned in the interim. She had seen prime ministers every week and dined with presidents from all over the world — but what struck her was how seldom their schemes translated into real progress. ‘Many sweeping advances have come about not because of governments, committee resolutions, or central directives,’ she pointed out, ‘but instead because millions of people around the world have wanted them.’

Politicians run the government, not the country. That’s a consoling thought at a time when the Conservative government looks almost as bad as the party that would replace it. The election humiliation was followed by deeply unedifying negotiations with the European Union, giving a sense of perpetual chaos.