The tough fight for democracy has begun

This week, national treasure David Attenborough joined the post-Brexit pile-on of the plebs. Should the little people really be trusted to make decisions about complicated matters like the EU, he asked? You know the answer: of course we shouldn’t. We’re too dim. We don’t have as many degrees as him. The point of parliamentary democracy, he says, is that ‘we find someone we respect who we think is probably wiser than we are’ and then we trust them to ‘ponder… difficult things’. That’s far preferable to asking people who’d prefer to go to a funfair than the National Gallery — he really says this, in reference to a quote from Ken Clarke’s new book — to decide the fate of Britain’s relationship with the EU. Shorter version: ordinary folk should stick to the dodgems and let wiser people do politics.

Today, Mr Attenborough (‘Lord’, I know, but as a democrat I don’t do archaic titles) got his way.