british politicians themselves will tell people like me, "goodness gracious, rob, we don't "have the statesmen, we don't have those towering "authorities who, when they speak in parliament, you really "want to stop and listen." and i think there is some truth in that argument, and it may be to do with the sort of semi—professionalisation of british politics, the idea that so many people go straight from university into thejunior ranks of the party machine and then suddenly find themselves, i mean, extraordinarily, in positions of astonishing responsibility. is there any question, therefore, that we might get stuck in all this, or is this a temporary blip? there are two broad views of this. at one extreme is that actually things could get worse, that the events of the last six years, the sort of tumult ever since britain left the european union, the sort of churn in the leaders, the fact also that the main opposition labour party had had temporarily, at least for a short time,