In his soulful book, Beauty: the Invisible Embrace, John O’Donohue writes:

“The human soul is hungry for beauty; we seek it everywhere – in landscape, music, art, clothes, furniture, gardening, companionship, love, religion and in ourselves.”

Politics is conspicuously absent from the list. And that made me think, can politics be beautiful?

If this is the best we can do after the nation pours its collective hope into something, it really is the end of empire. And everyone in town, at one level or another, seems to know it.