You know, to be a human being is quite a role to play. Each of us wakes up in the morning and we inhabit a very dangerous creature capable of brilliance in many ways, but capable also of huge self-destructive episodes.

There were times in its history when the U.S. came close to suggesting what a utopian project might be, but the less appealing sides to American life are now in the ascendant – there’s a self-infantilising strain that gives America the look of Peter Pan’s never-never land.