AS Britain's economic 'recovery' lies like a beached whale basking in the sun and those weathercock politicians Messrs Camer­on and Harper (recently seen recycling themselves as born-again Beach Boy and post-operative Postman Pat) who, when they're not boasting about having put Britain back on the right track are bleating about their holiday entitlements, you'd have to be comatose not to find common ground with Zac Goldsmith's recent critique of politics that 'it's childish, superficial and rotten'. The only question is why he left out 'hypocritical'.

For Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond to declare the killing of journalist James Foley to have been an 'utter betrayal of our country, our values and everything the British people stand for' is not just a bit rich, it's pure hypocrisy because the Tory Party, despite its vainglorious posturing, has probably been the single most effective instrument in the destruction of the values the British people once stood for and for which they were widely admired.

Which begs the question why on Earth should we think we are in any position to 'implant' our 'democracy' in the Middle East?

Don't 'family, tribe, sect and personal friendships' ride roughshod just as much over the interests of Britain's alleged nation state as they do in Middle Eastern countries?

This country is not, and never has been, a true democracy.

Quintin Hogg (Lord Hailsham) might have once described it as an 'elective dictatorship' but in practice it more resembles an oligarchy (rule by clique) or ochlocracy (rule by mob) sheltering beneath the Crown's benign neglect.

When John Major signed the Maastricht Treaty and David Cameron legislated for same-sex marriage both were guilty of 'obliging' Her Majesty to violate her Coronation oath 'to govern my people...according to their respective laws and customs...and...to the utmost of my power maintain the laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel.'

Elected on deceitful manifestos and then forced by a three-line-whip to maintain their party's status quo, MPs pursue not the nation's best interests but their own and 'tribal' interests.

Departing minister Mark Simmonds apparently found a £28,000 annual allowance to rent a flat in London, on top of his £89,000 salary, 'not enough'

But a £26,000 annual cap introduced by his government on housing and other benefits is 'quite enough' for families with no other benefits to live on.

Politicians' obsessive pursuit of social engineering policies have fatally weakened Britain's Judaeo-Christian civilisation and replaced it with a vapid sense of fear (of death as well as life), dependency (on the grasping state) and helplessness (in the discounted retail market of pandering modern politics).

Like the Roman Emperors, who bribed the Praetorian Guard to prevent their fall, a population like Britain's (bought by Brussels) becomes decadent, enfeebled and self-serving.

And once a nation's belief and purpose have been so eroded its 'leaders', consigned to mere deckchair re-arrangements, are no longer capable of manning the bridge of Plato's ship of state. Britain's political parties, once rooted in their own constituencies, are now identified only with public office and busy feeding off rather than running the ship of state.

'Hope springs eternal in the human breast' wrote the poet Alexander Pope and 'the darkest hour is just before dawn' sang the songwriter Emmylou Harris 250 years later.

If the heart is grieving and we wish to bring on the dawn we must be ready to act.

As John Henry Newman said: 'To act you must assume and everything you assume is faith.'

Scandals have put Westminster in the dock where, to evoke Yeats' prophetic The Second Coming, it seems 'the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.'

Woe betide us if 'things fall apart' because 'the centre cannot hold.'

When a nation loses its self-confidence it surrenders its soul to an oligarchy and its people only vote holding their noses.

'Welcoming manacles to prevent their hands shaking' was how the writer Walter Lipmann put it. If we don't want a clothes peg election in 2015 we must show our faith, an anvil which has worn out many hammers.

– John Muir, Newnham.