More people need to be mugged by reality

“You know who they are; the ones skewered mercilessly by Tom Stoppard in his marvellous play The Real Thing. Does this sarcastic riff ring any bells?

“But when he gets into his stride, or rather his lurch, announcing every stale revelation of the newly enlightened, like stout Cortez coming upon the Pacific – war is profits, politicians are puppets, Parliament is a farce, justice is a fraud, property is theft… patriotism is propaganda, religion is a con trick, royalty is an anachronism.”

“The difference between Myers, who really has thought freely about his life and the lives of others, and somebody like Tony Benn is that one has had many experiences, and the other has simply had the same experience over and over again. It is a form of personal liberation that must be commended.”