I don't take the view that because it is a coalition government it is necessarily going to be more successful, but neither do I take the view that because it is a coalition government it is necessarily going to be less successful. From an 18th-century perspective this is what they used to call the "broad-bottomed ministry". In a sense there has always been a tension in British politics between governments that are based on party loyalty and governments which are based on a different composition. Now, the extent to which that comes through is often historically contingent. I'm not essentially against the idea of a "broad-bottomed ministry" but agree entirely with Norman: there are serious questions here as to whether people are willing to subordinate, as it were, personal consumption, consumption on behalf of collectivities, their own aspirations and the aspirations for society in one generation. We've anticipated the future. Now the bill has come in, it's very unclear we can kick that habit. What is interesting is that if it fails people will turn and blame the coalition but I'm not sure the fault will be the coalition's. In many senses societies end up with governments which in some respects are the function of those societies. They try to slough off the responsibility — and in some cases these are highly controversial issues like those in Germany in the 1930s — but there is a degree of relationship between the society that you are in and the government you end up with. 

DJ: So we deserve what we get.

JB: It is more complicated than this. At the present moment there is not a majority view in favour either of conservatism, as understood, or socialism, as classically understood, or a majority of liberals, as they understand liberal democracy. I think that creates a problem. 

NS: I'm not sure if it is fair to blame the government on the people. We have after all got a political class now — all these superficial people yapping into mobiles who did PPE at Oxford.

JB: That's a marvellous phrase.