It all rather replicates the project of Marxism in democratic states. Marxists had sought to replace the politics of parties competing for electoral victory by turning politics into a melodrama in which the good proletariat struggled against the oppressive bourgeoisie. Our new form of oligarchy seeks to replace the familiar dialogue between parties having competing policies by a system in which a single public attitude shared by the major parties struggled against the prejudices of people. And that attitude was basically a belief in the wisdom of international bodies. The EU and the UN were the creators of a better world if only we could persuade the people to embrace it.

The basic virtue advocated by this new progressive attitude was not the self-reliance of the past, but rather altruism as helping needier members of society. It was an attitude to public life supremely confident of its own superior rationality. And it seemed humble in its recognition of the equality of all cultures, and accommodating in its response to conflicts in the wider world.

It was thus little wonder that the obsequies of Margaret Thatcher were so dramatic. In some degree, they polarised this conflict in our values. Thatcher had no patience with the fake reasonableness of the current oligarchy. In the Falklands War and in her famous battles with the EU, she put Britain's national interest at the head of her politics. She was not to be seduced by being offered a place in the club. UKIP is no doubt a somewhat ragged political movement, but its emergence as a political force may be recognised as the first serious challenge to the internationalist oligarchy in our time. And it is not without a tradition of its own.