SINCE I’ve started driving to London (a situation I regret, but with the seemingly endless chaos and shambles that is South West Railways, I don’t have any option; more mayhem again this week….) I’ve found myself catching all sorts or programmes on the radio that I’d not come across before.

One of them is called The Long View. Its presenter, Jonathan Freedland looks at previous historical events to see if they can cast light on current issues. So, for example, comparing public concern about safety on the new railways in the 1830’s to today’s concerns about driverless cars; concerns about meddling in previous elections with Russian interference in presidential and Brexit votes. Always interesting and illuminating.

We live in turbulent times. The sharp enmity between Remainers and Brexiteers on this side of the Atlantic is mirrored by rancour between Republicans and Democrats in the States. Trump’s tweets and speeches have moved lies and insult from the political periphery to the mainstream. Meanwhile throughout Europe the rise of right-wing nationalism has given xenophobia and racism a legitimacy not seen since the fascist movements of the thirties.

There’s growing mistrust, too, of traditional politics and politicians. The success of Macron, Trump (and some claim Brexit) was in part a reaction by an electorate disillusioned with the conventional politics and career polticians. But far from being drained, the American swamp is as murky and full of low life as it ever was; May’s ‘best deal for Britain’ is derided as a blatant (and doomed) attempt to compromise the warring wings of her own party. Macron is facing street protests from the very people that swept him to power. Perhaps we expect too much of our politicians. Consistently, they deliver too little. The edifice of western democracy is crumbling once more.

There is little to cheer once you raise your sights beyond the horizon of western politics; climate change fires in California, the biggest humanitarian crisis on the planet as half the Yemeni population face starvation as a result of a port blockade by Saudi Arabia preventing delivery of UN food aid. The continued sufferings of the survivors of the Rohingya genocide go unnoticed in a world where the news agenda has moved on to other things. All preventable man-made disasters.

But daily life goes on. Salisbury is recovering from the Skripals poisoning. Restaurants are reopening. The Christmas market is on its way, the lights are on, Beauty and the Beast is selling fast, and this year for the first time, we will have an ice rink and light installations in The Close.

I struggle to accommodate the two realities; growing despair about the world we are bequeathing our children and the ordinariness of everyday life. Maybe I need to take ‘the long view? Twas ever thus….?