Seriously, if he were in charge, what would he have said to the British electorate the day after they had voted for Brexit?
“Somehow I would have to say: ‘Well, it’s not quite as simple as that. Leaving the EU probably isn’t going to make the faintest difference to most of the things that so annoy you. What I will take on board is that you feel so angry about the ruling class and politicians, and the establishment and so on.’ Because anger was the main emotion let loose by the referendum campaign and since.”
Which is not to say he is dismissive of those who voted leave or what motivated them. He links the leave vote to “what’s going wrong in every western democracy: Trump, the yellow jackets, anarchists in Italy”. He explains: “We achieved considerable economic success from the 1980s, 1990s, onwards, which hugely advantaged the young, the educated and the entrepreneurial. We neglected that bulk of the population being left behind and living in post-industrial towns where their living standards were static or falling. And the new globalised economy, the rules-based order, the digital revolution meant nothing to them.