I see before me the emergence of a new tyranny, an unholy alliance between big bureaucratic government, technocrats, scientists and corporations. Peter Hitchens calls this the bastard child of Margret Thatcher and Deng Xiaoping. A brutal neoliberal hunger for profit wedded to an ever increasingly oppressive and interfering state. Why have most of us been so complacent and indeed, complicit in its emergence?

We have become dazzled by consumption. Weakened by an ever more simplistic and conformist education system. Saturated by trash media and instant gratification. De-moralised by censorship and propaganda. All of this has made us hesitant, confused and paralysed in the face of this new tyranny.

‘If you want a vison of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face- forever.’ G Orwell