Politicians of the right have been railing against a 'broken society'. But society's in pretty good health, certainly in comparison to the institutions of the establishment. First, the banks are led over a financial cliff by executives incentivised to maximise short-term profits. The taxpayer has had to bail out the banks, in what one commentator has dubbed 'social corporate responsibility'.

Now the institution of parliament is being shown as covered in rust and mired in semi-corrupt practices. MPs are not venal people, generally. And those few who have broken the spirit of the expenses rules will surely be ejected by their local parties or the electorate. But even those who stuck to both the spirit and letter of the rules have to take their share of responsibility. After all, it is parliament that made the rules. They ended up with a system in which individually rational behaviour was collectively suicidal. If the Met Police is institutionally racist, then parliament is institutionally idiotic.

This is what happens when power is concentrated in too few hands, behind opaque walls in either the Square Mile or SW1. In a republic - a Liberal Republic - power would be radically redistributed, to local government and individual people. The Lords would be neutered, parties funded transparently and MPs elected under proportional representation. At the moment, heads are only rolling in the metaphorical sense. But we are, nonetheless, at a republican moment.

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