Bluffocracy

Britain is run by bluffers. At the top of our government, our media and the civil service sit men – it's usually men – whose core skills are talking fast, writing well and endeavouring to imbue the purest wind with substance. They know a little bit about everything, and an awful lot about nothing.

We live in a country where George Osborne can become a newspaper editor despite having no experience in journalism, squeezing it in alongside five other jobs; where a newspaper columnist can go fro...