The political centre and left-of-centre cannot comprehend the mess they have got themselves into, and the gloom stretches as far as Australia. Democracy is on the back foot: a cricketing term inferring the intrepid fast bowlers (from the right) have the dogged (centre-left) batsmen pinned down, in danger of losing the contest. In tennis parlance we might term it: game, set and match!

The Democracy Index, released by The Economist magazine every year, shows a continuing deterioration in the state of democracy around the globe. Using a detailed analysis of country by country governance, the report shows that since its 2006 inception, the Democracy Index, across 150 countries, has declined to an all-time low. Unsurprisingly, the US has slipped from full, to flawed democracy.

For those of us who have been confounded by the Trumpian era of twitter, or the Brexit approach to rebuilding Britain in the guise of its former empire, this news from The Economist comes as no real surprise, but simply confirmation that unless we move speedily to rectify the situation - and turn the momentum in the opposite direction - democracy as a form of nation governance, could be consigned to our history books.

Examples of alternatives to democracy are:

(1) market-driven, autocratic rule in the Russian state, and satellite countries it wields influence over, under the long-term leadership of populist Vladamir Putin.

(2) the national communist party: an autocratic system with centrally driven market economy, increasingly ruled by the populist leader Xi Jinping.

(3) so-called democracies, with an increasing number ruled by populist, often egotistical leaders, such as Donald Trump, in the USA.

We can only hope western nations recover the initiative to take back those reins which offer true democracy and power to the people..

On either side of the Atlantic there is an air of despondency amongst those who support true democracy and the pillars it stands on: equality, freedom of speech, rule by majority, minority rights … and so forth.