This summer has been an interesting time for observers of human behaviour and to eyes like mine, dominated by the peculiarly English pastime of anguished self-examination. Mind you, it has been with good reason, given the orgy of moral crises and an apparent wholesale collapse of trust that has escalated over the last couple of years, to find form in the anarchy of recent weeks. We seem to have eventually woken up to realise that we have lost an important cultural tool—the moral compass.

We are told that we know this because those we are meant to trust in …