This Chancred Isle

Before Macdonald's, Fox News or Donald Trump, America gave the world syphilis, which is now a bigger hit in England than at any time since 1949. The highest-risk groups are men who have sex with other men, which will add a pleasantly moralistic aspect to this latest triumph of efficiency savings in health and education. There is a certain historical poetry in the mention of 1949, the year after the birth of the NHS, given the approaching demise of that institution thanks to the votes of Brexit-happy baby-boomers seeking immunity from the Strasbourg sickness; and few things could be more appropriate than a resurgence of the pox given Thursday's likely win for the twitching, jabbering, corruption-spewing embodiment of the nation's general paresis.