23 APRIL 1994, Page 18

sion. It felicitates itself (with justice) on averting revolution, but

left to its own devices it would quite soon compromise itself into extinction.

It will not be left to its own devices. Events will not leave it alone (which is why Harold Macmillan feared them). And in the end the English people will not leave it alone. We are quite ridiculously slow to become excited. Nobody can tell when the scorn we feel for our government will turn to uncontrollable anger. The cause will probably be something much less worth- while than a maiden chained to a rock. And only then we shall find whether we have left it too late to slay the dragons at home or abroad with whom we tried too hard to compromise.