Derelict thinking throughout central and local body government and indeed all our management (including academic) areas, is now recognised as having inflicted incalculable damage on Western democracies over the years. So isn’t it time to acknowledge that the over-rule of our bureaucracies, ideologues and hierarchies (we misuse the word elites) has very much underpinned this? American writer Harlan Ellison has ironically observed that ‘The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.’