One of the advantages of not having been born yesterday is the ability to recognize certain trends of the news cycle when they come around again.

Am I alone in thinking that every major American political manifesto since about 1848 has made a promise of reducing the taxation burden on its hardworking citizens, for example? Or that for Brits, like me, of a certain age (sixty-eight), our whole lives have been spent in the shadow of a stale and still unresolved debate about the nation’s place in Europe?

More recently, I was struck by a sense of déjà vu all over again...