Why is it that people keep wittering (?) on about how we are disassociated from politics? The sheer amount and the hysterical tone of much of the debate around the MPs expenses surely reflects the fact that people are interested. Isn't the problem rather that most people have no language and no conceptual framework with which to discuss issues and so can only engage when it comes down to personalities? I think so, and I think it is a part of the general anti-intellectualism of British culture, its glorification of "common sense", which is often no more than personal prejudice and anecdote disguised, and its mistrust of the innovative and the complicated.