Democracy is a thing one should never take for granted. I have always believed that, if the powers of 200 or 300 years ago across Europe ever dreamt that the democratic idea would take off, they would have worked very much harder to suppress it, because it is the most profound revolution that has happened in the way in which people are governed. Let us take the evidence of our own Continent, which is one of the great centres of world civilisation, and think how quickly a country such as Germany can collapse from being a cultural model into the sort of tyranny that enveloped it. It is always worth reminding ourselves about that and about the need always to sustain democracy and be very wary of attacks on it.