All alone in a committee room of the Senate Office Building in Washington, I was reading the dry typewritten pages in an unpublished report of an almost forgotten congressional committee hearing.

And for well over a hundred years our politicians, statesmen, and people remembered that this was a republic, not a democracy, and knew what they meant when they made that distinction.

Newspapers write ringing editorials declaring that this is and always was a democracy.

For not only every democracy, but certainly every republic, bears within itself the seeds of its own destruction.

Democracy is messy, and it's hard. It's never easy.

It's interesting that the treatment of historical events by art precedes the civilisation of people through democracy.

No matter what you may think about her politics or her record, Hillary Clinton understands that this is not reality television; this is reality. She understands the job of president. It involves finding solutions, not pointing fingers; and offering hope, not stoking fear.

I clearly believe a lot more than some of my coalition colleagues - Tories - in redistribution and using the tax system for that purpose. I also believe in the government having an active role in the economy, which is having an industrial strategy. I'm not a believer in laissez-faire.