So it's been an enormously dispiriting and exhausting year, in which the idea that you should conduct public policy calmly, wisely and with some evidence has taken blow after blow after blow. It's been a year, indeed, in which rationality itself has often seemed to retreat headlong in the face of the angriest, shoutiest, most over-committed people in every room - a long retreat of reason that, yes, has to be fought every day, but which for now is still well in progress. From the Labour Party's seemingly-inexplicable detachment from reality to its more recent attempts to blow itself up, through Boris Johnson's disgraceful and ultimately failed attempts to sell his principles in return for some power, to the rise of Donald Trump in the USA and the UK's self-harming and quixotic vote to leave the European Union, it's not been a great time to advocate good governance. Sometimes - let's be honest - it's been a trial to continue.
But we'll have a go. We'll be back to monitor the UK's post-Brexit fallout, and a US Presidential election, in the autumn. Look for us to return with a new sequence of blogs on Tuesday 6 September. Until then, have a holiday. Take a break. You deserve it. Let's reconvene when we've all had time to get our breath. So: have a lovely summer. Let's hope that the next academic year is better for public policy than this one. It can hardly be worse, now can it?
