“Facts just twist the truth around/Facts are living turned inside out” – so sang David Byrne of Talking Heads in 1980’s “Crosseyed and Painless”, but it’s a refrain that could just as easily apply to “post-truth politics” – a climate whereby facts are ignored (or in some cases, fabricated) in favour of spurious claims and appeals to emotion. Statistics, figures and expert opinions are seemingly no longer valid, and a lie announced loudly and repeatedly will drown out the truth – as with the claim by Brexiteers that EU membership cost Britain £350m a week, which was repeatedly debunked by fiscal authorities yet saw continued use at the forefront of the Vote Leave campaign.

Add to that an American election campaign marred by many and varied false accusations - ranging from tweets claiming global warming was invented by the Chinese to tinfoil-hatted conspiracy-talk that Barack Obama was not an American citizen – and it seems hard to deny that politics is no longer about what can be proven or validated.