To put this in plain, blunt English: a former British prime minister is conspiring with a foreign power to try to subvert the will of the British people.

In normal times, this would be a scandal of epic, epoch-defining proportions. There might have been riots, certainly protests. Blair would have been publicly shamed, possibly exiled. His name would live in infamy. But we don’t live in normal times. We live in an era in which most of the political class has ditched even the pretence of feeling a strong attachment to democracy.