Our voices are needed if we’re to call the tune

Democracy has to work. If it doesn’t, we head to nihilism and fury

I have a habit of surfing through radio stations. It’s an interesting thing to do, especially while driving. You land on local shows you’re not too familiar with, both BBC and commercial, that provide a real snapshot of what people are thinking or are keen on. Frequently, this involves a lot of Ed Sheeran. By law, he revealed it took just 90 minutes to write that song. It’s been streamed, so far, three billion times on Spotify alone. That’s a lot of Ed output in any given week.