Some technical news. We are having trouble with the comments function on this blog. At present it is unmoderated, which means anyone can post a comment, anonymously, any time. Unfortunately this also allows "spammers" to automatically post large amounts of irrelevant material into this space, making the blog - and the openDemocracy site as a whole - unstable. So to prevent the site crashing, we are closing the comments temporarily, until we can reinstate them with pre-moderation, which will require comments to be approved before they appear, and thus stem the flow of spam.

Comments will be back in the new year - apologies to those of you who were hoping to read or make them before then.