I bicycled through Westminster this historic afternoon, along Horseguards with helicopters hovering overhead and down the Mall past the Palace where the new Prime Minister was touching hands. I found it very moving.
It bought home to me the beauty and subtlety of our constitution that allows power to pass from one intelligent and civilised human being to another with only peaceful crowds looking on. We may not agree with them some of the time - or at all - but neither is a Putin or a Mugabe and no thinking person would impugn their motives or their integrity. The power resides in a (relatively) small house with a number on it and the incumbent travels to a palace to bow to a sovereign who is the head of state. Again, there is something moving and subtle about this, the work of centuries, of surprisingly little violence where form and power have changed and adapted to society's needs.
We have our problems - but maybe these times serve to remind us how lucky we are. Perhaps the luckiest anywhere.
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