At a certain point in the recent past, many of us accepted the idea that things are a bit pants. And if anything, getting pantsier.

Even before our mad summer of neoliberal neurosis wages have been falling, inequalities widening, mistrust simmering, carbon spewing and mental health unravelling as centuries of vengeful ghosts edge ever closer to our goose-down pillows.

I mean, in defence of western civilisation we do have Scotch eggs and Pokémon Go and Rihanna singing We Found Love, so it’s not all bad — but when it comes to big things such as freedom, prosperity, justice, peace and all that, it’s pretty scary.

What we need is something to rally around, a project as generous and imaginative as the prevailing mood is mean, petty and anxious.

What we need — or at least, what seems to be the surest fit in the ideological hole at the centre of modern politics — is a Universal Basic Income.

The idea is simple, and as we’ve seen in recent years, the simple ideas (I Want My Country Back / Build a Wall / Jez We Can / Death to the Infidel) are the ones that cut through the media white noise.

Imagine if the Government paid every citizen a non-trivial amount of money — say, £10,000 per annum — simply for existing

Imagine if the Government paid every citizen a non-trivial amount of money — say, £10,000 per annum — simply for existing.

Enough so that you could bring up a child, or stay in education, or start a business, or cut down your hours, or simply rebalance your life without the constant, gnawing anxiety that we have come to associate with modernity.

It sounds madly utopian, yet in a short space of time the idea has migrated from the wilder realms of economic theory to the shores of the mainstream.

Many economists, both from the Left and Right, now see UBI as a way of bypassing the paternalism and waste of the welfare state (the “big idea” of the 20th century) and answering the demands of the 21st century.

Finland is drawing up plans to give everyone €800 per month; there are regional trials in Canada and the Netherlands.

Wouldn’t it just make people lazy? The evidence suggests otherwise. When you give poor people grants they tend to invest them wisely in housing, education and businesses.

Another advantage is that UBI avoids the “income traps” associated with poverty-reduction schemes such as tax credits; under UBI, you’d be better off by working more.

Why give money to the rich? Well, the universal character not only makes the scheme inherently feminist, anti-racist, anti-ageist, anti-ableist, etc but more defensible too; look how attached the middle classes are to the NHS.

Wouldn’t it cost a lot? They reckon about 12 per cent of GDP, which would require a major recalibration of tax and social security.

But welfare (including pensions) currently accounts for 11.7 per cent of GDP and much of that is wasted on simply administering the system.

Wouldn’t it mean we worked less? Hopefully, yes!

If people in quality jobs dropped hours to care for children, plant trees, learn the mandolin etc it would free up quality hours for others while providing social gains. And if people in low-quality jobs were empowered to reject poverty wages ... that’s good for everyone but the Mike Ashleys and Philip Greens of this world.

There are worse ways of expending our energies. And what use is our post-Brexit “sovereignty” if we are not prepared to be bold?

Don’t let lidos be another plan going to waste

I spent Sunday afternoon at Park Road Lido in Crouch End, a handsome Victorian leisure complex that reopened after an £8 million renovation last summer.

The place was heaving with cannonballing teenagers and squealing toddlers.

But strangely, half of the 50-metre pool was roped off.

There weren’t enough lifeguards on duty so everyone had to cram in one side while all that cool blue water went to waste.

Lidos are meant to be enjoying a revival, London Olympics legacy and all that — but I’m not convinced.

I’ve more or less given up on my other local pool, Tottenham Green, another gleaming new facility, rendered tortuous by under-staffing and an institutional reluctance to heat it properly in winter.

And it strikes me that you could say the same about all manner of British services, from council housing to the NHS — generously conceived, meanly maintained.

Confused? Try getting the right train from Gatwick ...

Landing at Gatwick after a family holiday last week, I had the choice of three trains to London.

Gatwick Express to Victoria (approx 28 minutes) cost £19.90 for a single.

The Southern service (approx 31 minutes) was £15.40.

The Thameslink service to St Pancras (approx 50 minutes) was £7.40.

And you can now use Oyster.

Naturally, the selfservice ticket machines all push you to buy the most expensive ticket and there are hefty fines if you use the wrong ticket on the wrong service.

Seasoned in the mysterious ways of our privatised railways, I opted for the St Pancras option.

It’s much closer to my north London home anyway and we could spend the money we had saved on a black cab to our front door.

Such “hacks’”are part of the secret code of the Londoner. But I pity the tourist trying to make sense of this nonsense.

It pays sometimes to switch off from the real world

Our summer holiday was a shade more stressful than usual this year, what with the Turkish coup d’état occasioning a last-minute destination switch from Istanbul to rural France.

And even in the deepest Midi-Pyrénées we couldn’t escape geopolitics.

All the English expats we met wanted to know how exactly Brexit had happened.

Sweetly, the locals had invited them all to a special soirée to show them they were still welcome in their village.

But even if you can’t retreat from the real world, there is something wonderful you can do, a holiday in itself.

Disable Twitter.

Uninstall Facebook.

Eliminate WhatsApp.

(Maybe keep Snapchat.) Set an Out of Office reply explaining that there is absolutely no way you will respond until September.

Preferably lose your phone.

It is not healthy to remind yourself of all the evils in the world every time you lose your train of thought.