Jerusalem In April 2019, Naftali Bennett received an unpleasant surprise. As the votes were counted in Israel’s general election, it became clear that his New Right party had not passed the 3.25 per cent electoral threshold needed to stay in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. Bennett had lost his seat, his new party had failed and his political career looked like it was over. Two years, three more elections and a global pandemic later, Bennett is on the verge of ending Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year rule.

On 19 December last year, some chicken nuggets were sold in a restaurant called 1880, in Singapore. This doesn’t sound like a significant turning point in history, but it was. That small plate of chicken nuggets might well have been the start of a major industrial, social and cultural revolution — one the UK needs to prepare for. That Singaporean chicken nugget was the first time in history that meat that did not come from a slaughtered animal had been sold commercially.

I’m blessed by the fact that I live almost smack-bang in the middle of old London, a pebble’s toe punt from St Paul’s cathedral. Being an aficionado of Charles Dickens and J.B. Priestley, I’ve been able to wander along empty streets and alleys that have been immortalised in such novels as Angel Pavement and Bleak House. When I’m walking around the yards and courts at the back of the Bank of England, I can imagine the nefarious Mr Golspie darting round a corner with an enigmatic grin of triumph on his conniving, pugnacious moosh.

Supposedly 5 per cent of words in English are borrowed from Old Norse. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but much of our key vocabulary was brought over in longboats: ‘get’, ‘take’, ‘give’ and ‘egg’ are all derived from the language of the Vikings. Indeed, it took the Saxons centuries to thwart the gangs of sly lads who came across the gusty seas full of anger, hoping to ransack the weak Saxon oafs and angrily hit their skulls together.