Pope Francis challenges EU. Would any politician be as radical?

Not one of the political parties which will try to seduce us when the next election is called will present a manifesto as radical, as inspiring, as relevant or as human-centred as the speech made by Pope Francis to the European Parliament in Strasbourg yesterday.

The institution of the Catholic Church may have lost influence in this society but the idealism, the decency and the unflinchingly honest appraisal of how the EU has diluted its founding ambitions to the great disadvantage of tens of millions of people will resonate right across Europe, especially with those feeling the brunt of the economic measures imposed to try to revive the system that betrayed millions upon millions of workers, young people and pensioners.

It is more than questionable too whether our two main, traditionally at least, political parties are prepared to modify their own barely distinguishable ambitions to, as the Pontiff urged, “keep democracy alive” and prevent the parliamentary fragmentation that makes effective government, and subsequently a decent society, all but impossible.