Life in the heroically stupid UK

I miss living in a country where even people in authority just occasionally had a sense of proportion, pragamatism and even humour. But nowadays, the very model of a modern British citizen is apparently the aggressively paranoid, mirthless jobsworth and "only obeying orders", no matter how ridiculous, is the the mark of a true British hero:

The chief constable of Sussex Police has labelled his staff “everyday heroes” for using the UK's Terrorism Act to arrest a photographer taking pictures of Hove Town Hall.

Such mindless obedience to arbitrary authority has no place in a sane society, but it is vital to governing an inmate-run  madhouse where only a bizarre form of circular doublethink can make sense of the ruling ideology:

What is very much still relevant is that the same hermetically-sealed, evidence-proof and argument-proof logic now drives government policy... Each time reality demolishes one of their claims (the most ubiquitous, perhaps, and the most absurd, certainly, being that German car makers would ensure a good deal in double quick time) the Brexiters do not acknowledge that they were wrong, but move on to a harder position. So, first, we can somehow be in the single market but with no strings attached. That’s proved wrong. So it will be a trade deal. Now that that is looking increasingly difficult they move to saying that no deal would be perfectly fine. And, in any case, it’s all the EU’s fault and ‘just goes to prove’ that we are right to leave. There’s no way out of this kind of thinking. It is completely circular and unfalsifiable.

There is no imaginable event that could shake it. Suppose the UK gets a great deal? It proves we were right to leave! Suppose we don’t? It proves we were right to leave!

Terrifying stupidity is the new normal.