In an age where more British people believe in aliens than trust our politicians, Dorothy Byrne asks the question: what went wrong and how can our trust in democracy and public life be regained?

In this scintillating essay, nothing and no one escapes Byrne's razor-sharp wit as she takes on the politicians avoiding rigorous journalistic scrutiny, explores the pitfalls of impartiality, imagines what Plato says to Trump - and calls out plenty of sexists along the way.

This is a ferocious, frank, and often wildly funny attempt to separate the truth from the lies at a time of national crisis.