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“Knowledge doesn’t have all the answers,” said Brown. He felt he hadn’t made himself clear and began again. “Knowledge doesn’t know everything,” he stated firmly. That didn’t make sense either. Wasn’t there some synonym for knowledge that made it all clear? It began with an ess, he was sure of it. Signs? Signs don’t know everything? That was rubbish too. What was he trying to say, exactly? That there had to be room for the opinions of politicians. “Knowledge doesn’t know it all,” he tried, “we need opinions and … voting.” That didn’t sound right at all. Nobody could argue with voting, it was tantamount to democracy, and you couldn’t argue with democracy because… well, you couldn’t, that’s all. But without the synonyms it sounded like nonsense. He deeply suspected it really was nonsense, but with the proper words it was the familiar and comfortable nonsense that was a perfectly good substitute for truth. Scuttled by the lack of a bloody synonym. He realised he had been standing with his mouth open for half a minute, couldn’t recall what he wanted to say next, so yawned to explain his open mouth, realised his mistake, coughed, and sat down.

To his relief, nobody else seemed to do any better. They stood to make the familiar noises, but today they sounded infantile and wrong. He longed to get away. Surreptitiously he looked at his watch. Still an hour to go. What was that bloody s-word? Those knowledge people, those s-worders, were a thorn in everybody’s flesh. Thank God for poor education, thank God for a society that trusted opinions, which anybody could have, and was deeply suspicious of knowledge, unless it was the sort that could score points on a TV quiz show. In a flash of insight, he realised that the public didn’t just want to see people like themselves on TV, they wanted people like themselves in parliament. People of opinions. We are the party of opinions! Don’t trust the others, they don’t show the proper respect for funny feelings! Needed a bit of work but could definitely win an election.