Whereas once cultivation of mind and manners were regarded as aspirational, they have been insulted into irrelevance.

What one grieves for when hearing Raynor’s speech is what has been lost: the art of the political put down. Her diatribe was absent of any wit and the true imagination of a good insult.

More than just how it sounds, the loss of accents represents the destruction of a cultural heritage and a movement toward a far more homogenous and grey world.

‘Talking with someone you dislike, if it cannot be civil, should at least be the practice of good diplomacy; diplomacy in this case being the fine art of telling someone to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.’