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As a young boy growing up in the North of England, each weekday morning I'd go to my grandmother's house. We'd drink cups of tea and chat about such trivialities as trouble a nascent 8-year-old's mind, until the time came for me to walk up the village to primary school. For the life of me, I'm sorry to say I can't remember much of what we discussed. But there's one conversation that I will always recall. One day, I declared to my grandma that when I grew up, I would move to America and what's more, I even promised to take her with me. It was the 1990s, the pre-internet era, and all I knew of the United States was what I had learned from TV shows or books. It seemed a wondrous place, filled with opportunity. "The land of the free and the home of the brave". Fast forward 20 years and everything has changed. Not only in the US, but in my home country too. New leaders have swept to power on the back of widespread discontent with a system that no longer seems to be working for the good of the people. Wages stagnate as the secure jobs of yesteryear dry up and for the first time in generations, it's predicted that the children born today in much of the West will be less well off than their parents. Against this background, it's easy to see how support can take root for the kinds of isolationist and xenophobic attitudes characterized by Brexit bogeyman Nigel Farage and Republican president-elect Donald Trump. They offer people easy answers to complicated, scary questions. | 
