After all, the reason we were always supposed to be so keen on teh President Of The USA, was that country’s status as a great democracy. Not to say I buy into all that necessarily, but it was a nice sentiment, and it was the rationale behind the admiration. Now we’re just supposed to be in awe at the power, or something.

Maybe its presidents were great democrats in bearing, maybe in the days of Teddy Roosevelt. Certainly not now and not this one.

It’s a shame that democratic leaders are now surrounded by the trappings of royalty. My dad can remember an aged Billy Hughes coming to open the Kinagory show (no doubt long after his actual time in power). The man was sitting alone on the kerb the next morning waiting for his lift. No security. Nada.

I doubt that us people are much more dangerous or violent now than we were then. The population en masse probably represented a far greater physical threat to its leaders in the 1920s or 40s than it does now, when as you say, submission seems to be the order of the day.

I think the purpose of the APEC security has a second purpose too. They are hoping for ‘extremist leftwing demonstrators’ ramming the barricades (although at 3 metres high, who would see them?), footage of which can then be put on the evening news.