It is easy to look back on the 2000s with magenta-tinted glasses. Certainly, there was no major land war in Europe, or a global pandemic. Meanwhile, to be a Eurosceptic basically meant tutting about ever-closer union. Few seriously suggested leaving the EU.
But the second half of the decade was something of a disaster for trust in politics. There was the fallout from the Iraq war, with a bloody insurgency and no nuclear weapons to be uncovered. This was swiftly followed by the Global Financial Crisis, which shook faith in our financial institutions and saw queues of people outside of banks.
