On March 8, 1983, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, addressed the National Association of Evangelicals in the Sheraton Twin Towers Hotel, Orlando, Florida. It was his “Evil Empire” speech.

What am I doing? Any critique or comment from me regarding this speech, its content or delivery, would be outrageously impertinent.

The only thing that I have that Reagan didn’t is a lot of hindsight, and I can hardly bear to consider it.

Would anyone have believed, when this speech was delivered, that thirty seven years later there would be leaders of industry, sport, politics and even churches genuflecting to terrorist street gangs, and political representatives of US cities and states – including the state of which he had been governor – would be imitating the worst excesses of vermin-infested third-world dictatorships? Could anyone have imagined that leading mainstream media would condone infanticide, and be so brazenly partisan in their politics as to describe looting, rape, arson and murder as “peaceful protest”, or that leading political parties in western countries would again have raised the disgusting spectre of anti-semitism?

The only thing to cling to is the hope that the silent majority will cease to be silent.