Lord Adonis’ contribution to this year’s series of Lent talks (2 April) – on the general theme of “power” – pursued a somewhat circuitous path: from the New Testament to votes for 16-year-olds in little more than 13 minutes. After beginning with some reflections on the political background to the Easter story – an execution on ideological grounds that involved desertion, betrayal and a corrupt ruler perverting the idea of justice by flattering the mob – Gordon Brown’s former Schools Minister swiftly moved on to what he imagined to be one of the UK’s greatest institutional failings here in the early twenty-first century.Lord Adonis had recently attended a performance of the play Twelve Angry Men. This was commended for its exempla