inept

And despite the combined efforts of the world’s best-resourced and most scrupulous journalistic organizations to rebut it—despite the great care these groups took to investigate the claim, to show their work, to avoid the appearance of bias, and to package their output to appeal to as many people as possible—most of Donald Trump’s supporters continued to insist that his inept lie was actually true.

New England is similarly inept, so this one across the pond stays close.

Interviews with swing voters conducted by major news outlets reveal their disquiet: their belief that whoever prevails this November will not improve their lives and that Washington, D.C. is corrupt and inept.

Last week, the quartet hosted a half-hour segment on the shopping channel QVC, and frontman Chris Martin appeared on Jimmy Fallon's US chat show in disguise as "Nigel", an inept busker whose songs bore no resemblance to the originals.

Since one narrow election victory back in 1992, he has shrugged off subsequent political challenges, helped perhaps by manipulation of the polls and certainly by the divisions among often tactically inept opponents.