In one of their typically literary sketches, 1990s comedy duo Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie asked if Adolf Hitler’s fanatical racist oratory would have been as charismatic if delivered in English.
It’s a joke that has no answer, of course, but there is little doubt that national characteristics including history, public debate and electoral institutions have framed the way politics is discussed in notionally open societies.
Political actors venturing beyond these informal boundaries have courted controversy and opprobrium. Transgressions could be career-ending.
