Most right-thinking people, of all political persuasions and of none, will have breathed a sigh of relief when they heard that the US Senate had finally approved the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

The outcome confirmed that the most powerful parliamentary democracy on earth was not going to allow two key principles on which it was founded, the presumption of innocence and procedural fairness, to be overturned by the forces of anarchy and mob rule.