As events in the US have shown, two-party politics is no longer fit for purpose | Polly Toynbee

Lurching from Obama to Trump to Biden, the system denies coalitions of compromise. And in the UK, each party is ridden with conflict

The one event more outrageous than a mob storming the Capitol was the spectacle of 43 Republican senators endorsing the attempted coup and its instigator. By refusing to impeach Donald Trump, they left all other democracies aghast, delighting autocrats everywhere.

This sad chapter in our history has reminded us that democracy is fragile," said Joe Biden. Fragile indeed, when the erstwhile leaders of the democratic world refuse to defend democracy's first principle, the transition of power by loser's consent. Why bother lowering America's founding documents nightly into a nuclear bombproof shelter beneath the National Archives, when they are ripped up by Congress in broad daylight?