Writing in The Telegraph, Dalrymple reflects on whether we can—or should—judge the mental fitness of our political leaders from a distance, noting that while psychiatric diagnosis at a remove is unreliable, common sense demands that citizens not remain indifferent to signs of incapacity in those who wield great power.
Power corrupts, said Lord Acton, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But it also isolates. The powerful begin to live in an echo chamber, never hearing anything but what they say themselves, or what sycophants tell them. Such a chamber has an inevitable effect on the mental equilibrium of anyone who lives in it.