Political pundits today “bemoan the absence of courageous leaders”, says Vernon Bogdanor in Engelsberg Ideas. But in truth, “democracies do not need strong leaders at all times”. Charismatic heroes are only preferable in times of acute crisis, like war. If not for the desperate circumstances of 1940, Churchill would never have become PM: two years prior, he himself believed “my opportunity has passed”. Oddly enough, it was Stalin who predicted the “old warhorse” would be summoned back – but only “when Britain was once again in trouble”. And great men like Churchill and Charles de Gaulle were cast off immediately once the war was over. “Unhappy is the land that breeds no hero,” argues a character in Bertolt Brecht’s Life of Galileo. “No,” Galileo rebuts, “unhappy is the land that needs a hero.”

China’s 20th Communist Party Congress last week concluded with a “rare and shocking” spectacle, says James Palmer in Foreign Policy. Hu Jintao, Xi Jinping’s predecessor as party chief and Chinese leader, was escorted from the public meeting hall just before the final votes. He looked “confused and upset”, and it’s unclear what his “unannounced and clumsy removal” was about. One theory, backed up by Chinese state media, is that the “visibly frail” 79-year-old had a health crisis – though it’s hard to see what kind, given his clear reluctance to leave the room. Another is that Xi suddenly became afraid Hu would abstain or vote against him.