Oz could sense the conversation was — at the very least not languishing — and this energized him somewhat. He mirrored Ross' lean in towards the table and set one edge of his wine glass down on the tablecloth, so that he could still use it to gesture vaguely while he talked.

"It's always seemed to me — and this is no disrespect, by the way; it's a commentary on the whole system, not just your government — that a lot of change is stifled precisely because it doesn't start from that component level," he explained. "A bill comes under review; the Minister wants it, the Wizengamot doesn't. It stagnates. But the Wizengamot is nothing but a collection of individuals, all of whom want something and all of whom are interacting with each other every day. Understanding what they want and how they're interacting — and knowing which ones to — massage, as it were — in order to get the outcome we want," (he had said we without really thinking about it, but on reflection the collective pronoun felt appropriately bold for this sort of conversation). "I think a lot more could get done. And with a few exceptions, mostly what people want isn't unreasonable," he posited. "They mostly want what's best for Britain, and they have different ideas of what that means. So one of them wants assurances that all the consequences of a bill have been thought through, and another wants to know exactly what it might cost, and another worries how people might react — but at that level none of them are unreasonable. So that's the level the change has to start, in order for it to really work."

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