This week the novelist received the Olof Palme prize for achievement in the spirit of the assassinated Swedish statesman. He reflects on how a lack of leadership today has allowed us to 'sleepwalk' into Brexit A range of emotions, not all of them beautiful, passed through my head at the moment when I was offered the Olof Palme prize. I am not a hero. I am a fraud. I am being offered a medal for another man's gallantry. Decline.