The feats of the modern economy are, despite the present crisis, still considerable, indeed astonishing, if only we stopped to think about them instead of taking them for granted. For example, the Times arrives in the western part of Turkey where I stayed recently not much later in the day than in Shropshire where I live: and even its arrival … [Read on]
Of all the many foolish and inaccurate metaphors, one of the most foolish and inaccurate, it seems to me, is that of prisoners having ‘paid their debt to society’ on their release. The metaphor is in international use: I saw it recently in a French newspaper. The article was about Philippe El Shannawy, of an Egyptian father and French mother, … [Read on]
I witnessed an instructive but depressing little scene three days ago. I was on an escalator in the Paris Metro at quite a busy time of day when a young man in international slum-costume and face as malign as the late Mark Duggan’s who was standing a few steps ahead off me used a spray gun to scrawl his initials … [Read on]
Members of our political class believe in elections as peasants believe in saintly relics, though with rather less reason. Perhaps they cannot believe that a method that brought them to the top of the national pile, to fame and fortune, is not of universal human application, nor is it the solution to all human problems. I thought this when I … [Read on]
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