Breaking news

The big news here – in fact, the lead story on BBC news one day last week – is that the CEOs of several leading companies have announced that they are against the hike in National Insurance planned by the Labour government. Instead, the shortfall in the public finances needed to be made up by more ‘efficiency savings’ in the public sector.

I’m expecting more breaking news this week to the effect that children aren’t particularly keen on eating up their greens, and that teenagers are strongly against tidying up their bedrooms.

I’m reminded of something I read in Richard Hoggart’s memoirs: ‘In the modern developed world, where all are said to be literate but are encouraged to remain literate only at a very low level, we begin to move out of the persuasion-chrysalis only when we recognise that almost all we read in daily life is special pleading.’