Sea Change

So, a week on, what do we know? According to some eternal optimists, we’re seeing the sensible side of Donald Trump now. In the campaign he was boastful, brash and bigoted – showboating to the crowds. Now, supposedly, we see his adorable, modest and vulnerable face, in which he compromises on his extremist pledges and is guided by wise counsel. I’m reminded of another larger-than-life New York character – Ernie, the piano player in Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye .  With the spotlight on him and a mirror reflecting his face back to the crowd, he revels in showing off. But after the applause, he gives an implausibly humble bow. As the narrator of the story, Holden Caulfield, remarks: ‘It was very phoney.’ Phoney is the perfect description of a man like Trump, who claims to live on the 66th floor of a 58-floor apartment building. Who can tell exactly what the new President will do and what he won’t? He is capable of believing one thing on a Monday, reversin...

The world has generally gone fairly topsy-turvy over the past year or two. And now, in the latest bizarre twist, the UK’s left-leaning activists and liberal intellectuals have suddenly become the biggest cheerleaders for the British judiciary. Yes, these paragons of the legal establishment – predominantly white, aged, privately educated, Oxbridge alumni – are now apparently the champions of the people who should be cheered from the rooftops. Social media is awash with people defending the Brexit judges and despairing at anyone who doesn’t ‘understand’ their High Court judgment earlier in the week. How can we be so ignorant?  Aren’t British people familiar with their own constitution? Of course, I found the various tabloid headlines lurid, objectionable and disturbing. The judges were merely doing their job and don’t deserve to be pilloried or exposed to abuse. I was even more disturbed by the rape and death threats received by Gina Miller, the figurehead of the group b...