Standfirst from his essay:
There is no longer any point in ignoring the reality that a number of European Union member countries have explicitly rejected the EU’s goal of “ever closer union.” Instead of a “multi-speed Europe,” where all members are still heading toward the same destination, the goal should be a “multi-track Europe” that offers member states a wider variety of choices.
This morning’s Observer column:
In the old days, western snobbery led to the complacent view that the Chinese could not originate, only copy. One hears this less now, as visitors to China return goggle-eyed at the extent to which its people have integrated digital technology into daily life. One colleague of mine recently returned exasperated because he had been expected to pay for everything there with his phone. Since he possesses only an ancient Nokia handset, he was unable to comply and had been reduced to mendicant status, having to ask his Chinese hosts to pay for everything.
If the future is digital, therefore, a significant minority of China’s 1.4 billion citizens are already there. More significantly, the country’s technocratic rulers have sussed that digital technology is not just good for making economic transactions frictionless, but also for implementing sophisticated systems of social control.
I’m stunned by the outcome of the referendum on abortion in my native land. I expected it to be close, and watched with distaste the attempts by the American fanatical anti-choice movement to influence the campaign. I thought the Yes campaign would win, but suspected that it would be by a narrow margin (as in the Brexit referendum in the UK). And I expected that the result would reflect the growing urban/rural divide in Ireland.
I was wrong about all this. Two thirds of my fellow-citizens voted to repeal a previous amendment to the Constitution that effectively banned abortions in the Republic. And as for my idea about the urban/rural divide — well, only a single constituency (Donegal) voted against repeal — and then only by a narrow margin (51.9% to 48.1%).
The Irish Times columnist, Una Mullally, summed it up nicely:
We were told this was a divisive campaign. It was a unifying campaign. We were told this was a difficult issue for people, yet for many it was straightforward. We were told it was the third rail of Irish politics, so instead, the people led, from the activists and protestors to the canvassers and ordinary women and men who rolled up their sleeves, to the Citizen’s Assembly, to the women who shared their abortion stories. We were told about Middle Ireland. There is no Middle Ireland. Just Ireland. Its islands, villages, cities, towns, coasts, midlands, mountains, estates, flats, and fields. This campaign was intergenerational. Younger activists stood on the shoulders of those gone before them, and brought an energy, fearlessness, creativity and sense of unrelenting determination and optimism that inspired people across the board. The brilliantly eclectic make-up of the campaign brought in doctors, mothers, lawyers, students, trade unionists, the LGBT community, feminists, and everyone in between.
Who did the No campaign really have in the end, apart from a cabal of fringe fundamentalists whom no one can really understand how or why they have gained such a platform and unfettered access to the media? The No campaign drove recklessly and ended in a car crash. They alienated undecided voters at every juncture with extreme messaging. In the final weeks, the No campaign acted as an asset to the Yes campaign, with spokesman John McGuirk, who revelled in bizarre statements, and campaigners such as Ronan Mullen getting short shrift, particularly when he disrespected a woman who shared her abortion story in a television debate. No amount of media training could connect No campaigners with the public.
This is now the second referendum that my fellow-citizens have surprised the world. In 2015 they voted 62.1% to 37.9% to legalise same-sex marriage. And again only one constituency in the entire country voted against.
This is getting to be a habit. Long may it continue.
This morning’s Observer column:
Jeremy Paxman, who once served as Newsnight’s answer to the pit-bull terrier, famously outlined his philosophy in interviewing prominent politicians thus: “Why is this lying bastard lying to me?” This was unduly prescriptive: not all of Paxman’s interviewees were outright liars; they were merely practitioners of the art of being “economical with the truth”, but it served as a useful heuristic for a busy interviewer.
Maybe the time has come to apply the same heuristic to Facebook’s public statements…
Interesting. Gizmodo reports that the high-minded motto disappeared from the company’s corporate code of conduct sometime between April 21 and May 4. Here’s the updated version:
The Google Code of Conduct is one of the ways we put Google’s values into practice. It’s built around the recognition that everything we do in connection with our work at Google will be, and should be, measured against the highest possible standards of ethical business conduct. We set the bar that high for practical as well as aspirational reasons: Our commitment to the highest standards helps us hire great people, build great products, and attract loyal users. Respect for our users, for the opportunity, and for each other are foundational to our success, and are something we need to support every day.
Aw, shucks.
Tom Wolfe has died at the ripe old age of 88. He was a big figure in the imaginations of my generation of writers — as big as Updike or Mailer (both of whom loathed him). I always think of Mailer, Wolfe and Hunter Thompson as the writers who changed the way I thought about reportage.
The NYT obituary quoted that famous observation by Joseph Epstein in The New Republic:
“As a titlist of flamboyance he is without peer in the Western world. His prose style is normally shotgun baroque, sometimes edging over into machine-gun rococo, as in his article on Las Vegas which begins by repeating the word ‘hernia’ 57 times.”
Most people probably remember him not for his satire — his ability to take the piss out of self-important and self-indulgent elites — but for his attire. The London Times obit (behind a paywall) claimed that he owned 40 hand-made white suits (and put a photo of him wearing one on the front page). I’ll remember him for his best book — The Right Stuff — about the pioneering flights of the Mercury astronauts. And for being one of those writers who make you think after you’ve read one of his sentences: I wish I’d written that.
“Facebook … treats privacy as a yo-yo for the amusement of its real customers — the advertising community.”
David Runciman’s book is out. It’s a terrific, thought-provoking read IMHO, not least because it makes a refreshing contrast to the current feeding-frenzy of shocked liberals bewailing Trump and Orban.
I’m doing a public conversation with David at the Cambridge Union on Tuesday May 22nd. Tickets available here
In our garden this afternoon.
”If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room”
Simon Kuper, writing in the current issue of the Financial Times.