Par Avion

False Hope

The lesson of the Greek elections is that European rulers are sleepwalking into a collision with their electorate because the core premise of their economic model is faulty. The electorate has been asked to put up with pain for years with the unfulfilled promise of better things around the corner. It is always the fault of the poor and the sick, not of the predictive power of a discredited economic model. The best the leaders can offer is economic growth and job creation on an American scale. The mantra of labour flexibility translates into income growth for the bottom 90% of the population lagging behind productivity growth.

S.P. Chakravarty, Bangor, in The Guardian

Suit the Man

Not all of the siren suits worn by Winston Churchill were made by Turnbull & Asser or some such eminent tailors. During the war my mother worked in the sewing room at the field stores in Aldershot. One day she came home and told us that she had been asked to make a blue serge ‘siren suit’ for an eminent gentleman in the government. This she duly did and amused us with the news that his waist measured 54 inches. Only much later were we told that the eminent gentleman was indeed the prime minister.

Wendy Naylor, Berks, in The Times, London

Table Matters

How does one judge if a person has good breeding? Accent? Clothes? Shoes? Car? Look at the state of the table after they leave the coffee house.

Dr Lawrence Green, Warwickshire, in The Daily Telegraph