In most shipwrecks there comes a moment when the order of the day, implicit or explicit, is “every man for himself”.
The ship’s company ceases to exist as a community and becomes an assembly of individuals, some displaying heroism and human kindness, others prepared to put their foot in anyone’s face to save their own lives.
The primary objective of any nation in crisis must be to avoid such a disintegration in its society. The moment at which investors move their money, even illegally, out of Britain, without regard to the consequences for the nation, the moment when the miners or the policemen, the power workers or the power engineers decide that there is no longer a common interest, that “every man for himself” is the order of the day – that will be the moment when Britain’s crisis ceases to be economic or political and becomes constitutional.
Talking point
Large companies that in the past would have found it beneath their corporate dignity to meddle with salary-enhancing schemes are looking for ways to help their senior staff. It is hard to see how anything could stop it happening. Managers feel increasingly hard done by.
Executive pay perks on the rise
Key quote
I am a bit bothered, I confess, by the zeal of some keen breastfeeders. But could the good mothers manage a little of the milk of human kindness for the others?
Katharine Whitehorn on readers’ responses to a breastfeeding campaign
