But I'm English. We don't do uplifting.

If words fall into disrepair, what will substitute? They are all we have

Reality is a powerful solvent.

History can show you that it was one pile of bad stuff after another. It can also show you that there's been tremendous progress in knowledge, behaviour, laws, civilisation. It cannot show you that there was a meaning behind it.

The East European small countries have a sense of betrayal, of having been forgotten by Western leaders.

I worry that we have forgotten that the de-ideologized, de-politicized, uncontentious public space of the last 50 years as Europeans have experienced it is not the normal human condition. We shall be sorry to have abandoned a little too quickly the institutions that were set up by our parents and grandparents to protect themselves against a return of the bad old world. Because the bad old world can still come back to haunt you.

Social democracy does not represent an ideal future; it does not even represent the ideal past.