The other evening I was in Paris for a friend’s birthday party, which had been postponed because of the November attacks. It is startling when arriving there to be reminded that France remains officially in a state of emergency. The Eurostar is cheap and quiet, even at weekends. Hotels are discounted and barely full. Late in the evening, an Edith Piaf song comes on and every couple of every age leaps up and begins waltzing ecstatically. As she kisses my cheeks on her way out an older French friend whispers in my ear, “You young must enjoy the rest of the evening, especially now we know what such evenings can bring.” It is impossible not to love France, and hate what is being done to her. What a shame we cannot start again with some simple civilisational coalition.  

 

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Is there any more gruesome aspect in the race for the White House than the scrapping over who is least “establishment”? The effort on the Right by Republican Senators, Governors and billionaires to pretend they are “anti-establishment” is equally matched on the Left by the Bernie Sanders vs. Hilary Clinton renditions of the same. In one recent exchange Sanders portrayed Clinton as “establishment” because she has taken millions of dollars from “Wall Street”, not least in speaking fees. Clinton’s retort was to look and sound utterly amazed and wonder how Sanders could dare to describe a woman as “establishment”.

It is possible that Hillary Clinton is the only person left in America with the impression that there is something wild, transgressive and different about being a woman. Or that anyone who has spent decades as First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State can pretend to hail from the wrong side of the tracks. Good for him that Jeb Bush avoided it, but this is also a shame. I should have liked to hear him say, “It was hard growing up in my family, knowing the others would all be President first.”