This sentiment is not, of course, the niceness and decency that we rightly admire when individuals respond helpfully to others. It is a politicised virtue, which means that it is focused not on real individuals but on some current image of a whole category of people. Correspondingly, it invokes hostility towards those believed to have caused the pain and misery of others. Public discussion thus turns into melodrama. A very powerful version of this doctrinal compassion maps the distinction of oppressor and oppressed on to almost any social or international situation, and this mapping automatically directs our sympathies. Further, our sympathy for the oppressed is a demonstration to ourselves of our own benevolence. The fact is, of course, that political exponents of niceness may or may not be personally generous and benevolent. Doctrine is not character.

Changes in family and educational life in our time cannot be understood without taking account of this immensely powerful idea of public compassion. The niceness movement seeks to abolish pain and stigma in every area of society. Important elements of it can be detected at least as far back as the 18th century, but it is only in our time that "nice" and "nasty" have revealed themselves as politically dichotomous. The remark about "the nasty party" was clearly what is often called "a seminal moment", because a whole political party sidelined policy distinctions between "left" and "right" in order to demonstrate Conservative niceness-about race, about single mothers, young persons wearing hoods and so on.

How can we make sense of the niceness movement? Again, let me invoke a temporal contrast. When long ago, I was in primary school (in the Antipodes), boys and girls were in the same class, and the cane was occasionally used, but never on girls. Girls are usually, in any case, less of a problem in schools, especially at that age. To remove the possibility of physical chastisement in schools from boys is thus in the first instance to assimilate them to girls. Boys pose, however, significantly different disciplinary problems, especially in the teenage years. The structure of authority in boys' schools had always depended on well - understood rules whose violation invoked painful sanctions.

I do not know the current order of authority in classes purely for girls, but I imagine that it might involve more direct positive encouragement from teachers than would have been common in purely male classes. For it was an important part of the psychological doctrines taught to students of education that positive reinforcement (such as praise) was more effective in getting better conduct than criticism and punishment. There is apparently in Britain something called "a National College for School Leadership", which has given its support to recommendations that teachers should be encouraged to give inner-city pupils "high fives" before lessons, so as to boost their performance in examinations. Pupils "should also form a circle and applaud one of their number, so that children can relax and think: ‘somebody believes in me'." These suggestions apparently come from the US, and they are part of a view that an important element of education lies in boosting something called "self-esteem". Remarkable beliefs of this kind led many schools in recent times to abolish competitive games, because being on the losing side was thought to damage self-esteem. This fragment of pedagogic wisdom was very rapidly abandoned when the government turned to the new problem of obesity. Competitive games do at least get the young up and running, so self-esteem has joined many another bright idea in being, for the moment, quietly forgotten.