Keep Smiling Through

Among the major forces powering the world economy is, of course, groundless optimism. Without the support of this lightweight if eminently collapsible crutch, few workers would leave their beds in the morning and no pensions or pay rises could be gambled away by the wealth-creating classes. The Gabonese environment minister therefore deserves acclaim for his superbly groundless assertion that rich countries will act to mitigate the climate emergency once their people start dying in sufficient quantities. Lee White's optimism is all the more remarkable for his being a native of Manchester, in a country where the cure for economic slowdown is to stop people spending money; whose reaction to the global pandemic was to cut the pay of medical personnel and accelerate the decline of public health; and whose solution to the lies, corruption and incompetence of David Cameron, George Osborne, Nick Clegg and Theresa May was to vote decisively for Boris Johnson.