Knowing and Making

Brendan O'Neill raises the important issue of how filling in a form forces us to indelibly define our lifelong identity by ticking a box. But for some reason he is only willing to tackle the easiest question: religion. There are bigger issues here. Campaigning cyclists are gear-gnashingly worried that insufficient numbers of people will tick the “Cars In This Household: None” box. The Rail Passengers Association is on a mission to encourage as many non-drivers as possible to declare their non-driving. It argues that only by getting a realistic snapshot of how many cars there are in modern-day Britain (fewer than we think, apparently) can we challenge such allegedly problematic institutions as multi-story car parks, and the privileging of Jeremy Clarkson in various prime time BBC TV programmes. But if lots of non-drivers choose not to tick “Cars In This Household: None”, I won’t be surprised. Why? Because people generally don’t like to define themselves negatively, by what th...

Some positive signs . Apparently calling them "green shoots" is not politically correct, so the Telegraph has described them as "glimmers of hope" instead. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says: The pace of economic decline is slowing. Housing sales are picking up, even if prices are falling. Credit markets have begun to thaw. The Baltic Dry Index measuring freight rates for iron ore and other bulk goods has been creeping up... The debt markets have opened like a flower in spring, at least in one sense. Companies issued $246bn (£171bn) in bonds in January, the most since the credit crisis began. The bond issuance looks especially important. Remember when Robert Peston was terrified of the €1 trillion of debt that had to be rolled over or refinanced in 2009? ...interest spreads on three-month dollar Libor have come down to 1pc from the extremes above 2pc... The rate for 30-year mortgages has fallen to 5.28pc from 6.5pc two months ago. "China's manufacturing is no lon...