HOW TO HANDLE POLITICS AT THE DINNER TABLE

Sharing your opinion on foreign policy isn’t as gauche as it used to be. What is gauche is going off on the date your BFF brought to your birthday. “If people you don’t know very well start talking about politics and have a viewpoint opposite to yours, gently change the subject,” says Wendy Mencel, an etiquette consultant at the Canadian School of Protocol and Etiquette in London, Ont. If you know the person and are up for some verbal sparring, by all means pull your best Situation Room. But if the debate veers into argument territory, shut it down.