ONE

day l as t week, BBC Radio 4’s self- important Today programme played a recording of President Franklin Roosevelt rallying his people against the Great Depression in 1933. It was thrilling to hear. He said: ‘The only thing we have to fear is… fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjust i f i ed t er r or which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.’

It was an admirable thing to say. But who in our government or the BBC could now say such a thing, having themselves made such shameless use of nameless, unreasoning, unjustified fear, so they could get away with behaving just like, well, Chinese dictators and their hired mouthpieces?