The Social Animal and the Big Society

By Bagehot

ALL Westminster is reading „The Social Animal“ by David Brooks, after sources close to David Cameron let it be known that the New York Times journalist had captured the very essence of the prime minister’s thinking on policy-making in the 21st century. Your blogger thought he had better take a look, too, and whiled away many hours of travel around East Anglia today in the company of Harold and Erica, the fictional heroes used by Mr Brooks to set out his thesis that success has as much to do with character, empathy, nurture and the workings of the unconscious mind as it does with the chillier workings of the rational mind.