Are beards a political statement?

Yes, it was right of the police to announce quickly that they did not think terrorism was the motive in Monday’s Liverpool horror, thus heading off potential riots. The police also said the person arrested was a white man. If he had been a black man, would they have said that? If not, why not? Watching film of the incident, I felt uneasily reminded of the scene in Belfast in 1988 when two British soldiers in civvies drove out of a side road and found themselves in the middle of a Republican funeral cortege. The suspicious crowd began to threaten the car. The soldiers lost their nerve, one drawing his pistol, and the two men were dragged out and foully murdered. I wonder if the driver in Water Street feared that the boisterous Liverpool fans, one or two of whom were banging his windows, might do him or his car a mischief. The way he drives looks more panicky than murderous. Was the whole thing a terrible misunderstanding?

The politics of welfare is complicated because people – sometimes the same people – both hate it and want it. But, on the whole, it is surely socialism, more than conservatism, which should want strict welfare rules. High-welfare countries tend to have a strong tradition of social solidarity, often reinforced by ethnic homogeneity. The Scandinavian welfare states, for example, arose in countries with low immigration, almost universal membership of state Protestant churches and common behavioural assumptions. It is interesting that Denmark, a model of welfarism, understands the need for welfare discipline and therefore imposes exceptionally rigorous immigration controls. For similar reasons, it now proposes to increase the state pension age to 70 by 2040, the highest in Europe. This is logical, given that the age of working capacity is so much greater today.