Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good

I have a piece in this morning’s Wall Street Journal (Europe) on our new press regulations titled ‘We have the newspapers we deserve’:

‘I have just finished studying a diagram aimed at explaining Britain’s new press laws. After having a lie-down, one single line keeps running through my head. Oddly enough it isn’t ‘recognition appointments panels,’ ‘regulatory appointments panels’ or even ‘standards and compliance arms,’ memorable though all these are.

‘The line is from T.S. Eliot, who almost eight decades ago derided those people who spend their days ‘dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.”

The whole piece is here.