A pity that’s afraid to speak its name

On the Sunday just passed I sat alongside Polly Toynbee in Manchester as one of Andrew Marr’s two newspaper reviewers on his morning programme on BBC television. Arriving at dawn, we skimmed the weekend papers for stories we might discuss. Polly chose, among others, the latest reports in the Megan Stammers saga; the schoolgirl and the teacher she had run away with, Jeremy Forrest, had been located in Bordeaux; he was in a French jail pending extradition, and Megan had just returned to her parents.

I wondered whether to say what I honestly felt. I sensed it would upset or annoy some viewers. But I’ve generally found it best to stick with one’s honest responses; when they’re clear and strong it’s likely a good many other humans — even if only a minority — will have responded in the same way. One rarely turns out to be spitting into the wind.