Global warning

This week Theodore Dalrymple begins a new column — on globalisation, moronic technology and modernity in general.


Whenever I read the French newspapers I come to a strange conclusion: that I hate anti-globalisation as much as I hate globalisation.

What, then, do I stand for? I don’t know, really. But it seems to me clear that, just as the globalisers are the party of the triumphant corporatists, so the anti-globalisers are the party of the French train drivers who want to retire at the age of 50 at the expense of all the people unfortunate or foolish enough not to be French train drivers. I think I must be what a consultant doing his ward round called the illness that his lymphoma patient had — neither cancer nor leukaemia, but something in between the two.

Which brings us to the question of freedom of the labour market. Like everyone else, I like a lot of different restaurants, but I’m not sure I like schools in which children have no common language.