Gordon Brown’s moral compass is more like a dodgy satnav
I often miss the glaring messages in fiction, because I am a prosaic and feeble-minded moron. Take Lyra and her altheiometer, in Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights trilogy. I read it ages ago, and it only clicked the other day. It’s basically a science-powered moral compass, isn’t it? Lyra makes her moral choices based on the readings of an instrument. The Church, her nemesis, does not.
When Gordon Brown talks about having a moral compass, I wonder if this is the sort of thing he has in mind. Him and all his little daemons, crouched in a cupboard in Downing Street, watching a little golden needle swing between pictures of, say, a man with a beard, and a bomb, and the number 42.
Maybe not. Many of our Prime Minister’s decisions appear far too complex to be compass-led.
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