The Conservative party has an empathy problem. Does it care about that? It should. – Spectator Blogs

For people in the communication business politicians have an uncanny ability to confuse even their better intentions by resorting to clumsy, even stupid, language. Thus David Davis earlier today. When normal people hear the phrase “shock therapy” I’m pretty sure they associate it with pretty awful, even ghastly, measures that, most of the time, don’t even have the saving grace of working. You wouldn’t want any of your relatives to be given shock therapy. It’s A Clockwork Orange or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest stuff.

Davis is not alone. Dominic Raab says the “talented and hard-working have nothing to fear” from removing “excessive” employee protections. I suspect many hard-working people, including talented hard-working people, might say it’s damn easy for him to say that.

And since Raab is the co-author of a forthcoming book which, inter alia, argues that “Once they enter the workplace, the British are among the worst idlers in the world,” he is not the only thrusting