The politics of email sign-offs

I think Anne Applebaum is a friend of mine. I certainly hope so, since I have always admired her writing, her dignified charm and her un-English readiness to be serious. Her new book Twilight of Democracy is subtitled ‘The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends’. Quite a large number of friends, several associated (as was she) with this paper, she now names as ex-friends, so I feel relieved not to have been so identified. As a matter of historical fact, Anne is right: lots of friends have fallen out about issues relating to globalisation, identity, ‘Somewheres’ and ‘Anywheres’, Brexit, Trump etc. Anne seems to see this as inevitable, once people understand how much they differ. But is it? The phrase ‘the parting of friends’ was used to describe the break between those Catholic Anglicans, led by John Henry Newman, who left the Church of England for Rome, and those who stayed.