Sign of the Times

I used to collect background material and make notes and write salient points and themes and areas for debate. Now, mostly, I’ve got one newspaper cutting with four letters scrawled at the top of it and the rest is window-dressing. When John Reid panics the nation by telling us that it is highly likely we will be under attack from terrorists in the build-up to Christmas and absolutely nothing happens, and I recall that this is the same man who, as Defence Minister, justified dispatching more British troops to a hellish, lawless region of Afghanistan by glibly suggesting they would probably leave without a bullet being fired,

I no longer think of a thousand words. I think of one. Martin Samuel in The Times



It has a hard “c” and a sharp “t”, making it short and explosive and lending power, drama and, wielded correctly, humour.
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