While campaigning for the Democratic nomination in 2007, Barack Obama sought to sympathise with the farmers of Adel, Iowa, (population 4,653) over the discrepancy between how much they earned for their crops and the price in the stores. "Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?" he asked, referring to a high end organic chain. "I mean, they're charging a lot of money for this stuff."

Two weeks after the terrorist attacks of July 7, 2005, in London, a student, Jean Charles de Menezes, was in the London Underground when plainclothes police officers gave chase and shot him seven times in the head. Initial eyewitness reports said he was wearing a suspiciously large puffa jacket on a hot day and had vaulted the barriers and run when asked to stop. Mark Whitby, who was at the station, thought he saw a Pakistani terrorist being gunned down by plainclothes policemen. Less than a month later, Whitby said, “I now believe that I could have been looking at the surveillance officer” being thrown out of the way as Menezes was being killed.

Two weeks after the fatal terrorist attacks of July 7, 2005, in London, and one day after another failed attack, a student, Jean Charles de Menezes, was in the London Underground when plainclothes police officers gave chase and shot him seven times in the head.

"Action," argued philosopher Hannah Arendt, "without a name attached to it is meaningless." It leaves you with objects without subjects and consequences without causes.

Back in 2004 I met a pleasant Republican called Burton Kephart, who had lost his son in Iraq and wanted to save my soul. Opening his Bible at Matthew and Romans, he told me I was born a sinner but that, if I accepted Jesus into my heart, I could be saved.

 

On 24March the Portuguese prime minister, Jose Socrates, resigned after all the opposition parties rejected his austerity plan, which included slashing pensions by more than €1,500 a month and more cuts in tax benefits. His government's collapse triggered an election, which could not take place for another two months. During the interim Socrates stayed on as acting prime minister and reached an agreement with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund for a €78bn bailout. The terms? Almost exactly the same as those proposed by him and rejected by the Portuguese parliament six weeks earlier.