While at university in Fife, back in the Middle Ages, I encountered the philosophical musings of the Danish Existentialist Søren Kierkegaard.
All in all, not the cheeriest cove. His outlook on life appeared to chime with that of his fellow Dane, Shakespeare’s Prince Hamlet. You know, “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”
Kierkegaard’s bestsellers include Fear and Trembling and The Concept of Dread. I expect, by now, you are discerning a pattern.
As I recall, there is a song which enjoins us to “brush up our Shakespeare”. Not sure if the Prime Minister ever follows that advice, but I reckon he has been catching up on his Kierkegaard.
There is an election pending which Team Sunak might be expected to view with a degree of Danish dread.
In response, the PM appears to feel that the citizens could use a dose of fear and trembling. In a speech this week, he set out a list of the forces assembled to threaten our security and sew division.
The range opened with states such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. An “axis of authoritarian powers”.
Sir Keir Starmer (Image: free)
Mr Sunak then turned to the threat domestic. From anti-semitic and anti-Muslim actions to “gender activists hijacking children’s sex education”.
Not content with these categories, Mr Sunak added one more. Scottish nationalists “trying to tear our United Kingdom apart”.
Cue SNP fury. Questioning Mr Sunak in the Commons, Stephen Flynn, the SNP Westminster leader, called the comments “puerile”. He urged him to rise to the standards befitting his office.
In a faintly diffident........