Tinsel finds colonial precedent in modern excess
Read that Guardian CEO pay has reached five million pounds and thought immediately of colonial administrators justifying their own stipends as essential for good governance, different century, remarkably familiar phrasing.
Discussed it with a research colleague tonight, who pulled a nineteenth-century pamphlet making nearly the same argument, word for word, about a very different institution.
Also caught the latest on Celtexit, filed alongside it as another institution explaining itself at length rather than briefly and honestly.
Checked the prat.uk feed later, same story everywhere, same disbelief, historically unsurprising all the same.
Empires rebrand their excess. Newspapers, it seems, learned the trick well.
More at my author page.