The politics of left and right are rooted in two very different accounts of human nature. Conservatives adopt a tragic view of existence, while it is axiomatic for progressives that we are born intrinsically good and corrupted by society. David Starkey, writing in The Critic, argues that the principle of humankind’s inherent goodness is unsupported by the empirical facts.

A Spite That Knows No Bounds
Gratingly awful global scold Greta Thunberg’s latest stunt is to turn on her own motherland. Sweden has been very good to her, but the former social-democratic paradise’s mugging by the realities of uncontrolled immigration do not sit well with the keffiyeh-clad rabblerouser. “For years, Sweden took more asylum seekers per capita than any other country in Europe,” writes Fredrik Karrholm in The Spectator. “Now asylum numbers have fallen to their lowest level since 1985.”


