A reader reponds to my posting on the Bruges Group meeting:

Leaving aside the Grandness or otherwise of the ideas the Bruges Group battles for, what relevance do global Grand Battles of Ideas have to everyday life, and how people try to live it?

I happen to think that Ideas are the bedrock on which Policy and Civilisation are built.

And this fine article by Charles Moore sums up why:

The Tories make the arresting promise that they can do for the broken society what Mrs Thatcher did for the broken economy. It is the right idea. But behind it lies the assumption that the economic answers are nowadays known: it is just a matter of getting out the old tool-box which Labour has left in the shed.

I wonder. What if the coming economic difficulties raise questions which have been hardly thought about yet? What if people start to reject the market liberalisation of the last 20 years because they think it leads to hedge fund managers getting rich by destabilising the price of essential commodities? Capitalism’s arrangements will start to seem very unattractive to most people if, as is now happening, they get poorer …

On top of that comes something that really is new. The assumption of our political attitudes ever since our mass democracy began a century ago is that "we" (by which is meant the West) can ultimately direct our destinies. If primary economic power really is passing away from America and western Europe, to China and to the owners of commodities that we need, will that assumption hold good? If not, what then?

A very pertinent question.

If our Grand Ideas start to wobble, others will take their place.