Monday, March 12, 2007

l'affaire Patrick Mercer

This latest racism hoo-ha put me in mind of a 1960s political novel by Maurice Edelman, probably The Minister. Set at the time of Macmillans Wind of Change in Africa. A rising Conservative star puts a block on his career by remarking to a fellow dinner-guest: 'I said I wanted the African to be my brother, not my brother in law.'

Too clever by half!

Funnily enough, when I Googled that quote just now it came up, precisely the opposite way round, attributed to Martin Luther King