Richard Spencer

This week’s column should be guest-written by Hillary Clinton, who has shown herself a master at sinking the knife into Barack Obama’s all-too-yielding flesh. But at home we can learn valuable lessons in wielding the knife from our own politicians. The knife itself is not, sadly, a glorious child of Britishness. The first knives made of metal appear to have been fashioned by brutes living in Mesopotamia and Egypt, though both regions of course would eventually fly the imperial Union Jack. Before the Industrial Revolution, high-quality knives were made of carbon steel, easy to sharpen but prone to rust and to discolour in contact with acidic food. The Industrial Revolution begat the stainless-steel knife, a stronger, more resistant tool, but hard to get sharp.