Tag: platitude

As usual, Gordon Brown offers wise counsel (Give us a year, to really take back control, Opinion, 30 March). While we are clearly faced with a very serious, complex and perplexing Brexit issue, I would suggest that there are other more useful ways of framing the situation than as an unadulterated crisis. A narrative of crisis only perpetuates the fantasy of one big solution which, in this as in most cases, is clearly not yet obvious. In the debates of the coming weeks we need more inquiry into workable options (for us and the EU) and less advocacy of divisive and polarising opinions. Clearly we need more time for this process. Ken Starkey Professor of management and organisational learning, Nottingham University Business School • So, national treasure Grayson Perry tells us that, because leavers and remainers share a liking for “Marmite, the colour blue, tea and David Bowie”, “we all have much more in common than that which separates us” (Report, 29 March). When politicians and religious leaders issue the latter rather meaningless platitude, I accept this as part of mainstream community cohesion rhetoric. But when a contemporary artist uses such glib sentiment, which does nothing to talk to any of the fundamental issues that underpin the levels of social disaffection that stalk our green and pleasant land, I do fear for the inviolable role that dissension plays within contemporary art discourse. Perhaps Grayson Perry would do well to take a leaf out of Anish Kapoor’s book (Interview, G2, 14 March) on this account. Christopher Coppock Cardiff • Jonathan Freedland (Opinion, 30 March) points out that the European Research Group is not European, does no research, and barely counts as a group.