David Mitchel of The Observer:
The Barclays bank boss has suggested that his executives are easily replaceable. If that's true, why do they get paid so much?

Sometimes it's down to the director-general of the British Retail Consortium to sum up the national mood. "Non-food is having a thoroughly miserable and difficult time," he said last week. He's so right – it really is. And, of all the non-foods, the humans are particularly depressed, with more than 2.64 million of us now out of work. But I like his note of optimism. We remain non-foods. We haven't started to eat one another. While we've not yet been reduced to carrion or prey, there are still grounds for hope.

We're in the grip of a historically significant slump, possibly as notable as the Great Depression. Our current trials will definitely be on the A-level history syllabuses of the decades to come. Any more disastrous developments and we may even make GCSE. The question the kids of the future will be trying to answer is: "What caused all that suffering?" As a former lazy history student myself, I know that the trick here is to look for the point in the debate where someone says: "It's a bit more complicated than that" and then go back to the previous assertion. The things that historical events are a....Read more here--: Barclays boss Bob Diamond might not be as bright as his name suggests | Comment is free | The Observer