Oops I forgot . . .

The problem with blogging during a coffee break is that you can forget the point you were trying to make!

In my earlier blog, the point I was intending to make about risk links to a broader argument I heard made by Melanie Phillips (not someone I often find myself quoting!). Phillips’ contention is that middle class people adopt social norms e.g. recreational drug-taking, family break-up, which have considerable downsides but which they have the resources to deal with.  The problem is that those norms filter down to less advantaged communities for whom the flipsides can be catastrophic. This is the argument I was thinking of – that we have a dominant culture that extols risk but the costs of risk are much easier to handle if you are well off.