People who are given whatever they want soon develop a sense of entitlement and rapidly lose their sense of proportion.

Textbooks are no longer given to schoolchildren; they're too expensive. So they're given to the teachers, who probably need them more.

In one sense, Obama's point couldn't be clearer: race is a distraction from class-based inequities. And if we dismiss working-class resentment as camouflaged racism, we will continue to be distracted by the spectre of race.

Top-up fees mean that universities are increasingly under pressure to confer degrees upon students, who perceive the degree as a commodity they've purchased. Failure doesn't enter into anyone's calculations.

Pop music provides not just the soundtrack to our lives, as the cliche goes; it releases our emotions and helps us to articulate them. This is why music is so important to adolescents, who are struggling with questions of identity and self-expression.

Commonsense is the realised sense of proportion.