William Hague (a well known after dinner raconteur and sometime Foreign Secretary) and other Ministers have launched an assault on business people for not working hard enough. Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Hague said: “There’s only one growth strategy: work hard.”

This reminded me of a poem I vaguely remembered (and I’m grateful to Richard Kerley for reminding me which one it was). It was Bertold Brecht who wrote about the 1953 uprising in East Germany against the Socialist Unity (communist) government:

After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?