A thoroughly advertised and conspicuous mediocrity

Scrap two-child benefit cap, Kinnock tells Starmer

Lord Kinnock has urged Sir Keir Starmer to scrap the two-child benefit cap.

The Labour peer and former party leader said the policy, which restricts access to child tax credits and other benefits, was responsible for keeping hundreds of thousands of children in poverty.

Lord Kinnock’s intervention comes weeks after he called on Sir Keir to introduce a new wealth tax and suggested a 2 per cent levy on assets worth more than £10 million.


From which we may conclude that neither mediocrity has assets worth more than £10 million.


Ambition, they say, is the giant passion. But giants are placable and sleep at times. The spirit of emulation — the lust of distinction — hominum volitare per ora — digito monstrarier — in a wider, and still widening sphere — until all the world knows something about you — and so on and on — the same selfish aspiration, and at best, the same barren progress, till at last it has arrived — you are a thoroughly advertised and conspicuous mediocrity, still wishing, and often tired, in the midst of drudgery and importance and éclat, and then — on a sudden, the other thing comes — the first of the days of darkness which are many.

Sheridan Le Fanu - The Tenants of Malory (1867)