As I write, it is 3.0 am, and I cannot sleep. Several images I remember in my life flash before me as in one of those old newsreels they used to show in cinemas.  These images arise from the 'Black Lives Matter' protests at the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in America.  Here in the United Kingdom, we must confront our racist past and present, as statues of prominent slave traders are taken down or pulled down.

In 1970, on a cold, wet December day in Warsaw, the then West German Chancellor Willy Brandt laid a wreath at the memorial of the Jewish ghetto. I remember it. The lasting image of that day was a photo taken when Brandt unexpectedly fell to his knees in front of the memorial and remained still for half a minute on the wet stone floor - that half a minute seemed an...

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