On Reflection

The honouring of a past president only serves to highlight the frailties of the incumbent.

- Joanne Black

On a recent, cold, Washington DC night, my daughter, two of her friends and I joined several thousand others queuing for hours outside the Capitol to witness the lying-in-state of the late President George HW Bush. I was no great supporter of Bush when he was in office, but this occasion was an opportunity to reflect on a life of public service.

In DC’s present political environment in which Donald Trump caustically tweets that his former Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, is “dumb as a rock”, it often feels that the only reflecting going on is in rear-view mirrors when parallel parking.