But if many of us are secretly rejoicing that this fat-pensioned wrecker of our economy has now been properly ‘rewarded’, still we are left with a lingering wonderment about quite why this decision has been made. Retribution, yes; but justice in this matter … we’re left feeling uneasy.

The problem with weighing this vogue for public shredding – Goodwin’s knighthood, Hester’s bonus –  is that we don’t understand what they did to receive these bonuses and honours in the first place.

Listen carefully to the debate around bonuses, in particular, and it’s clear that even the supporters of the bonus culture are not in agreement about what they are for. It’s something to do with shifting large sums of cash to people at the top of the organization – that’s agreed – but the rationale for doing so remains hazy.

What gives the game away is the sheer number of euphemisms used to make this rationalization. Listen to the language. One day, the bonus is described as a ‘reward’. The next it is part of the ‘compensation’ on offer. Then it becomes ‘remuneration’, and then ‘incentive’.

Which is it? Is it a reward for success? (In which case, why not share it more equally with every employee?) Or compensation for some exertion beyond the call of duty? (If it were within the call of duty, we would simply call it ‘pay’.) Or is the bonus some form of remuneration, literally the idea of ‘giving back’. Like the word ‘compensation’, it implies a kind of balancing. (If so, why then do bonuses appear so utterly imbalanced?) Or is it an incentive? Here’s a word of which to be especially suspicious, because it has only been used in this sense since WW2, emerging within the jargon of the US war economy. When my grandfather started work, there were no incentives – the word hadn’t been coined; because back then you did your best out of a sense of duty and loyalty, without requiring a gold-plated carrot to be dangling at the end of the year. Even the word ‘bonus’ is a disingenuous euphemism: it comes from the Latin word ‘good’. Whose good, we might wonder?

The truth is, we don’t know why anyone should receive a seven-figure bonus, and we weep little when a person is forced by public opprobrium to turn it down. So too with a knighthood for ‘services to banking’.

No wonder we can’t quite fathom the reasons for these public shreddings – we never knew why the honours were given in the first place.

This is a remarkable figure when set against the current debate over equal marriage for same-sex couples. Society seems to be pulling in two different ways; one group clamouring for the right to be married; another voting with their feet against it.

This tension reflects a deeper ambivalence towards institutional commitment. We retain a romantic attachment to the idea of life-long commitment under law, and even under God – and will fight for the right to enter into the marriage contract. But we also want to feel free. Joni Mitchell captured this tension well in her song ‘Help Me’: “We love our lovin’/ But not like we love our freedom.”

So how do we manage this tension between freedom and commitment? Do couples typically live together for a while until they decide they would like to settle down, and start a family? No doubt some do, finding that the container of marriage offers a safer context in which to have children. But the idea that most do is a myth.

The reality is that the same proportion of cohabiting couples have children as married couples: 38 percent. This seems to undermine the view that cohabitees are simply ‘married couples in waiting’. Rather, it suggests that there is a significant proportion of couples who start families with no intention of getting married. They have made a deliberate choice to take commitment out of an institutional setting, and domesticate it.

Commitment is no longer as clear-cut as it used to be; but it would be a mistake to say that it is no longer there. Clearly, a couple who have chosen one another, chosen to live under the same roof, and chosen to start a family together, are displaying a symbol of their commitment every bit as visible as a wedding ring.

The danger for such couples, however, is that the law has been slow to catch up with the solidity of their commitment. In England and Wales, cohabiting couples who break up have very few of the legal safeguards enjoyed by married couples. In Scotland, the situation is better: the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006 ensures some legal protection – for example, over property rights – for cohabitees who break up.

But the irony of the Act is that it abolished a form of marriage that had held its ground since Roman times. Roman Law acknowledged that a couple who had been cohabiting for a year, by consent, could be regarded as married under Common Law. It is astonishing that this was abolished as late as 2006, in Scotland. Perhaps this is the very law we need, across the UK, to ensure that the real commitment of cohabiting couples is recognized, valued and safeguarded.

Capitalism is not a moral system – it’s simply a logic that we allow to unfold (or not).

‘Moral capitalism’ is as much an oxymoron as ‘moral Darwinism’. We can no more expect capitalism to be moral, than we can expect a hungry lion to eat toast.

The comparison with Darwinism is instructive. Darwin’s theory of natural selection, of the survival of the best-adapted, provides a direct biological analogy to the economy. The economy mirrors nature ‘red in tooth and claw’ – those with the best brains, those most socially skilled, those who are most beautiful, or ruthless, or privileged, will tend to emerge as winners in the economic race. The stupid, the slow, the awkward, the ugly, the meek, the weak, and the disadvantaged, will tend to emerge as losers.

This is fact of economics: it is not a moral system. It’s a cruel, but robust, logic, which anyone who has ever competed to win a job, or buy a house, will know only too well.

Of course, winners in the economic race don’t like to think that their position in the world is entirely down to their own sharp-elbowed ruthlessness or past privilege. So they will tend to champion the one moral claim that capitalism does have on its side – that capitalism benefits the good of the whole. Adam Smith claimed that many acts of self-interest – by the guiding action of some ‘invisible hand’ – amount to an outcome that favours the common good, such as society getting richer as a whole. In the Thatcher era, this was expressed as the belief that cutting taxes for the rich would result in a ‘trickle-down’ of their wealth to the rest of society.

Today, this same defence can be heard on the lips of bankers and CEOs; namely, that it is good that they are paid unspeakable sums, since this keeps their talent in the UK, and this benefits the economy for all of us. Is that a moral argument, or a form of blackmail?

So capitalism is the economic embodiment of Darwinism. It is not a moral system, but simply a very efficient, very ruthless, mechanism which ensures that the species we call the economy will survive. But it is entirely indifferent to the fate of individuals within that society.

So what could Cameron mean by ‘moral capitalism’?  He can only mean a form of capitalism whose inner logic is restricted in some way – like asking the big cats to stop chasing the gazelle, and eat toast instead. On what basis could such restrictions be imposed? Not on the basis of capitalism itself, since capitalism is a logic based on self-interest; and raw self-interest, as Kant explained, can never be the basis of a moral system. Some other system of ethics would need to be invoked, which would make society fairer, kinder, more humane, more just – by limiting the raw energies of capitalism.

We are not short of these. Catholic social teaching, socialism in its various forms, communitarian models of living, co-operatives, social enterprises, and the welfare state, all offer resources for a new economics. So do other European economies (Scandinavia in particular) which have achieved far more equal societies than we in the UK. What Cameron should be calling for is not a ‘moral capitalism’, but a moral economy.

‘Moral capitalism’ is a marriage of chalk and cheese. It will end – no doubt – in dust, sweat and tears.

Six years on, and the sense of urgency has abated. New research from the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey indicates that people are now less concerned about the threat to the environment from climate change than they were ten years ago. At the same time, they are also considerably more sceptical about claims regarding such threats. Moreover, falling concern and rising scepticism are linked, such that the views of climate change ‘sceptics’ have become more polarised from the views of those who believe that the threat is real.

The growth of climate change scepticism, and the cooling of concern, has a knock-on effect in our behaviour. Aside from the fact that we are recycling more than ever (council schemes have made it easy for us), the research shows that it is more likely to be those already concerned about climate change who will seek to cut back on car use, and energy consumption. Sceptics, on the other hand, are less likely to be motivated by environmental reasons to cut back in these ways. The last five years have also seen a significant reduction in concern over the environmental impact of travel, whether by trains, planes or automobiles.

Why is this? Four factors in particular seem to lie behind this drift away from environmental concern.

The first seems to be the fallout from the so-called ‘climategate’ scandal, in 2009, when emails leaked from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia seemed to point to the suppression of data that might have brought into question the consensus over anthropogenic (man-made) global warming. In fact, the scientific consensus remains. But what climategate offered was a opportunity for sceptics to be confirmed in their own suspicion. This could explain one particular finding of the BSA report: concern over the impact of car use on climate change fell gently from a high of 80% in 2006, to 73% in 2009, but then plummeted to 64% the following year. A scandal need not be true to be effective.

A second explanation for the loss of concern is the effect of the economic downturn. The BSA survey asked people whether they thought that too much concern is directed to the environment’s future, and not enough to prices and jobs today. In 2000, only 35% agreed; by 2010, the proportion who felt this way had risen to 43%.

A third reason for the general cooling of public concern over global warming comes from evidence that the public have become increasingly divided into ‘encampments’ of opinion on this issue. No longer is climate concern spread broadly across the public arena. And since behaviour seems to follow beliefs, those in the ‘sceptics’ camp are less likely to alter their behaviour, than those who believe. The BSA survey also found that the variation in concern about climate change was correlated to educational attainment, with the more educated being more concerned.

A final reason may be that the public have become fatigued with the issue. This is perhaps not surprising, as it is difficult to live with a feeling of impending apocalypse for long. But the media are also implicated here. Media theorists have long spoken of the ‘cycle of attention’ that accompanies any story. A story can’t be breaking news for ever, nor can its implications unfold indefinitely. Eventually, like a dying star, it must cease to shine. The media will only run with a story so long as it lives; and it only lives for so long. Then they will move on. The danger is we have reached that place. The evidence (from the graph below) shows a tailing off in media interest. (Notice the 2009 ‘spike’ – probably climategate.)

But while the story cools, the world continues to warm. We won’t be able to ignore it for ever.

But even here in Britain, a recent report commissioned by the Family and Parenting Institute reveals that in the next few years, middle-income earners with children are going to be hardest hit by government austerity measures.

The report, compiled by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, looks at the median income for families with children. (If you line up every family in order of income from lowest to highest, the median income is the income of the person standing at the exact mid-point in the line.) If your income is around this mid-point, it is projected to fall by 4.2% between 2010 and 2015.

Doesn’t sound too dire? This drop equates to a fall in income of £1250 per year. 

And it’s even worse if you have three children, or more. By 2015, your income will have fallen by 6.8%. If you’ve been counting on those tax credits to make ends meet, then get ready for the storm. You are going to feel it. (Or, you could consider giving away your children.)

The report also offers bad news for families with children under five (drop of 4.9%), those in the bottom decile of income (drop of 6%), and lone parents not in employment (drop of 12%).

It is clear that the burden of tax and benefit reforms are falling on some of the most vulnerable, including those with new babies, and lone parents out of work. But it is not only the poor and vulnerable who will feel these cuts – it is also the middle-class, middle-income, families with children who will feel the squeeze.

Let’s be clear – these are not ‘benefit scroungers,’ who will be driven off their couches through sheer poverty to go in search of work. They are people already maxed out at work  (fighting the threat of redundancy) and at home (looking after children), struggling just to keep food on the table and the mortgage payments up-to-date. They don’t have too much slack.

So how might they tighten their belts? After year one, with £1250 less in the bank, they could forget going on holiday. And at the end of year two? They could get rid of the car. And year three? They might cancel all savings plans. And year four? It could be time to cook the dog. How, then, will they cope by the end of year five?

Time to get a third job, perhaps? Or failing that, to give away their children.

In a recent statement, the Department claims, “Ending open cigarette displays will help people trying to quit smoking and help to change attitudes and social norms around smoking.”

Changing attitudes and social norms? It’s an interesting tactic. The government are not making the purchase of cigarettes illegal: they are simply forcing it under the counter. They are not prohibiting it, merely turning it into a furtive, clandestine activity.

In a world in which attitudes have becoming increasingly tolerant, and social norms more and more diverse, a return to a form of social control that relies on shame, among other things, is curious.

Shame was the weapon of choice of previous centuries. It kept people in church, kept them marching to the front line, kept them in awful marriages. Today, however, we don’t expect shame to work. We can call our bankers all sorts of names, but they’ll get their bonuses all the same. If government needs to impose social control, it will have to legislate: the threat of a red face will no longer suffice.

So placing tobacco under the counter is a curious tactic. Of course, it may work; and fewer people dying as a result is naturally to be applauded. So often, however, there can be unintended consequences.

The introduction of anti-social behaviour orders was no doubt intended to shame offenders into cleaning up their behaviour. Instead, it did the reverse. The ‘ASBO’ came to be worn as a proud medal, proving the hardness of its possessor. One wonders whether the ban on tobacco displays – far from shaming the customer – might achieve the same.

Mine came about 3000ft above sea level, approaching the summit of Ben More on the island of Mull. I was hill-walking with friends, and we had set out to climb this towering pyramid of a mountain on a clear-blue day in April. High above the scattered islands of the inner Hebrides, we could see to the misty curve of the horizon. Just a lichen-sprinkled scree slope to clamber up, and we would be touching the sky’s ceiling, and enjoying a breezy panorama.

Then the phone rang. Or to be more precise, the Blackberry of a senior HR manager from a London-based retail chain piped up with an urgent ringtone. My friend answered.

“Oh hi, how are you?”

(Silence)

“Uh huh.”

(Silence)

“I’m walking up Ben More on Mull at the moment. Nearly there!”

These were the days before mobile phones were universal, and there was still some status attached to owning one. I was astonished. I had no idea that here, high up on a remote island, in a remote part of the UK, we were reachable. If steamships were ‘an insult to the dignity of distance’ (Proust), then this Blackberry was it’s ruthless assassin.

But it was not just the collapse of distance (and the loss of ‘wildness’) that bothered me: it was the collapse of the boundary between work and leisure. If work could intrude even here, I reflected, then the time was coming when we would never get away from work; it would spill over into every area of life under the banner of ‘convenience.’

And so it has been. We are up to our knees in emails, like muck from the barn. Smart-phones connect up the various parts of our virtual identity, and keep them as close as our wallet. The boundary between friends and colleagues has collapsed, as we have obediently followed the twenty-something pied-piper of social networking. Who’d have thought?

This week’s end-of-year technology predictions seem to confirm the trend of the continuing integration of our virtual worlds. With a twist.

The first wave of integration brought work into the spaces which, traditionally, were reserved for ‘social life’. Now, increasingly, the reverse seems to be happening. The party is coming to work.

Business software, for example, is looking increasingly like Facebook. Twitter is rapidly being discovered as something far more important than an office distraction: it has become an important tool for listening to what the market is saying about your products and services. It gives you a chance to respond to customers directly. The traditional firewalls within the workplace are increasingly irrelevant, as employees find other ways to get online during the working day. And, in any case, forecasts predict a boom in the trend for bringing your own device to work (BYOD) – it’s what you know after all, making you more efficient – even if it creates a security headache for your employer.

In all these ways, it’s no longer just work intruding on the mountain, but the mountain intruding on work. It is the collapse of the modern distinction between work and leisure come full circle.

Should we be worried? After all, the work-leisure distinction is only a recent invention: the medieval peasant running his cottage industry from home made no such hard distinctions.

At the same time, there is cause for concern. The collapse between work and leisure, between colleague and friend, between good pay and goodwill, risks leaving people feeling exploited, disorientated, or betrayed.

If this seems fanciful, consider that a thousand workers at VW in Germany recently won the right to have their Blackberries disabled from receiving company emails from half an hour after the end of the working day. They were outraged at being treated as if they were permanently available to their bosses.

Perhaps we should learn from them, especially if we are thinking of heading for the hills this weekend.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the top spot belongs to a region in the balmy, wealthy south of the UK. Number one on the list for the previous three years was Elmbridge in Surrey.

What is more surprising is that no local authority district in Scotland, Wales or Ireland made it into the top 50. The best these nations could manage were Shetland (98th), Monmouthshire (234th) and North Down (275th) respectively.

Intuitively, there has to be something wrong here. People flock to these places on holiday every year, to enjoy rare wildlife, stunning scenery, fresh air, and breathing space. I honeymooned on Shetland. By contrast, Hampshire would not be  first on my list of prized destinations.

The problem has to be that ‘quality of life’ is simply too subjective to be comprehensively described in any survey of this sort.  What has a high life expectancy got to do with quality of life? If you are already miserable, mere longevity will not improve things. Or with climate? Many people are happy with their level rainfall and don’t relish the prospect of water rationing. Or broadband access? Some would say that greater access to the internet only encourages the breakdown of face-to-face local community, and quality of life which went along with it.

But there’s a bigger elephant hidden among these ‘findings’: they refer only to the people who already live there. What this index offers is not so much information about the region which might inform a choice to move there, or not; what it offers is more of a ‘smugness’ index for those already resident. Fine, the top districts might have low unemployment, high wages, and posh houses: but merely moving there will not provide you with a well-paid job or an affordable home.

Then there are the criteria that seem to receive less weighting, or are absent altogether. The survey acknowledges criteria that score well outside the south of England. If you want to get away from cars, crowds and crime, move to the Western Isles. If you want the best GCSE results for your children, move to Darlington. And if you want the most affordable housing relative to earnings, move to Pendle.

What is ‘quality of life’ anyway? Some criteria are simply absent from this survey. There seems to be no attempt to measure ‘social capital’ – the degree of interconnectedness of supportive social relationships. There is no attempt to grade happiness. And most seriously, nowhere does the survey take into account what would count as quality of life for the inhabitants of a particular region. Perhaps people move to particular places because they value what those regions offer?

Fast broadband? Expensive homes? A life of commuting? A few extra years on this planet? No. Give me the romance of Shetland’s windswept beauty, terrible seas, plunging cliffs, expansive skies, thronging birds, jeweled islands, fiddle music, and her neolithic history which everywhere protrudes from shallow sandy soils. Now that is quality of life.

But there the admiration might end. Cameron’s insistence that we are a ‘Christian Country’ is cringeworthy – not so much because it is a crass generalisation, but because we know the kind of knee-jerk fury it will release, most of which is both boring and highly predictable.  It’s as if there is a big red button somewhere in the land of Middle-Media labelled ‘The Topic of Religion’. Some of us wince as an eager journalist or politician advances upon on it, and we find ourselves willing them not to press it. But they do, and for the next two days we have to suffer the deluge of comment from grumpy atheists, who haven’t quite separated God from their abusive parents.

And then there’s Christopher Hitchens. A man with a fine mind, no doubt, but also given to tirades of the ‘grumpy atheist’ sort. He, too, was capable of the cringeworthy generalisation (‘Religion poisons everything’); and he too drew reams of predictable protest from the religious right at every utterance.

So the cycle continues: a wild generalisation about religion, hoots of indignation, a celebrity counter-blast, cheers from ardent followers.

The respectable research organization, NatCen, has claimed in its most recent report (British Social Attitudes, 28th Report) that those who say they belong to ‘no religion’ has risen to 50%. Is the glass now half empty? Or still half full? It depends on what you care about.

Why do we find it so hard to be dispassionate about religion? Perhaps because, one way or another, we simple are passionate about it. As with Marmite, our feelings run deep. It takes remarkable objectivity to listen to strong views about religion with which we violently disagree, and then respond with calm, intelligent balance.

But try we must, because so often the alternative is not exciting, rigorous, challenging debate, but dull, entrenched, stereotypes, hurled over the parapet like aimless grenades. Such comment is not designed to engage, merely to hurt. The comment sections of blogs are strewn with such tiresome shrapnel.

Surely the time has come for a grown-up discussion?

Example. Cameron: “Britain has inherited many important values from her Christian tradition.” Hitchens: “Indeed, but also a lot of dross that now needs excising.” Cameron: “Do say more.” Hitchens: “I would love to.”

And hopefully, one day, someone in his mould will do just that.