Jonathan Swift’s Lessons in Irony

Donald Trump wants to shrink the American state and Pete Hegseth, his Secretary of War, wants to shrink the top brass. He has ordered his military officers to lose some weight, arguing that there are too many gross generals, corpulent colonels and massive majors around the place. The same is true of American police officers, who seem to be recruited for their beefiness. The fact that they can’t run is the reason why so many suspects get shot in the back. British police officers are expected to be fit, and male officers to be of a certain height. An uncle of mine, not the most savoury of characters, applied to join the police force and was turned down for being an inch or so too short. This saved the general public a number of stitch-ups, fabricated evidence and planted bags of dope. The problem with reforming the police is the kind of people the nature of the job attracts. Another uncle was even smaller than this one, and served in submarines during the Second World War. As a child I believed that all submarines, given their cramped space, were staffed by midgets.