Clinton surprises me

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): No, not Hilary, but her husband whose first name escapes me at the moment. I was never very taken with him, positively or negatively. Way back in 92 when I was in the States I watched him debating for the White House with George Bush Senior and Ross Perot in a TV designed 'town hall' meeting. He struck me as fluent, with the popular touch and as, well, an American politician after office. He got it too, because Perot split the right. Better a Democrat than a Republican, but I neither found him hateful, as did fellow Brits on the left like Hitchens or Cockburn, or wonderful - many pinged to his charisma but it bounced off me with indifference and thus it remained. So I was surprised, yesterday, leaving through a 40th anniversary edition of Rolling Stone full of unexceptional interviews, to find one with Clinton where he made me think. He says that the three great issues of our time are "inequality, sustainability and identity". None of the Blairite cliches about terrorism that I'd have expected. Instead, the issue of extremism is neatly tied up in his last 'ity' but also connected to the many national and religious movements that are on the move and of which terrorism is indeed an expression. Naturally, I don't go for identity politics. As the late, great and much missed Mai Ghoussoub wrote, what matters is background. But for a three word overview of what matters now, it was neat. Can anyone better them?