Of ruling elites...

William Dalrymple & Tariq Ali on BB's legacy.

Q: why didn't Asif Ali Zardari agree to a post-mortem of his wife's body?

Q: why did she only come back to Pakistan after an eight year+ exile when Musharraf agreed to drop charges against her? The country was in trouble long before that, yet she made no attempt to return.

...tangentially reminds me of an encounter I had in Central London some years back with a young man in his late 20s. A UK-born Pakistani from a feudal family. He told me how he was considering entering the parliamentary elections in Pakistan. I asked him for which party. He told me that it would be any party that gave him a seat, and that he was relying on his family connections. He then went on to tell me how he was going to spend the next day celebrating Eid and going to the mosque, all the while dripping his whisky over my shoes. Prick.