LAST year saw many goodbyes, to me the most poignant was not a death but a retirement. On December 28, the great American economist Thomas Sowell virtually unknown in the UK, decided at the age of 86 to put down his pen. With more than 50 books to his name he has earned his rest.

Sowell took the long road, he suffering racial prejudice in the ‘Jim Crow’ South and later poverty in the New York Bronx. He left college, in spite of being tutored by Milton Friedman, a Marxist. One summer however working for the government and an innate ability to think for himself turned him into a formidable critic of socialism, political correctness and grievance politics.

Like Orwell he spurned gobbledygook he communicated in clear economical and accessible prose. If you want to understand economics as opposed to virtue signalling, which many on the left try to pass off as deep thought, you should read his classic, Basic Economics.

His quotations are legendary; my favourite is “people who like meetings should not be in charge of anything”. I have often pondered the significance of that during full council.

Cllr Martyn Cox

Westhoughton North and Chew Moor