It is interesting to watch the politicians everywhere trying to keep up with the groundswell of public need and demand to do the right thing in response to the tsunami. From the BBC I read this morning that...

Ministers have been "playing catch-up" with public opinion in their response to the Asian tsunami disaster, Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy has said. Mr Kennedy said governments could not be blamed for failing to realise the immediate scale of the crisis. But he warned that a sluggish reaction would damage Tony Blair's leadership of the G8 over preventing future crises. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said it was almost certain the government would match the £60m given by British people.

In Canada, the public are demanding our surplus-ridden Federal government do more - and it has. The governments of Japan and the USA have also massively increased their pledges. Seaching for analogy, in addition to the collective action of nations after 9/11, I can't help thinking about the earlier outpouring of grief in the UK after the death of Princess Diana as the last great public moral outburst. Unlike that one death, however, there is a rightness to the scale. I wonder if we are all getting in the habit of unity towards the right thing.