Six of the Best 818

"One thing I heard a few times at Liberal Democrat Conference was an assertion along the lines of 'most people are centrists, therefore they’ll want to join us and vote for us if we just give them a chance'." Nick Barlow unpicks this centrist fallacy.

Want a guide to making your voice heard on the proposed changes to the Lib Dem membership and constitution? Paul Walter is your man.

Antonio Garcia Martinez says Silicon Valley's economics are fuelling a new caste system: "One of the most refreshing things about living in Europe (or small towns in the rural US) is  knowing that the poor aren’t condemned to a completely separate, and inferior, life. Your place in the world isn’t wholly defined by wealth. The story is rather different in San Francisco."

"Like a shooting star, Willkie burned brightly, if briefly, over this country’s political landscape, leaving behind an astonishing legacy of bipartisanship that had an outsize impact on the outcome of the war." Lynne Olson reviews a biography of Wendell Willkie, the unsuccessful Republican challenger to FDR in 1940.

Alex Evans argues that we should address political polarisation as a clinical psychologist would help the traumatised.

Richard Bratby shares tales of UFOs and mysterious big cats from Cannock Chase.