Decline of the Public: The Hollowing Out of Citizenship'To construct a civilization around the nostrum that the public realm is morally, economically and socially inferior to the private realm is to submit to an alien barbarism in which what we hold in common is permanently placed as second best. David Marquand has constructed a masterly and highly readable plea for the idea of the public once again to be celebrated in British life. His re entry into the national conversation could not be better timed or