Gormley: Why liberalism itself spurs us to be alone

In our loneliness we are never alone. It is the one thing thought to bring us together – our loneliness.
So many of us feel lonely that doctors are calling it an epidemic; so many of us feel lonely that the United Kingdom is appointing a Minister of Loneliness. Loneliness en masse is a mental-health crisis, we’re told, just the sort of mental-health crisis that medicine and bureaucracy might resolve.
And it’s certainly conceivable that in some way these things could help, perha