There has, in recent years, been a rather complacent assumption among the middle and upper classes - who form the bulk of policy-makers - that the white working class is inherently racist in a way that they themselves are not.

Both trends reflect what Mr. Greenspan said was the increased willingness of investors to accept low "risk premiums, a willingness based on a complacent assumption that the low interest rates, low inflation and strong growth of recent years are likely to be permanent."

In this very preface, Trilling deplored the debilitating effect on American liberalism of the absence of a strong conservative challenge to its increasingly complacent assumptions.

Larry Elliott is right to challenge complacent assumptions about the inherent ability of capitalism to bounce back from even the most severe economic crises (This economy wouldn't voom if you put 4 million volts through it, 10 October).

This throws me into a foul humor tempered by my complacent assumption that the speaker saw a lot and perceived little.

He cautioned against the complacent assumption that such conduct was merely atavistic "tribalism," destined to disappear with the progress of modernity.

"Our current defense policy relies too heavily on complacent assumptions that all is well," the legislators said in a study made public Saturday.

It was the complacent assumption of Tightness that most annoyed Ezratah, the more so because it was so very wrong.

Yet my struggle isn't against people's true fantasies, which are essential to personality, and are permanently at work in our subconscious despite our complacent assumption that we totally control our choices.

The leadership sees it as unnecessary, for the poll tax will harvest the votes in any case (a dangerously complacent assumption), and as undesirable, for it would undermine their parliamentary paternalism.