“He did not know her name, but he knew that she worked in the Fiction Department. Presumably – since he had sometimes seen her with oily hands and carrying a spanner – she had some mechanical job on one of the novel-writing machines.”George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-FourOrwell’s technicians at Minitrue work for David Cameron these days,ContinueContinue reading “The Democracy Haters”
Author Archives: WR_admin
Right Royal Ruination
Prince Charles likes to let his mother’s Ministers know his views. In at least 27 letters to seven Government departments in just seven months, many of the letters being “particularly frank”. To release these letters would damage the Monarchy. And there again, since we now know this, the Monarchy is damaged anyway and the clamourContinueContinue reading “Right Royal Ruination”
The Challenges of Paradox
Not a Doctor Who adventure. Just a series of thoughts for the day, to keep those sociologists, economists and politicians puzzling.1. Couples who care most about rising population have the smallest families, abdicating the future to those who care least.2. Countries that believe privatisation will restore national pride sell their assets to the foreign governmentsContinueContinue reading “The Challenges of Paradox”
The Evil Empire
Incredibly, in the USA it’s actually a crime to use basic computer skills to access military information that isn’t adequately protected. We say ‘information’ rather than ‘secrets’ because to call something a secret and not put in place the means to keep it so is wishful thinking and a little bit laughable.Laughable? It’s very seriousContinueContinue reading “The Evil Empire”
Defending the Defensible
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!”But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country” when the guns begin to shoot.Rudyard Kipling, Tommy (1890)Never in the field of current affairs have there been so many unflattering headlines about the military as we have witnessed this weekend. Marines accused of murder. Retired topContinueContinue reading “Defending the Defensible”
Analysing ‘Dave’
The MP for Witney is a Tory Prime Minister for our times. Not too blatant a representative of the landowning and military class (though do scratch and sniff), nor the child of a grocer, but a public relations man. What you see is anything but what you get. Like Blair, Cameron is first and foremostContinueContinue reading “Analysing ‘Dave’”
The Great Turn-Off
In his 1915 poem In Time of ‘the Breaking of Nations’, Thomas Hardy wrote of young love and the agricultural routine as the unchangeable backdrop to war, the things that ‘will go onward the same, though dynasties pass’. The first verse features a man guiding a horse, still then the unassailable essence of farm powerContinueContinue reading “The Great Turn-Off”
On Track
You can buy electricity from the gas company nowadays. And gas from the electricity company. Confused? Then what are we to make of the West Coast rail franchise, where the bearded boss of an airline is displeased that the Department for Transport so nearly awarded the contract to a bus company? Is it really soContinueContinue reading “On Track”
The Right to Decide
During the summer we briefly mentioned here the Commission on a Bill of Rights, specifically its consultation on what rights should be included in such a Bill, if the Coalition agrees that it would like one.The consultation ends this weekend; the following is the response we have submitted:“The Wessex Regionalist Party wishes to respond toContinueContinue reading “The Right to Decide”
Begging for Change
Sir Peter Hall, Bartlett professor of planning and regeneration at University College London, wrote this week about ‘the Games’ that “despite the torch-bearing preliminaries across the land, and apart from Olympic and Paralympic events that were scattered around south-east England, this was a London event and a London triumph.”“This,” he continued, “can only intensify theContinueContinue reading “Begging for Change”
Wessex Regionalists 