Et tu, Nicola? It’s onething to have Plaid Cymru singing the praises of an anti-Welsh Green Party but today we had the SNP join the chorus. Nicola Sturgeon has urged folk in England to vote either for the Greens or for a Labour candidate that would challenge Ed Miliband from the left. We would likeContinue reading "The Aye’ds of March"
Castles in the Air?
In our previous post we described the across-the-board hypocrisy of Wessex MPs who still claim to be able to deliver unlimited growth while simultaneously protecting all of the environment that locals cherish. Wednesday’s Western Daily Pressfurnishes a classic example. Bristol East MP Kerry McCarthy was reported as initiating a debate at Westminster on the protectionContinue reading "Castles in the Air?"
On Whose Side?
Population Matters Magazine, in its current issue, includes an article by Ian Grace, described as a professional planning officer with more than 30 years’ planning experience. It’s always good fun to watch when someone inside the system breaks ranks. The article makes points that are well worth extracting:“…If you want to house 100,000 people, youContinue reading "On Whose Side?"
The Great Burh
“Paris… A city that must have been magnificent in the Twentieth century, Dimitri thought. He had few memories of it. He was only ten in 2016, when his family had fled the city plagued by anarchy and hunger to return to Russia. Most of the monuments had been burnt and destroyed, and its museums andContinue reading "The Great Burh"
Labour: A Laugh A Minute
Do Labour have a clue what English devolution is? It seems not, judging by their latest offering on the subject, Reversing our democratic decline: Labour’s plan for Parliament and political reform. The detail is buried a long way in, right at the end of a 12-page document. It arrives only after they’ve swooned, over andContinue reading "Labour: A Laugh A Minute"
Being Sub-Human
The Pyrenees are a formidable geographical barrier, the terror of would-be conquering armies approaching from north or south. What they are not is a formidable cultural barrier. Basque culture in the far west and Catalan culture in the far east transcend them and have done, peaceably, for millennia. The national frontier of today results fromContinue reading "Being Sub-Human"
Wilful Neglect
We try, within the limits of our resources, to report and comment on what’s happening in Wessex. That’s to say, what’s actually happening and not what we or anyone else would like to be happening. Political correctness has been described as a war on noticing. The blinkers were well and truly on in Oxfordshire recently,Continue reading "Wilful Neglect"
The Management of Savagery
“You know of course that no-one can make known any skill, nor direct and guide any authority, without tools and resources; a man cannot work on any enterprise without resources. In the case of the king, the resources and tools with which to rule are that he have his land fully manned: he must haveContinue reading "The Management of Savagery"
I See No Ships
Horatio Nelson is often misquoted as saying these words; relying on the London media might leave you equally in the dark about the ways in which the governance of Wessex is changing. On Friday, the Coalition announced yet more devolution to Wales. An extensive package in fact, even though, as Plaid Cymru have noted, itContinue reading "I See No Ships"
The Pecking Order
Irish nationalists have sometimes found the Scots and Welsh a bit puzzling. Ireland, as a separate island, is clearly not British. At best it’s one of the British Isles but even that’s controversial, with neutral commentators preferring something along the lines of ‘the North Atlantic archipelago’. Great Britain though is one land mass, from Land’sContinue reading "The Pecking Order"
Wessex Regionalists 