Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale includes a scene of community punishment. Not punishment IN the community but punishment BY the community. The oppressed Handmaids are goaded into participating in the execution of enemies of the regime, ‘particicution’ to use the precise term. For the fascist-fundamentalist state in the novel, the method of executionContinueContinue reading “Just Say No”
Category Archives: Economics
Whose Poet?
“’William Barnes, you say? What possible relevance could he have today?’ ‘Well, I suppose people who like Dorset might be interested, or some local historian or Wessex regionalist, but as for me…’. So goes the reasoning of many. It is false reasoning…”Fr Andrew Phillips (2003), in the foreword to a reprint of Barnes’ Views ofContinueContinue reading “Whose Poet?”
Occupied by London
Witney’s witless MP, David William Donald Cameron, was in Brussels this week to bargain over a new European treaty. He didn’t get what he wanted in return, a hands-off approach to regulation of the ‘socially useless’ activities of the City of London. That’s no surprise. He could hardly have chosen a less popular cause toContinueContinue reading “Occupied by London”
Western Spring
WR President Colin Bex speaks truth to power on the streets of London.
Peak Credulity
Must be conference season for the London parties, no?
Cycling At The Edge
“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”Kenneth Boulding (1910-1993), founder of evolutionary economics and co-founder of General Systems TheoryOne of the philosopher Bertrand Russell’s best analogies was ‘the inductivist turkey’. A repeated experiment apparently gives the same answer every time. Has anContinueContinue reading “Cycling At The Edge”
Debt, What Debt?
We have long suspected that the so-called ‘debt crisis’ is an illusion, the result of some highly creative accountancy by City firms and their global chums, aided and abetted by those close to them in the cartel of London parties. David Malone, who blogs as Golem XIV, recently published evidence of just how bad thisContinueContinue reading “Debt, What Debt?”
Keep Off the Cider!
Alistair Darling’s last budget before the election took a widely predicted swipe at cider drinkers. This afternoon he announced plans to raise the excise duty on cider by 10% over inflation, singling out our region’s choice for special mistreatment. Taxes on beer, wine and spirits will rise by just 2% over inflation, so Labour’s champagneContinueContinue reading “Keep Off the Cider!”
Wessex Regionalists 