Sussex isn’t Wessex. We don’t claim it and the Saxon chronicles, read attentively, back up us on that. Nevertheless, it’s fascinating to glance east at present.At Balcombe, environmental protestors are making life difficult for Cuadrilla, the firm that wants to frack for oil and gas. It’s been well described as ‘extreme energy’, a last desperateContinueContinue reading “Fighting On The Beaches”
Category Archives: Public Services
Down The Drain
Thames Water’s bills are set to rise. That’s bad news in Swindon, especially as the reason given for needing the money is to upgrade infrastructure in London. The locals aren’t happy and the suggestion has been made that perhaps Thames should be split into Upper and Lower zones for billing purposes. An excellent idea. LondonContinueContinue reading “Down The Drain”
Contesting The Legacy
“There are certainly parts of the country that are more anti-her than others, but I think they tend to be the parts that have become relatively less important.”Charles Moore, former editor of the Daily TelegraphMoore spoke on the day that we saw the last of the Rt Hon the Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven. At leastContinueContinue reading “Contesting The Legacy”
Kleptocracy UK
The MP for Maidenhead made a very interesting speech this weekend. Theresa May set out what some observers perceive to be her stall in a future contest for the Tory leadership. (Sad isn’t it, that the chatter is about what British politics can do for her career and not what she can do for British politics?)ContinueContinue reading “Kleptocracy UK”
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’”
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”
Responsibility Without Power
We are grateful to an MK blogger in Penzance for a careful analysis of what the Coalition’s pseudo-localism means in practice. It amounts to devolving the running of services, and the making of cuts to them, without devolving the money that used to pay for them. Local politicians get the blame for the consequences, while central governmentContinueContinue reading “Responsibility Without Power”
Tax – and Spend Better
“Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.”Oliver Wendell HolmesWhat defines a community? Among other things, it requires trust. It requires it because it calls for a lowering of the barriers that separate the private from the public. At whatever level, it’s about sharing. Time. Money. Identity.One reason for believing that corporate capitalism is NOTContinueContinue reading “Tax – and Spend Better”
Keeping Up With The Joneses
A letter in the Bristol Evening Post this week berated the ‘South West’ zone’s MEPs for not stemming the flow of Bristol jobs across the Severn. The problem is real enough, as south Wales has long benefited from regional development money in one shape or another. But to define the problem as being about howContinueContinue reading “Keeping Up With The Joneses”
The Biggest Society
Communists and fascists agreed that an efficient society requires a strong element of focused terror – the fear of physical attack. We may think we have moved on but in fact, ever since the 70s, we have been moving back, back towards an older idea that an efficient society requires a strong element of unfocusedContinueContinue reading “The Biggest Society”
Wessex Regionalists 