We’re SO all in it together. Professor Sir Peter Hall of University College London, an expert on regional economic policy, had this to say about the figures in George Osborne’s Comprehensive Spending Review: “Even on capital spending, which Osborne claims to be boosting – actually only after election year 2015, but let that pass –ContinueContinue reading “A Broken Constitution”
Category Archives: Regionalism
The Flag of the Future
Eric Pickles is a Tory, and a member of the Coalition Government, and so one would think no friend of Wessex. Yet this weekend, his department flew the Wyvern outside its head office, Eland House in London, to mark St Ealdhelm’s Day, the 25th of May. View the photographic proof.Pickles’ politics apart, he has done good workContinueContinue reading “The Flag of the Future”
On Banking And Being Boring
Ed Miliband spoke this week at the conference of the British Chambers of Commerce. He called for regional banks to be set up to lend to local businesses, an idea modelled on Germany’s Sparkassen. It’s an idea we first published in our 2005 election manifesto: “a Wessex regional government will support the formation and fosterContinueContinue reading “On Banking And Being Boring”
Missing: Wessex (Reward Available)
The stereotypical Martian, asked to investigate what the Wessex Regionalists stand for, might be puzzled by the answer. At one extreme, we may seem focused on very high level issues, like global justice, including the trial of leading politicians here and abroad for waging aggressive war. At the other extreme, we may seem focused onContinueContinue reading “Missing: Wessex (Reward Available)”
English Is Not Enough
“What we think of when we talk of English traits really narrows itself to a small district. It excludes Ireland and Scotland and Wales, and reduces itself at last to London, that is, to those who come and go thither.”Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)Identity today is in flux: so the Census results tell us. There areContinueContinue reading “English Is Not Enough”
Eric the Ostrich
The Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles, has an assured place in history as the man who oversaw the first regulations to officially recognise the flag of Wessex. Although the Wyvern has a long pedigree, the current design of the flag dates from 1974, meaning that it took just 38 years to go from an idea toContinueContinue reading “Eric the Ostrich”
The Quintarchy
“[The accepted code of behaviour in politics] may be stated as follows: Talk about problems. Never mention a solution. Solutions make people mad as hell… Never excite a minority. Therefore all solutions should be anodyne, even if public affairs need bold and imaginative solutions. Never tell the truth. The people are too weak to acceptContinueContinue reading “The Quintarchy”
Whose Europe?
“Every step forward is preceded by a suppression; every reform by the exposure of some abuse; every new idea is born because of the inadequacy of the old concepts.”Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865)Please don’t call us Europhiles. Please don’t call us Eurosceptics. We won’t be driven into any Manichaean pigeonholes. We might perhaps settle for ‘Euro-wary’, attentiveContinueContinue reading “Whose Europe?”
Mud, Blood & Poppies
Last month we commented, with due acidity, on David Cameron’s £50m plan for a great national festival to mark the centenary of the Great War. Marking the anniversaries of momentous events is not in itself a bad idea. But in this case there are three things wrong with its implementation.The first is the political agenda ofContinueContinue reading “Mud, Blood & Poppies”
All At Sea
Cornwall is bigger than Wessex. Yes or no? It depends on definitions. Land area is one thing, but there are some rights of sovereignty that extend out to the 200-mile limit of the Continental Shelf. And it’s not just sovereign states who have clearly demarcated areas of seabed to their name. So do the devolvedContinueContinue reading “All At Sea”
Wessex Regionalists 