Writers on Bristol, from the Rev. George Heath in the 18th century to Bryan Little in the 20th, have seen in it ‘the London of the West’, a city that would dearly love to outshine its larger rival but is not above copying its every move. So ‘a Boris for Bristol’ stands firmly in thatContinueContinue reading “Winners & Losers”
Tag Archives: Democracy
Seizing Power
Those old enough to remember the world before it went completely mad may fondly recall nationalisation as an inspirational idea incompetently implemented. Good, in theory, because it allowed democracy to be extended into the field of economics, so that choices can be determined by intelligent debate rather than by a mindless love of money. Bad,ContinueContinue reading “Seizing Power”
The Democracy Haters
“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”
Changing Tack
It’s good news that Tory misgivings over half-baked proposals for Lords reform may now mean a LibDem veto over proposed changes to constituency boundaries. In our view, MPs, if we really have to have them, must represent the will of communities, not arbitrary blocks of territory filled with numbers.The LibDem proposals for the Lords wereContinueContinue reading “Changing Tack”
Rights & Wrongs
“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise.”VoltaireThe London regime has invited comments on a UK Bill of Rights. But where do ‘rights’ actually come from? The official line is that they’re concessions made by government towards the governed. Politics is defined by the struggle of theContinueContinue reading “Rights & Wrongs”
The Mouse That The News Forgot
“I love small nations. I love small numbers. The world will be saved by the few.”The last words of André Gide (1869-1951)Fans of Peter Sellers remember with a smile his 1959 film The Mouse That Roared, in which the USA is accidentally defeated by the tiny army of a fictional European microstate, the Duchy ofContinueContinue reading “The Mouse That The News Forgot”
The Tiny Society
It’s often said, with an air of superiority, that the Russians don’t really get democracy, that they prefer strongman rule. Democracy, in the sense of open public debate followed by free and fair voting, is something we used to do tolerably well in most areas. But recent decades have seen us slide more and moreContinueContinue reading “The Tiny Society”
Embracing All
A frequent objection to decentralisation is that small-scale jurisdictions are prone to takeover by well-organised, highly motivated bands of fanatics. History furnishes examples, from Savonarola in Florence to the Anabaptists in Münster and the Calvinists in Geneva.The threat is real but centralisation does not remove it. All that it does is magnify its consequences. ThereContinueContinue reading “Embracing All”
Needling Doubts
News reaches us that Occupy Bristol are finally departing from College Green, after weeks of treating PUBLIC open space as somewhere to set up their own Third World shanty town, having first failed to find anywhere more relevant to squat. Surprise, surprise, there are syringes all over the place. It seems that those who wantedContinueContinue reading “Needling Doubts”
Horrific Outbreak of Democracy in Paris
The French Parliament appears to be on the brink of allowing mistakes in regional boundaries to be corrected by a vote in the départements directly concerned. The new law would remove the right of voters in the wider region to veto change – a right that, in effect, keeps folk locked in an administrative marriageContinueContinue reading “Horrific Outbreak of Democracy in Paris”
Wessex Regionalists 