Last week, BBC1 aired a programme called Millionaire Basement Wars. It described how, over the past decade, some 2,000 new basements have been excavated beneath high-value properties in central London, most notably in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea. The buildings are often listed, so there’s little scope to extend up or out. ThatContinueContinue reading “A Wealth of Possibilities”
Tag Archives: Happiness
Wanted: an NHS
“The power which causes the several portions of the plant to help each other, we call life… intensity of life is also intensity of helpfulness — completeness of depending of each part on all the rest. The ceasing of this help is what we call corruption.” John Ruskin, Modern Painters, Volume 5 (1860)Cornish academic BernardContinueContinue reading “Wanted: an NHS”
A Happier Wessex
What colour is Wessex Regionalism? Our campaign colours are yellow and green, reflecting our core concerns with personal/communal liberty and the ecological challenge, as well as our agrarian roots, the downs and the vales, the chalk and the cheese. Blue and red could have been equally appropriate, given our commitment both to heritage and traditionalContinueContinue reading “A Happier Wessex”
Remaking Politics
“I do not believe in struggling to take power, but to build it.”Hugo BlancoGrowth is what everyone wants. Apparently. So we can pay the banks the interest on the money they created out of nothing.We could join in too and become a pro-growth party. Just like the other ‘choices’ on offer. All hurtling towards theContinueContinue reading “Remaking Politics”
Hippies in Denial
This time last month (30 May), there was a gathering at Glastonbury Town Hall to discuss the town’s ‘transition’ to a post-oil world. It began with a talk from a leading light in Transition Town Totnes (TTT), the pioneers of transition thinking in the UK. Sadly, amidst all the joyful envisioning of local self-sufficiency, thereContinueContinue reading “Hippies in Denial”
The People’s Ponzi
We’ve been hearing quite a lot recently about Ponzi schemes, as the financial chickens come home to roost. A Ponzi scheme is an investment scam that promises investors a high rate of return but in fact is paying earlier entrants out of the money collected from later entrants. Eventually, for whatever reason, the scheme willContinueContinue reading “The People’s Ponzi”
The ‘G’ Word
At the end of March, the Brown regime announced plans to further nationalise the control of development in Wessex. Those who thought local opinion could not be sidelined any more than it is already will be sorely disappointed.Remember that when Labour took office in 1997 it inherited sweeping powers to interfere in local decision-making. WhitehallContinueContinue reading “The ‘G’ Word”
More is Less
Just before Christmas, Labour issued a draft of its new statement of planning policy on what it laughably terms ‘sustainable economic development’. It turns out to be no less than a manifesto for sacrificing our quality of life on the altar of globalisation.Buried within it is a proposal that henceforth housebuilding should be considered asContinueContinue reading “More is Less”
Wessex Regionalists 