Last year’s commemorations of the First World War were a good excuse to re-open old wounds and close our eyes to modern Europe. Now consider that 2015 marks the 200th anniversary of Waterloo and the 600th anniversary of Agincourt. In 2014 the French were our glorious allies against the Hun. This year, it will beContinueContinue reading “The Spirit of ‘15”
Tag Archives: Health
Whose Hospitals?
“I don’t know how much any of you realise that with the Lansley act we pretty much gave away control of the NHS… we don’t really have day-to-day control.” Jane Ellison, Public Health Minister (June 2014)In Scotland and Wales, car parking charges at hospitals have been largely abolished. That’s one of the consequences of devolution.InContinueContinue reading “Whose Hospitals?”
Softly, Softly
Angus Macpherson is Police & Crime Commissioner for Wiltshire Police. He recently told a business breakfast meeting that the police were now working as a region, taking in Gloucestershire, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall, but, he added, “We will not lose Wiltshire Police – neighbourhood members of the police, working and living in local communities. ItContinueContinue reading “Softly, Softly”
Punishing The Toys
Windsor Castle is home to more than a few of the 1,200 items of ivory in the Royal Collection. The 1,200 items that Prince William would like to have destroyed as a gesture against poachers in Africa. Never mind that he’s not above (legally) shooting the odd bit of wildlife himself. The fact is thatContinueContinue reading “Punishing The Toys”
No Heritage Soon
Where did the inspiration come from for our National Health Service? Historians have a habit, given that Nye Bevan was a Welshman, to look to Wales, to the miners’ and metalworkers’ mutual aid schemes at Tredegar and elsewhere.Wessex has at least as good a claim. The Mechanics’ Institute at Swindon, opened in 1855 and paidContinueContinue reading “No Heritage Soon”
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’”
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”
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”
Whither Wessex?
“At a number of places in his celebrated Imperialism (1902), J. A. Hobson used southern England as an image of the successful, imperialist side of British capitalism: a countryside of plush ‘parasitism’ drawing tribute from overseas via the City, supporting ‘great tame masses of retainers’ in service and secondary industries, and riddled with ex-imperialist hirelings.ContinueContinue reading “Whither Wessex?”
Food is the Future
We’ve nothing against townies. Many of us live in towns. Some exiles even live, in Babylonish captivity, in the very heart of London itself. But as Wessex Regionalists, we all know better than to believe that food grows itself on supermarket shelves.If only that realisation were universally shared. London, which grows next to nothing itself,ContinueContinue reading “Food is the Future”
Wessex Regionalists 