We do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate I don’t really want to come across as one of those moaning, rent-a-comment, talking head politicians that the news channels are churning out for our amusement in the run up to the election, but, …
Read More »It’s good to talk
Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, Witty without affectation, free without indecency, Learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood Sometimes those weird days of 2020-2021 seem like we imagined them. Those days when we weren’t supposed to go out and do that most human of things – communicate, in person, …
Read More »Don’t sit back in ennui
Much benevolence of the passive order, may be traced to a disinclination to inflict pain on oneself I’m currently sifting through my reams of notes from the NMBS Conference in order that our report in the July issue gives a proper flavour of what was said, by whom to those …
Read More »Politically blind? Or stupid?
The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, What was he thinking? Was he badly advised? Where were the PR people who could tell him what the optics would look like? Did he ignore them? Think he knew better? Or just thought he could blag his way through it all? News …
Read More »The Longest Day
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory! Good luck! 6 am June 6, 2024. Gatwick Airport, Surrey. Thousands of people queuing, waiting – some patiently, some impatiently – for what is about to come. Clutching …
Read More »Sunak v Starmer part 1
They have a notion, that when people are met together, a short silence does much improve conversation: this I found to be true; for during those little intermissions of talk, new ideas would arise in their minds, which very much enlivened the discourse. It’s a truth, universally accepted, that you …
Read More »Here comes the rain again
the rain came plunging through the leaves as if every drop were a great leaden bead. We’ve known for ages that there would be a General Election this year. There has to be, as the five years since Boris Johnson’s triumphant ‘Get Brexit Done’ demolishing of the red wall, is …
Read More »A tale of two bosses
At ev’ry word a reputation dies Future historians may well look back on the decades at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st as the Cover-Up Years. The decades when wrong-doing – whether deliberate or simply people doing a bad job – was hidden, obfuscated, …
Read More »Schrodinger’s economy
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from regard to their own interest Are we in a recession or are we out of a recession? Were we in a recession or were we just teetering on the …
Read More »Flushing hell
Water, water, every where Nor ‘eer a drop to drink It’s another rant about the water industry I’m afraid. Stop me (actually don’t) if you’ve heard this all before (and I’ve definitely used the quote before), but bear with me, I will get to it. We’re very used, in this …
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