When the government is insisting that the lights won’t go out, there will be enough food, and not to panic as there is quite enough petrol to go round, you have to why we are having such a conversation. We are not victims of chance. We’re heading into the winter of a ‘perfect storm’: unaffordable… Read more
Category:
Society
Money, Government constitutional change and Local Liberation…
There is an interesting article in the FT that suggests we should be abolishing the House of Lords in order to fix the democratic deficit. Regional inequality, the same article suggests, is entwined with the democratic deficit. I rather thought that the democratic deficit was something that was supposed to be unique to the EU… Read more
All the power but no energy
One of the advantages of Brexit was, according to Johnson, that we could abolish VAT on energy bills. Of course we’ve never seen any mention of it since, and now amid spiralling gas prices and allegedly failing wind speeds, and of course a fire in Kent affecting supply of nuclear powered electricity in France –… Read more
Mutual Banking…
I think it is worth drawing attention to the latest newsletter of the South West Mutual – a fledgling co-operative bank that is trying to establish itself as the first such institution in the UK. Those that consider we have already a Co-operative Bank are obviously correct – but not in reality – as it… Read more
Anxiety is good for you
Said no-one ever. But it’s what, I suggest, government thinks. Unless we are anxious and worried, we, their electorate, allegedly, do not strive for better things…. ….in, of course, a personal endeavour, for, supposedly, the benefit of all society. A bit like Adam Smith’s invisible hand. It is not true – and since most government… Read more
Same circus if a few different, reshuffled clowns
The brightest clown of the lot, who is, after the reshuffle, now to be in charge of housing, had some all too honest words to say on Mrs Thatcher in 1987 (27 seconds): Remarkable frankness – and a frankness which he has learnt to keep under wraps since – especially as he is now in… Read more
One way of telling them…
This is Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez at that hang-out of the wealthy, the recent New York Gala Fashion Show:… Read more
What about the workers?
The fact that the HMRC thinks that the recent, proposed National Insurance rises could lead to the breakdown of struggling families means at least that somebody is thinking of them, even if, remarkably, it is only the UK’s tax authority. (Government seem to have ceased to take either workers or struggling families into account.) I… Read more
Beware of abstract nouns!
I like the ‘Stumbling and Mumbling’ blog and its author, Chris Dillow has pointed out how, what he calls the politics of abstraction is so undermining.. Personally I’d prefer to call these problems abstract nouns. But they are broadly the same… Thus we had the war on terror – when the only war was actually… Read more
‘Mere’ competition to Aldi and Lidl?
I am late to this – I confess I did not realise they had already opened – but MERE is a Russian discounter and the Grocer has interesting details. (Open the link in private mode if it doesn’t work initially). This is no frills with a vengeance and described as “amazing value for money”. The… Read more