Monthly Archives: May 2011

Mrs. Caroline Spelman MP Environment Secretary, House of Commons Dear Caroline, I have read your reported comments warning that climate change could lead to the disruption of power supplies, with adverse consequences for our railways and other infrastructure. But with … Continue reading →

The tired old arguments for EU integration have been rebutted again and again, but still they rear their heads, and are trotted out parrot-fashion by apologists for the system.  I have spent a lot of time refuting them, but like … Continue reading →

An event has just taken place which causes me to fear for the future of the United Kingdom.  Of course I am aware that there are all sorts of arguments in favour of, and against, the Union of Great Britain … Continue reading →

Is it a piece of complex Arabic/Islamic geometric artwork?  Is it a detail view of Catherine & William’s wedding cake?  A force field on the Starship Enterprise?  Or a preview of a Doctor Who set? No.  It’s a vertical view … Continue reading →

I have written often about my fascination with the Catalan architect Gaudi (second only to my respect for our own Sir Edwin Lutyens), and his masterwork the Eglisa de la Sagrada Familia, or the Expiatory Temple of the Holy Family, … Continue reading →

Elections are often tense, fraught and somewhat hectic, but in Derby yesterday problems of a rather worrying sort arose.  My Press Officer Neelam Cartmell stood as a Conservative candidate in the Abbey ward of Derby City, and came across problems … Continue reading →

The media are wrestling with the conundrum that resentment against the Coalition was almost wholly focussed on the Lib-Dems, when arguably the Conservatives bore more responsibility.  The debate has become ever more convoluted and further from the point. Actually it’s … Continue reading →

“They give us back a little of our own money; they tell us what to do with it; then they expect us to be grateful”.  I coined this aphorism ten years ago, and have been repeating it at every opportunity, but … Continue reading →

 “If it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change”.  This line, so Wikipedia tells me, has been misattributed to Burke, Disraeli, George Bernard Shaw and John F. Kennedy, but was actually said first by Lucius Cary, … Continue reading →

Un espace partagé, un avenir concerté.  That’s the slogan of the EU’s new Arc Manche region — which takes in most of southern England, plus northern France and the Pas de Calais.  Find it at http://www.arcmanche.com. I picked this story … Continue reading →

On my last piece, on pet ownership, I got a comment from Alfred: Genesis 1:26, Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and … Continue reading →