It’s fairly usual that big infrastructure systems should be regulated or publicly owned if there is no realistic competition to them. Defining that is more difficult – Railtrack presumably thought it was competing frantically with roads, after all. I propose a different way of looking at it. What if the distinction were framed in terms…
Read More Rates of changeOK, part three of the Falklands 25th anniversary series. The others are here, dealing with command, and here, dealing with Margaret Thatcher. It’s been quite a common idea since the war that the Falklands represented some sort of throwback to the empire, or alternatively a rejection of Europe in favour of it. This is usually…
Read More Falklands Myth 3: An Imperial War?The Ministry is doing a ministerial dead pool for the post-Blair era. Strange concept. I have to say I’m not that impressed by his pre-resignation. Not only do I have the feeling it won’t be over until something like the Czech joke about Bilak’s widow going to visit Husak in jail to tell him how…
Read More Dead Pool“Whoever dared paint markings on a plane’s wing was a swine,” said one of Pierre Clostermann’s comrades the night of the 8th of May, 1945. Latest reports from Sudan suggest you can do pretty well painting them out, too. The Sudanese government has been caught using various Antonov-26 aircraft to bomb villages in Darfur, having…
Read More Desert ViktoryFrom my hometown newspaper’s 75 years ago column, last week: There was the most hilarious party in Ilkley on Saturday night. It was described as a “poverty party” and a gathering of about 20 people assembled in a well-known house with their shabbiest garments, sat about on orange boxes and chairs without backs, with tallow…
Read More I’ve been to a marvellous party..An interesting story from Pacific Magazine on the Bougainville fraudster king we covered back in October, 2004.
Read More Nonexistent state update