Withdrawing one’s labour in order to gain better pay and conditions is a basic tool in the armoury of the wage earner. Making sure they cannot is the basic tool of governance. It is essential if you are going to require some people not toe strike, or some people not to have the ability to…
Who We Are
I have my own version of finding role models. When I was 10 years old going to CofE schools in the UK I told my mum a joke from the playground which, it turned out, was anti-Semitic. I was told by her that ‘we don’t say jokes like that Daniel, because we are Jews’. Of…
Dark Morning
It was raining heavily this morning here in Cornwall. I can imagine what it must be like to be without a home, to be always cold and hungry and now I hear Conservatives are beginning to mutter about getting Johnson back in Number 10. The desire to wield power and be in charge has blinded…
Child Care
We live in a world where over hundreds of years it has become acceptable for parents to let others care for their chidden. They do it because they need to work to pay the bills for the lifestyle they wish to have and impart to those children. Yet we are told the best way to…
Words; Edward Thomas
Words Out of us all That make rhymes Will you choose Sometimes – As the winds use A crack in a wall Or a drain, Their joy or their pain To whistle through – Choose me, You English words? I know you: You are light as dreams, Tough as oak, Precious as gold, As…
The Year Ahead
I listened to most of the foreign correspondents on BBC radio 4 discussing their predictions for 2023. They were all well informed guesses and often they get it right because for the most part, the players are all in place. But, as is the way of predictions and life in general, we must always suppose…
The Year Gone By
We look back, we look forward. We take stock. We make decisions But I am not sure that we ever tell ourselves the truth. Meanwhile the planet struggles and in many countries nothing changes for what we perceive as ‘the better’. And years are a method of counting based on the sun and earth which…
Traffic
Coming down from a Christmas in London on 27th the motorways were crowded. It was almost impossible to go at 70 mph (the national speed limit) anywhere between London and Bristol (roughly100 miles) and then the problems continued well past Taunton, added to which it rained. There was only one accident that we passed so…
International Politics
I chat with my friend Ed on occasions and we talk about how human beings run themselves and he has a phrase, that we are ‘gathering nuts’. The animal instinct to protect oneself and survive by making sure our food sources are protected, that we are warm and can maintain a modicum of health. That…
Christmas in London
I have been invited to spend Christmas in London, near Hampstead, with friends who are more like family than either of my families ever have been. Not at all sure what it will be like, the house is huge and I don’t think I have sat round a table of eleven diners since I was…