Joanna Lumley, her eyes still dancing after her stunning victory over Gordon Brown, Phil Woolas and Jacqui Smith, was asked by a Sky reporter why she pursued the Gurkha cause so trenchantly. She said, “Well, I’m a daughter of the regiment.”
Rather sad that you don’ hear it more often really. Loyalty to, quite literally, one of the little platoons that Edmund Burke said make up society.
Another piece over there.
Another way of putting this is that there are two important questions in our current political arena.
This first is where is that political control over us going to be exercised from? Brussels? Westminster? That´s the question for the European elections.
Then there´s the question of who is going to exercise whatever power still does exist at Westminster: that´s what the General Election will decide. It´s obvious that one might support different parties at the different elections: different questions, different answers, after all.
Nigel has a piece online at the New Statesman.
An interesting point, that we´ll only have civil society, community and communal actovities, when we are free to do so without requiring permission from government.
Nigel’s got a piece in The Guardian’s Comment is Free section.
Talking about the proposed minimum prices on alcohol. Here.
We pretend that we’re ruled by the politicians in Westminster and Edinburgh, ably advised by the technocrats like Sir Liam. The great and the good will decide what is good for us and make sure that we get what is good for us, good and hard. And yet when they make a proposal, attempt to deal with some scourge or other, they are so ignorant of who makes the law, who holds the whip hand, that they propose something entirely illegal.It’s not just that they don’t tell us how much power has shifted to Brussels, it’s that they don’t even seem to know themselves.