The love of money as a possession – as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyment and realities of life- will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity
John Maynard Keynes
Today is John Maynard Keynes’ birthday (he would have been 130 this year).
Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty
Albert Einstein
In the news last week was a disturbing analysis from 25 conservation charities, called State of Nature, reporting that our wildlife is facing a steep decline, with beetles and wildflowers partic
A family with the wrong members in control; that, perhaps, is as near as one comes to describing England in a phrase.
In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman, and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings.
As I write, helicopters are hovering above my office on The Strand, preparing to usher Baroness Thatcher towards her final resting place. For those of us born in the 1970′s, it’s hard to over-emphasise the long shadow of Thatcher, and the impact of Thatcherism on our lives.
27 March is the 50th anniversary of the first Beeching Report, The Reshaping of British Railways, which changed the face of British transport forever. Railways shaped the modern world – through engineering, craftsmanship, aesthetics, enterprise and the democratising of travel.
“Merely external emancipation has made of the modern woman an artificial being. Now, woman is confronted with the necessity of emancipating herself from emancipation, if she really desires to be free.
“The power that money gives is that of brute force, it is the power of the bludgeon or the bayonet.”
On 9 March it is 250 years since William Cobbett, whom Karl Marx described as “the creator of old English Radicalism”, was born.
The ongoing scandal about horsemeat found in a range of processed and pre-packaged foods has exposed some of the major fault lines in the UK’s food system. These come up periodically in food scares or panics (E-coli, BSE, Salmonella etc).
Only the little people pay taxes – Leona Helmsley, American businesswoman
One critique of the recipients of welfare is that overly generous state support creates cultures of entitlement and dependency, hollowing out the drive to entrepreneurialism, self-improvement and independence.