Has there ever in modern history been a sillier, yet also brutally effective, term of abuse than “nimby”? It is a word which might have been formulated by a brilliant but cynical advertising copywriter or perhaps one of the more...
Read moreThe world may be awash with a daily torrent of surveys, graphs, league tables and flow-charts, but there are still those who believe we need more numbers to make sense of modern life. For them, the two little words "per...
Read moreThe morality gap between what people say and what they do is at its widest in matters of the environment. Those who emit concern about logging in Indonesia or coal-fired power plants in China will quite likely squeal in dismay...
Read more[caption id="attachment_1497" align="aligncenter" width="249" caption="What a turn-on: A Page Three Pylon"][/caption] I had always thought that people who actually liked the sight of enormous metal structures in the previously unspoilt landscape were a slightly eccentric minority. Society needs electrical power...
Read moreThe air will soon be think with the sound of special pleading as George “Cat-Skinner” Osborne goes about his devilish work. On the whole, people accept the idea of public expenditure cuts in general; it is only when they get...
Read moreAnyone looking for a neat, dispiriting example of the way powerful retail conglomerates work in modern Britain might turn their eyes to the north Norfolk coast where this week, after a 14 year – yes, 14 year – campaign, the...
Read moreThere is, I am almost sure, a funny world out there. Prince Charles, Ann "Dancing Queen" Widdecombe, Katie Price, Huw Edwards, Wayne Rooney's vice-girls, the Speaker of the House of Commons: no one could seriously deny that the raw material...
Read moreWhen pollsters and statisticians are on the loose, making their comparisons and drawing up their league tables, they seldom bring good news for Great Britain. If the survey is into obesity, teen pregnancy, crime, drunkenness and stress, we are to...
Read moreA small mystery is contained in the day’s news. According to the 2010 Living Planet Index, just published by the World Wildlife Fund, human demand for the world’s resources has doubled since 1966, causing tropical wildlife to decline by 60...
Read moreThese are confusing times for the English gentleman. Everything in his background has told him that manners are what help define him, but in this sharp-elbowed, aggressively egalitarian world, he has discovered that old-fashioned niceness is no longer quite enough....
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