Alan Simpson
Britain swelters in an unprecedented heatwave. Tens of thousands of people across Europe flee from fires that defy public control. The Climate Change Committee reports that Britain is falling behind in its existing...
A Man For All Seasons- the anatomy of a train crash
Despite two crushing by-election defeats, and the resignation of his Party Chairman, Boris Johnson remains undaunted. Strutting the streets of the Rwanda South constituency, Johnson insists that support for him is still...
Ozymandias Johnson
‘Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Resist the temptation to wallow in the civil war Conservative MPs are embroiled in or the resignation of yet another of Boris Johnson’s Ethics Advisors. Johnson lurches...
‘Rejoice’ Revisited – Dystopian Democracy
Just over 40 years ago, on 26th April 1982, Margaret Thatcher weaponised the word ‘Rejoice’. It became a term that would forever divide the nation; the assassin’s kiss Thatcherite zealots would use, as much against...
Let them eat … what? – Britain’s implosion of political leadership
The 1.5 million households in Britain facing destitution and the 10 million simply in poverty will have wept at the emptiness of the government’s Queen’s Speech programme. There’s to be no emergency Budget to pay the...
The Economics of Sleaze
If Conservative MPs can spare a moment from watching porn in the House of Commons chamber they will find lots more ‘hot stuff’ calling for their attention in the world outside. A vast swathe of South East Asia faces the...
Meltdown – Confronting the delusions of our time
In these scary times it is hard to think much beyond the tragedy that is Ukraine. Bombed hospitals sit badly in anyone’s books. Flood tides of refugees shame us all. But if any good is to be salvaged it must come from a...
‘Do Look Up’: a time to change everything
2022 is not going to be the year I turn into a film critic. But if you haven’t seen the film ‘Don’t Look Up’, do so now. This isn’t just because the film offers a terrific satire on the conflicting political influences...
Democracy: the Writing on the Road
Forget the shenanigans about Tory Party partying, something far more insidious it taking place; something eating away at the foundations of British democracy. Socialised distraction is just a cover for doing so. As...
COP26 and ‘The Great Law of Peace’
Don’t blame them; the sherpas, the civil servants and Ministers. They did their best, struggling to get commitments (rather than conditional brackets) out of COP26 negotiations. Surviving on caffeine and little sleep...
Living in the Overshoot
“Don’t choose extinction”. This was the simple advice offered by a dinosaur in the UN’s CGI video message to global leaders. The question is whether any have the sense to heed it. The chaotic upheavals surrounding...
Keystone COPout
Sometimes there are events that make you rail in anger. Others make you weep. Reading the government’s plethora of ‘net zero’ policy papers ahead of November’s COP26 climate conference, I could barely hold back the...
Men (and Women) in Dark Times
In her book Men in Dark Times, the philosopher Hannah Arendt coined the notion of inner emigration. What was it that stood in the way of so many prominent/influential people challenging the rise of Hitlerism or...
Are local authorities equipped to reach net zero?
Are local authorities equipped to reach net zero? “Only rapid and drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in this decade can prevent climate breakdown” – Sir Patrick Vallance, Chief Scientific Advisor. This...
Willing the Ends, Willing the Means
The ‘Sun Ship’ (Das Sonnenschiff) is a small community in the Vauban district of Freiburg. Built in 2004, it is one of the earliest examples of ‘energy-plus’ housing; developments that generate more electricity than the...
The Turning Point
Something big is happening; really big. All the pillars of smug certainty are beginning to crumble. Nothing captured this more than the ‘waste’ sculpture taunting the G7 Summit in Cornwall. The ‘Mount Recyclemore’...
Net-zero, not-zero and ground-zero
What a mess we are in. Labour loses the Hartlepool by- election with a 16% swing to the Tories. A new North-South divide is opening up. With the exception of London, Labour no longer holds the hearts and minds of its...
