Thought that would get a rise! I wouldn't call it patronising though Col, more insulting. Regardless of my inflammatory preamble, what do you think the chart shows? Remember the sun cream. The thing which has made change so fast and uncontrollable is the free flow of data, instant communication even to the most isolated places, and a rush to instant decision making. I can barely comprehend how I organised my (busy in those days) social life without a mobile phone in the eighties and early nineties. Or how long it took to get everything I wrote sent to the typing pool and then sent round the office in big, colour coded folders when I first started working. Maybe a Luddite attack on the internet and mobile connectivity would be a good thing. At least terrorists would find it difficult to talk to each other, and we could shop in person.There is a great JG Ballard short story about what is left of a mega city after the people rebelled against the tyranny of schedules and timetables, and smashed up every single clock and watch.
How about 1 million people coming into the country every 3 years? Is that sustainable, when England has one of the most dense populations in the world?
This is not a question of 'Luddites' sb. or trying to turn the clock back. I can remember living without mobile phones and the internet - I can also remember living in a time when products were built to last. Our products of today are built to have a life span of about 2 years. Either that or they are museum pieces within that time. The average computer or mobile has a life span of about 2 years, and then ? Off to Africa with it on some huge mound of poisonous electro rubbish where the kids can add to their wretched conditions with a liberal dose of western metal poisoning - the governments there are so desparate to live with the rip off conditions imposed on them by such organizations as the WTO and World Bank, that they have to play ball on this. So, really, it is capitalism which is turning the clock back by compelling 3rd World countries to accept conditions which can only be described as colonial.
Sorry but this comment is about as nonsensical as to say that any foreign occupation of anywhere is justifiable because it led to some improvements in the infrastructure. How many of the present problems in the Balkans were caused because the whole area was arbitrarily forced together for hundreds of years under the Ottoman empire ? The same happened in Africa, where national borders were made for the sake of colonial convenience without any regard for differences of culture or language.
My point was the flow of people and things would be very different in a world without instant connectivity. The people will keep on coming until the push factors - how **** things are where they are - and the pull factors - the work available in the U.K. - change. We are doing our best to make the UK less attractive. Would be nice to work on the push factors too, but our new isolationist stance won't help there. I was using Luddite as a compliment. I'll tell you something, my car will last more than a couple of years. My washing machine and tumble dryer are coming up to a decade old and still going strong. Whereas in the eighties my car was at the mechanics must of the time and consisted mainly of rust. The more I think about it I think your theory only applies to stuff like phones, where the technology and fashion one upmanship rules. How are you going to persuade people not to buy them, without stamping all over their freedom to choose? What motivation, apart from an intangible 'one day in the future the world won't die under our feet' are you going to give individuals to 'take responsibility for their own emissions' (no giggling at the back please). It will involve a significant reduction in comfort and convenience for many, including those in the third world who don't have much of these anyway. The only way you can achieve these things is through some kind of totalitarian government. No matter how benign, count me out, I'm a libertarian before I'm a leftie.
Wallonia: Eight things you didn't know about Belgium's French-speaking region please log in to view this image Image caption The Wallonian capital Namur, where the Canada trade deal was derailed Has Wallonia ever enjoyed such a high profile? Many who had previously ignored its existence are now frantically googling the Belgian region of 3.6 million after it singlehandedly blocked an EU trade deal with Canada - one that every national government in the bloc wanted ratified. But it is not the first time in history that the French-speaking area has punched well above its weight. Here are 10 things you probably didn't know about it. Industrial glory During the heyday of the industrial revolution, Wallonia became the second most industrialised area in the world after Britain, thanks to its deposits of coal and iron, and was Belgium's richer half. Since then, however, the tables have turned. Wallonia's smokestack industries collapsed as Flanders developed a dynamic services economy and the Flemish GDP roared ahead. The Walloons are now the poor relations. Media captionBelgium's French-speaking region is single-handedly blocking an EU trade deal Guns and drugs Wallonia does, however, produce a lot of weapons and medication. It is home to FN Herstal, which makes the M4 assault rifle and is owned by the Wallonia government. It is also home to pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline. So there is some economic diversity but - as the Financial Times newspaper notes - a diet of bullets and pills is not altogether healthy. Hipster Charleroi please log in to view this image Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Charleroi, home of notorious child killer Marc Dutroux The biggest city in Wallonia, Charleroi is known for its grim post-industrial decay and was voted the ugliest city in the world in a Dutch newspaper survey. It also has a reputation for corruption. In fact it's so bad it's good. Enterprising locals offer an "urban safari" through the blight, taking visitors to Belgium's "most depressing street" and stopping by the home of notorious serial killer Marc Dutroux. Graffiti is ubiquitous and the city has drawn comparisons with Berlin and even Brooklyn as it looks to achieve its own rise from the ruins. Longing for a greater whole Unlike the Flemish, the Walloons do not consider themselves a nation or desire an independent state - and this isn't just due to their economic weakness. A poll found that only a tiny minority of Walloons wanted Belgium to break up and if secession was forced on them, about half wanted to be attached to France. Some have even called for such a move, particularly in the city of Liege, a free principality for 800 years before joining Belgium. People there have strong cultural ties to the "chtis", as people from northern France are known. "A mere two centuries of Belgium have not severed those bonds," one Liege resident told the BBC. Belgian fries please log in to view this image Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Are French fries actually Belgian? It's controversial, but there is a theory that French fries may actually be from Belgium. It is said that US soldiers stationed in Belgium during World War Two may have called them French fries because the locals were speaking French. The Spanish introduced potatoes to Europe in the 15th Century and there is some evidence that the first potatoes were fried in the 17th Century between Liege and Dinant in Wallonia. It is thought that people in the area were fond of frying small fish from the River Sambre et Meuse and when the river froze over one year they began frying strips of potato instead. Surrealist master please log in to view this image Image copyright La Pose Enchantée by Rene Magritte Image caption Magritte's La Pose Enchantée Wallonia's most famous artist is Rene Magritte, who hailed from Lessines. Magritte, whose mother committed suicide when he was young, wore a trademark bowler hat and painted in his lounge. His surrealist paintings have inspired pop and conceptual art, the cover of a Rolling Stones record, a video by Oasis, and a song by Paul Simon. One of his paintings sold for $11.5m (about £9.4m) in New York in 2002 and there is a museum dedicated to his work in Brussels. Lost Magritte mystery 'jigsaw puzzle' piece uncovered in Norwich Prolific novelist please log in to view this image Image copyright Keystone/Getty Image caption Simenon wrote a lot of books and claimed to have had a lot of lovers Georges Simenon was a prolific author who wrote hundreds of novels, including 75 that featured his best known character, Paris detective Commissaire Maigret, He was born in Liege and worked on the city newspaper before becoming an author. He also achieved notoriety in 1977 for claiming to have slept with 10,000 women since the age of 13. Audrey Hepburn please log in to view this image Image copyright PA Image caption A famous Wallonian? A tenuous claim, but not one that the Wallonian authorities are giving up on. Iconic actress Hepburn was born in Brussels in 1929 and spent her childhood between Belgium, England and the Netherlands. Wallonia is linked to Brussels through the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, a political entity that has responsibilities in the areas of culture, education and sport. As a result, the Brussels-Wallonia Tourist Board and Wallonia's representative office in the UK are happy to refer to her as one of their own.
It's not an exercise in totalitarian government sb. but rather the reaction of an anarchist. And being an anarchist does not involve throwing bombs, it involves developing self sufficiency in as many ways as possible. It means doing your own thing and changing your own surroundings independently of all central government....just a step at a time, and beginning at the micro level and hoping that some of your neighbours do the same. They may just realize that sharing is fun - it is not necessary for everyone in your small hamlet etc. to have a certain tool if you can share - we need to replace the rampant consumerism of our age with the rediscovery of community, and this actually raises the standard of living (once you have realized that standard of living and consumption are not related to each other). We need to wake people up to the fact that the system which they live in always wants to convince people to buy things which they, in fact, don't need - that they want you to think that 'what you have is not enough'. All of which involves consciously making people more stupid and less human. There are other ways of living.
It also has 3 Trappist breweries producing imo. the best beer in the World. the christmas market in Liege is also well worth looking into.
i was an anarchist once but they threw me out for turning up to meetings on time my dyslexic anarchist mate kept getting chucked out of churches
Not exactly leading by example, more you need to change yourself before you can influence anyone else. But many others are doing the same - check out the transition towns network. there are already 5 towns in the UK. which have their own internal currencies, the Totnes Pound being the most famous of these. You can think as globally as you like but you can only act locally.
I'll be visiting Totnes next week I'm on a break by on the Devon coast. It's a nice town, though a bit hippy twee in places (though nothing like as bad as Glastonbury). I'll test out the Totnes £ in the excellent butchers. Given that many people find it difficult to look after their own health, I'm not optimistic that they will cut power use, cycle, refuse to fly or travel far, recycle everything and only buy local, no matter how many good examples are set. Is this what you are after? Tinker's Bubble..... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-37561938
Well, now I'm confused. Theresa May said in the Commons that she doesn't think that anything she has said implies that there will be a 'hard' Brexit, it's not a binary choice between control of immigration and having a trade agreement with the EU. Which implies to me that immigration isn't a 'red line' issue for her. Or that she hasn't got the faintest idea what she wants.
