Political Landscape

One of the motivators in politics is that prospect of the shining city on the hill. The ability of an able politician to articulate a vision of a future where aspirations are met, harmony pervades the land and the world becomes a better place for all. Naturally, this expression has religious originals. That interweaving of religion and politics is hardly new. It’s us. It’s us humans who give form to our desire to see our communities thrive and adversity overcome.

However, this ability to project hope isn’t the only tool in the politician’s toolbox. The other side of the coin is fear. Sadly, this gets used just as much as in rhetorical flurries and backroom decisions making. As the week has passed so there’s been a fair amount of both.

I like to think that, of the two, hope transcends. It is not an even coin. Our in-built propensity to strive regardless of the barriers and failures along the way, that’s powerful.

What am I saying? It’s that loosing sight of the shining city on the hill and getting stuck in the weeds of everyday gloom and despondency, that’s the monster problem.

Scandals will come and go. It’s a national preoccupation. That’s not to say that such each and every one deserves significant attention. In the most recent one, involving the UK Prime Minister (PM) and a prominent former Labour politician, there’s clearly much work to do.

It seems to me that the whole process of making appointments to significant national posts needs a thorough review. The discretionary powers that a PM has are a key part of the job, but that exercise of power without sufficient scrutiny has led to dangerous errors being made.

Thus, we have a serious man who espoused a brilliant future, at the last UK General Election, only to deliver more of the same. True, the current PM hasn’t yet plummeted the depths of the Johnson or Truss era. A wave of relief sounded across the nation when those two Conservative politicians were effectively banished.

Righteousness is not something that sits well with a cynic. And our daily News loves to adopt a cynical tone. Every journalist must have a streak of it running through them like a stick of rock. On the positive side, in many ways when political scrutiny fails it’s the News media that we depend up. Maybe to shine a light on the less than shiny city on the hill.

At this moment in early 2026 there’s good reason to be concerned. Now, at the dispatch box in the House of Commons we have two gladiators who want to make mincemeat of the opponent but are each covered in a disagreeable mess. Both as a legacy of incidents that their Party has had a hand in. It’s easy to say – twas ever so. Only that’s not good enough in 2026.

It’s as if both Party leaders have wadded through a muddy smelly swamp to meet face to face. To meet covered in mud, slime and weeds that they have dragged with them. Not an attractive sight. Neither in a position to project the prospect of a shining city on the hill. Credibility is low with both parties. These are strange times.

[What might happen if more than 45 Conservative MPs jump to the Reform Party? Crossing the house could become an avalanche breakdown. Will we see the Liberal Democrats as His Majesty’s official Opposition? That would surely put the cat amongst the pigeons.].

Should Parliament Relocate?

I wouldn’t for one moment propose that the palace of Westminster be demolished. It’s an iconic landmark. No, my point is that the building is entirely ill-suited to be a 21st century parliament building. What served well in the Victorian period now restraints and stultifies its occupants.

Across the great river Thames is another iconic building, London’s Country Hall. That’s no longer an important seat of local government. Throughout the country there are hundreds of former Town Halls, now put to other uses. Lots of listed buildings that are rightly preserved as part of our unique British heritage.

I’m reacting to the News story about the cost of repairs to the Houses of Parliament. Possibly six-decades of work at the cost of tens of billions of pounds. Parliamentarians, who may never see the work finished, will need to decide on different potential courses of action.

Let’s be clear. Six-decades ahead takes us to the year 2086. Those at school now will, they hope, be retired as the final lick of paint is applied. Not only that but who on earth can realistically predict the final cost to the taxpayer of such a never-ending project?

This brings home what real long-term planning is all about. Do we adopt a myopic vision based on sentimentality and stick with the existing palace of Westminster or take a different approach.

Buildings, their structure and form, do shape the way we behave. What would be the point of celebrated architecture if such was irrelevant to the human experience. This has been understood in both Germany and Australia.

British architect Norman Foster’s reconstruction of the Reichstag in Berlin[1], finished in 1999, transformed a 19th-century building into a modern, transparent seat of democracy.

The architecture of Parliament House[2] in Canberra is well worth a tour. To be able to walk over the hill, and on top of the building is a profound statement that suites Australians so well.

My view is that an ambitious nation would look at the next sixty years as an opportunity to forge an identity suited to the future not the past.

So, British Parliamentarians move out of Westminster and look for another solution.

The great River Thames is part of our national story in a way that other rivers are not. The River Severn may be longer, not by a lot, but it doesn’t have the navigation that made the Thames and the city of London so pivotal in our national story. What other locations on the River Thames would fit the bill? Likely more central but remaining well connected. My suggestion might shock some people and create an instant rejection.

Our national story is one of roads, rivers, canals and railways. Moving inland along the path of the River Thames, a fast efficient railway service leads to a large town, not yet a city. The ruins of Reading Abbey, founded by King Henry I in 1121 “for the salvation of my soul,” reminds me that a sense of continuity has its place. That’s apt. For the salvation of the souls of our elected representatives, why not choose Reading.

I’m not saying the famous Reading Gaol[3] could be repurposed. Anyway, it’s been sold. But there are numerous sites in that town where a new parliament building would shine a beacon of hope.

[1] https://www.fosterandpartners.com/projects/reichstag-new-german-parliament

[2] https://www.aph.gov.au/Visit_Parliament

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_Reading_Gaol

The most important invention in your lifetime is…

A standout invention is one that is enduring. It’s celebrated. It shapes what comes next. It addresses an issue that’s been there for a long time. That just it – time.

I’m stretching the intent of the question a bit. Invitation doesn’t always have a single moment of realisation. Theory and experimentation come together to show promise. It’s latter that practical applications start to flow from that innovation. For me, the key invention is the beginnings of atomic time. The ability to measure time with precision.

Now, we know that past, present and future are the way we experience time. Not time itself. Having create clocks that gain or lose less no more than a second in billion years is an astonishing feat.

Today, a great deal of the infrastructure that surrounds us, and we hold in our hands, depends on precise time. Communication systems exploit it. We navigate using this asset. Society has been and will continue to be transformed.

Yet timekeeping systems have not reached their limit.

Generational Differences

I believe the Scottish word for it is – Dreich. With that spelling it almost sounds German. I’d pronounce it as dreek. What this means is the weather is dull, damp, gloomy, and miserable. Overcast, wintery, with intermittent drizzle and rain never seeming to give up. Couldn’t be a better word to describe it – Dreich.

That was yesterday. There’s a good chance that today will be the same. Not unusual for February. That said, the cumulative impact is that the ground water is rising and the rivers are topped right up to the brim. That rock hard, dusty, tinder dry summer of last year is as if it was a million years ago. What water shortage?

Outside the bird life is flourishing in these damp conditions. I saw a large white Egret was doing a morning stroll oblivious to the drizzle. Up top a tall dead tree a Cormorant was surveying its territory. Ducks are playfully buzzing around the river’s edge. The Canadian Geese are doing what they do every day. Foraging for anything of interest.

It does not good to complain about this uninspiring weather. Although it’s a cultural phenomenon, the weather is the biggest sources of small talk in this country. “You’re not made of sugar, get out there and do something”. I maybe miss remembering these parental words. It’s clear that mulling around indoors and constantly whining isn’t a good formula for mental health.

Add to the gloom and despondency the daily dose of British politics. So many of us had hoped that replacing one group of deafening incompetent politicians with a duller set would mean that stuff gets done. The boring, but necessary, tasks of governing would be accomplished without endless calamities. Faint hope.

For lunch, to escape the incessant rain, I sat down in a coffee shop. The place was busy. Everyone coming in to get out of the rain. Shaking off umbrellas and drying out raincoats. I had to look around to find a comfortable place to sit. Near the entrance. Next to me were an older couple and their granddaughter. It’s impossible not to earwig in such situations. We exchanged a couple of polite smiles.

Here I recount what fascinated me about the generational gap. The young girl didn’t put her mobile phone down once, in so far as I could see. It was clear from the conversation that she was not allowed to use her mobile at school. Phones were confiscated. If my observation indicates anything, it’s that banning phones just mean more mobile phone use when the opportunity presents itself.

Politics reared its head in their conversation. The granddaughter was monosyllabic about the subject. Maybe it was one she studies at school. She carried on scrolling. Unsolicited grandfatherly advice came across the table. To paraphrase – You should watch that man Jacob Rees-Mogg on GB News. He speaks very good English. He makes a lot of sense. The young girl carried on scrolling.

Oh brother! There’s a generational gap summary in a couple of rainy-day minutes.

I had one grandfather on my mum’s side. On my dad’s side my grandfather died relatively young. Both were West Country farmers. The grandfatherly advice I got was more to do with hard work. Not so much to do with politics. That is except for amusement about the hippies that turned up at the village of Pilton every year. That became the Glastonbury festival. Given that my grandfather had experience of the First World War, that must have been quite a contrast.

A Dark Legacy

Controversy is bubbling away like a broken pressure cooker suck on a high gas flame. I’m just writing about the words spoken in Parliament, yesterday. The case of the British “prince of darkness” is one for the textbooks. This man, who acquired the title “prince of darkness[1]” long ago, is Peter Mandelson. Now, formerly a Labour Party member, he’s slithered through political life, in the UK and Europe, dragging controversy everywhere he’s been.

Honestly, I don’t want to write about this politician. A casebook study of a follower of Niccolò Machiavelli’s brutal manual for would-be leaders. Being a “prince” in this century, and the last, seems to bring out the very worst in those who are given the title. It’s fine for fiction to be dotted with so called “evil genius” characters but in real life these are people best avoided.

At the heart of the recent News is not just a betrayal. It’s the habits and lives of powerful people acting in a way that assumes an immunity from any accountability. Evidence that greedy people collude behind closed doors to line their own pockets. That morals go out of the window.

I continue to believe that most politicians in the UK Parliament are motivated to make the world a better place. They go to Westminster to try to make a difference. To fulfil that adage to: “Try and leave this world a little better than you found it.”

I make this assertion not in a naive way. Afterall, I’ve stood for election more than a few times. Quite a lot, in fact. Over several decades. Sadly, never with any great amount of success. Often meeting people on the same journey. Most of those people I met are putting themselves forward to right some wrong or use their expertise for the public good and make a difference.

At the heart of the recent News is a moral vacuum too. This vulgar belief that ingratiating oneself with unethical wealthy individuals has no consequence. Instead of protecting the public interest and exposing corruption, a considerable number of influential men have chosen to either turn a blind eye or adopt disgraceful practices.

On first meeting, I admit that it’s not always possible to know of the evils that another person may have committed. What’s shocking now is the distinct lack of curiosity that seems to have been exhibited by many prominent people. That’s the generous (Christian) interpretation.

The exhibition of misogyny revealed in the information that has been released in the US is disgusting. It’s way beyond that simple expression. If we are to move forward as a society these behaviours must be eradicated. To leave this world a little better than we found it, change must not just be a word that’s sprinkled into public speeches. Behavioural change must materialise.

Yes, we all have a responsibility in this respect. No looking the other way or pretending that unacceptable behaviours are not happening. Call them out. Especially those with a public voice.

[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/prince-of-darkness/

Mutuality in Aviation Safety

Back to the benefits of mutuality. That idea of working together for a common goal. It may seem bazar but instead I will start with the downsides of mutuality.

Parties who are in conflict often like to deny interdependency. It’s that instinctive feeling that we can go it alone. Highlighting that working with others turns out to be complicated, calculating and compromising. Surely much better to be that lone High Plains Drifter who lives day to day.

In the aircraft airworthiness discipline, I saw this happening during the lengthy process of the international harmonisation of technical requirements that took shape in the 1990s.

It’s not easy to say but a substantial number of aviation rules and regulations that are applied are written in blood. Ever since the first aircraft took to the skies there has been incidents and accidents. Each one presents an opportunity to gain experience. Tragic though they maybe, if there’s a positive outcome, it’s that measures are put in place to try to prevent similar occurrences happening again. This doesn’t aways work but it works often enough to make it the intelligent way forward. When that learning doesn’t take place, the result is condemnation and outcry[1].

So, imagine a situation where Party A has a rule that comes from a tragic aviation event and Party B does not have that rule, or see the need for that rule. Equally, where Party A is eliminating a rule that Party B views as a judicious measure for managing aviation safety risk.

Clearly, where safety is the goal, the harmonisation of technical requirements is not a trivial matter. Disagreements can put stress on relationship. It can from time-to-time cause people to walk off the playing field. To use an expression that became real at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations football final. When the application of international rules doesn’t go the way people would like the results can be testing.

What I’m alluding to here is the early days of the technical harmonisation work that was done within what was then called the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) in Europe. And how that work interleaved with the work that was done to harmonise rules across the North Atlantic.

People did indeed walk off the playing field. One or two of them became ardent anti-Europeans. Maybe it was easier for younger technical staff to accommodate change. Nevertheless, each step that was taken to change or eliminate additional national technical requirements created tension. Maintaining sight of the greater goal of mutual benefit was demanding work. In fact, technical harmonisation is demanding work and always will be as such.

Across boundaries circumstances differ. My analogy is that of saying that it is no surprise that the Netherlands maybe concerned about bird strikes and overwater helicopter operations. At the same time Switzerland maybe more concerned about mountain waves and high-altitude helicopter operations. Each concern needs to be met. Priorities may vary.

Recent headlines saying: “Trump Says He Is ‘Decertifying’ Bombardier Aircraft In US[2]” has a sour ring about it. Political pressure should not be the driver of aviation safety technical rules. It’s perfectly reasonable for aviation entities to compete aggressively in the commercial world. It’s idiocy to compete on aviation safety grounds. This is not new learning. This has been the case for at least the last half a century.

POST: A view Gulfstream Confirms Delay over Canadian Type Certification of Business Jets | Aviation International News

[1] https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20260127.aspx

[2] https://aviationweek.com/business-aviation/aircraft-propulsion/trump-says-he-decertifying-bombardier-aircraft-us

Gardens and a mighty river

Let’s mix three interests of mine. It’s Monty Don[1] I must thank for this one. He’s recently been seen in a series that tours the Rhine searching out gardens of interest. His travels along the mighty Rhine in Germany brough him to a couple of places that I’m familiar with even though he left out one or two that are dear to me.

The three interests are travel, politics and gardening. A TV presenters’ job is a nice one to have when it opens the world to others. Glimpses of fascinating places and gripping stories.

Often over a weekend, by car or train, I’d explore the Rhine River between Cologne and Koblenz. In Cologne the river valley is wide, spreading leisurely over kilometres. In Koblenz it’s narrow with step sides dotted with vines clinging onto the rocks. The river’s dramatic landscapes have an identity that’s special.

Shame that Monty Don didn’t stop in Cologne, but I can imagine that there was a lot to squeeze into the time they had allotted for filming. He did stop in Bonn and started to tell the story of the modern history of that region. Bonn being the capital city of former West Germany.

Rhöndorf, Konrad Adenauer’s house and garden sit in stunning scenery overlooking the river[2]. It’s a place to visit for those with an interest in modern history, political life and the relaxation of gardening. Monty Don took the time to stroll around and talk about the roses and the drama of the life of Germany’s first chancellor after the war.

Further down stream Cologne was bypassed for a stop at the former industrial heartland of steel and coal. My advice to Monty Don would have been don’t miss the Botanical garden in Cologne[3]. This is a lush green and open space in the city that I often walked and stopped for a coffee. It’s easy to get to by tram being right next to the Zoo in the North of the city.

In the early spring the camellias are stunning[4]. It’s such a great experience for lifting one’s spirits after a dull wet winter. Go to the Botanical garden are revel in the bright colours.

The gardens are a mix of French, Italian and English influences. A quick reminder of the ebbing and flowing of influences that have swept the Rhine lands over the centuries. Don’t miss it.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002px5m

[2] https://adenauerhaus.de/en/visit/rhoendorf

[3] https://www.cologne-tourism.com/arts-culture/sights/detail/flora-and-botanical-garden-cologne

[4] https://internationalcamellia.org/en-us/europe-gardens-of-excellence/flora-cologne-botanic-garden

Influences on Well-Being

How life has changed. In the time of black and white TV I remember watching Jack Hargreaves[1] wibbling on about a lost countryside. A romantic world of idyllic landscapes. Rolling English hills and green hedges. His series “Out of Town” played for a generation. To his credit he did focus on people and the way they lived their lives as much as the scenic backdrops.

He’s cheerily derogatory about the urban environment. Although he does take on the sentimentality that people have towards the countryside. In ways he’s a latter-day green campaigner. With a past century traditional style. 

This memory is sparked by me thinking about colds and flu. Winters accompaniments. Changeable January weather torments us in one way and in another gives us a tempting glimmer of the spring to come. It really is wet wet wet.

Ground water has risen to form shallow pools in the swamy field out back. This is much to the liking of the geese and a lone heron. The river Lambourn hasn’t yet bust its banks but that can’t be far off. Cloudy today with more rain on the way.

I’m fortunate in being in relatively good health. I’ve had my bout of winter blues. Now, I’m noticing the slightly shorter shadows when the sun shines. Everything is sodden. Hints of the season changing are out there. It’s the blubs that are trusting upwards from the soggy soil.

What do I attribute my good health to? I wouldn’t put it down to heathy living although the maximum of all things in moderation does appeal. In part, maybe it’s because I grew up in the world that Jack Hargraves documented. On a west country farm were muck and mud were plentiful at this time of year. Deep soggy and unavoidable.

I don’t know if youthful the exposure to muck and mud has a lifetime benefit. It certainly seems to be one theory that is put around. The idea that a person’s immune system learns about all the nasties that are encountered. It then adapts and knows how to fight off the worst of them.

My, and my brothers, inoculation consisted of a wheelbarrow, a pitchfork and a mountain of manure. Shifting this delightful stuff from farm sheds was mostly a manual task in the 1960s. Now, it’s a case of jumping on a Bobcat[2] or JCB and driving up and down until the job is done.

Solid stone-built farm buildings, like our cart shed were never intended for the use that my parents put them to. Keeping cattle indoors during the winter months. Layers of straw and muck accumulated their bedding grew in hight. By the time it was dry enough to let the cattle out into the surrounding fields their bedding was almost as deep as I was tall.

That’s how we earned our pocket money. A wheelbarrow, pitchforks and hundreds of trips backwards and forwards shifting muck. Creating a big pile in the farmyard. Then that got loaded into a muck spreader. The most organic fertiliser that can be spread on the land.

This memory is sparked. Looking at a cliff like face of compressed muck that went back for what seemed like miles. Digging away at it endlessly. Wheelbarrow load after load. A Sisyphean task, where only dogged persistence would pay off. No wonder I was a healthy young man.

[1] https://youtu.be/4e_jfU9eTSI

[2] https://www.bobcat.com/na/en

Disruption and the Gods

Always the most impressive artifacts to come out of archaeological digs are those made of gold. It’s an element that comes down through the millennium unhindered by the turbulence of the daily News. It’s been a repository of wealth for as long as we have walked the Earth. That might be a brave statement. Let’s say people have admired and desired gold for that long.

A strange hold over people. In the last couple of years, the chart of the gold price has resembled that of rocket taking off. If you thought house prices have shot up a lot in the last decade have a quick look at the gold price. From 1978 to 2008 the curve looks relatively flat. Once past that date renowned for the financial crisis then the value of gold goes mostly one way.

Is this good or bad? One might even say – who cares. Well, geopolitics, inflation and monetary policy all play their part. I’m not talking about a precise indicator of these factors, but the linkage is clear. Many people see gold as a hedge against the declining value of other assets.

Geopolitics is a nebulous term. It can mean a million and one things. I guess on the one side of the coin is stability and on the other is instability. To relate the rapid rise of the value of gold to anything it may as well be the growth in the influence of disruptive forces.

Disruption has become incredibly fashionable in the last few years.

It’s like a newfound management trend. Although it’s not. Once upon a time, everyone was supposed to be rational, to create a harmonious world in which we could prosper. Management gurus who said as much thrived. Classical theories flourished[1].

However, they did warn us that institutions and organisations would change dramatically, in time. And that’s the component that disruptors have latched on to. Impatient to change in a softly-softly manner, the current mode is more along the lines of – to hell with it, do it now, come hell or high water. Don’t bother me with any of that risk assessment stuff.

I think, the downside of this pursuit of disruption is instability, insecurity and a latent fragility. Yes, it’s hidden. When a powerful disrupter succeeds the surface reaction is a round of applause. Under the surface the lack of long-term thinking invites an avalanche of negative repercussions. If the current gold price is a crude indicator, then there are potentially a lot of nasties just over the horizon.

An example to consider is the radical move to privatise the water industry in the UK. You bet that was disruptive. A politically fashionable move at the time. Surely a commercial mindset would serve the consumer, improve efficiency and increase investment. Ho Ho.

In the management of change, disruption has its place. If it’s the only card that a leader holds, and couple that with impatience, and outcomes are not going to be good. If they are good then it’s sheer luck.

[1] https://www.waterstones.com/book/gods-of-management/charles-b-handy/9781788165624

Dystopian Future in Colour

Let’s imagine our Earth where everything goes horribly bad. It’s not so hard. 2026 has started with a world turned upside down so let’s not be too pious. Mind you, the horribly bad of this TV fiction is way beyond the worst-case scenario that might be on the desks of present leaders.

Flash forward 200-years. North America has become a Mad Max like continent. That was 1970s Australia. What links the two visions is the bleakness of the outlook for the future. Fallout has more depth than most apocalyptic settings. It’s full of narratives running in parallel.

Max journeys across a vast wasteland in search of revenge. Cooper Howard is on a pilgrimage. Once a naive but mostly righteous man, now a ghoul soured by torment and cruel pragmatism.

Putting aside the storyline for a moment. Hats off to the folks who have produced this series. The colourful and graphic nature of the world that they have created is masterful. Themes are borrowed from a whole host of past sources. There’s a lot of a wild west mix up with a Comic Con convention become real. Tones of borrowing from mythology and classical history too.

The retro aspect is a charming touch. It’s as if the microelectronics that surrounds us happened in a very different way from now. Raw lumps of 1950s technology are thrown up in what’s said to be 2077. As if someone took the time of the Happy Days and spun it on its head. In the same situation would Richie Cunningham become a crusading embittered ghoul?

Another thread is that of the almighty evil corporation. Such a resonant theme. The failure of conventional government and the ascension of corporate enablers who shape society for their own ends. This is rooted in a mercilessly gloomy idea of human nature or at least that which becomes highly organised.

I’m watching series two and liking it. One or two moments delve into elaborate scene setting and forget to tell a story but overall, it’s superb.

On the robotics side there’s a hint of West World. Again, these machines are a retro embodiment of the image of a classical robot. The frightening development – look away now for a spoiler – of humans turned into passive machines to create a harmonious society is hyper nasty. Evil geniuses are probably the worst monsters.

All the underground bunkers have Star Trek like corridors arranged in a grid with doors that make the sounds like we might expect. The people who avoided nuclear devastation on the surface suffered their own devastation in a manicured alternate reality. Their world is one where the digital watch is still a good idea.

It’s the mishmash of sources that this series draws on that make it so interesting. The storytelling wanders around but that tells of the gaming nature of its origins. I’m going to carry on watching.