Photo by Mollie Sivaram on Unsplash In 2021 the UK hosted the COP26 summit, designed to agree practical steps to implement the Paris Climate accords. Both India and China joined other key players in making significant commitments, and there was general agreement that real progress was being made – and widespread acknowledgment that the UK was providing a…
Photo by Ravi Sharma on Unsplash Over the past century the UK has had a proud record of accepting refugees and asylum seekers. Just like today there were often loud voices against, but the Prime Ministers of the time had the courage of their convictions and made them welcome. After the second world war and the resettlement of…
Photo by Sam Balye on Unsplash The USA and China have agreed to set up working groups to discuss specific issues, with at the same time President Biden issuing carefully targeted curbs on US firms investing in Chinese tech companies. This twin-track approach should be seen as a sensible and practical development. Western nations have struggled to establish…
Photo by Liam Riby on Unsplash The latest report by the Royal Automobile Club (RAC), just published, announced that vehicle breakdowns in Britain caused by potholes have now reached a five-year high. The number of potholes is also increasing – a stark contrast to the proud legacy over two centuries of the country leading the world in road-building technology….
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash The UK has just experienced three by-elections, and the results are very bad for the Conservatives. Spin doctors from the three major parties are now hard at work. Liberal Democrats have no need to spin. Having overturned a massive Conservative majority in the west of England they have now created a massive…
Photo by Denise Jans on Unsplash Last year the UK National Health Service (NHS) booked some 122 million patient appointments, with outpatients making up 80% of the total. With e-mail and SMS messaging apparently regarded as unproven technologies, patients were generally notified by letter costing over £112 million – despite a pledge by Jeremy Hunt as Health Secretary…
Photo by Stock Birken on Unsplash The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has just reported that the UK is the only G7 country where inflation has been rising, and one of the three worst amongst the 38-country OECD membership. The question is: why? The UK Office for National Statistics blames three factors: Russia’s invasion of…
Photo by Lucas Marcomini on Unsplash For the past ten years, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network has published an annual list of the happiest countries in the world. People in 149 countries were asked to rate their own happiness: criteria included social support, personal freedom, gross domestic product and levels of corruption. Sponsored by the UN it is…
Photo by Rosario Esposito La Rossa on Unsplash Rishi Sunak has set himself five key tasks to achieve before the next General Election. The current civil war within the Conservative party suggests these five may not be enough to win over his fractious MPs, let alone a struggling country. He should remember (and Boris Johnson with his classical…
Photo by Zachary Kadolph on Unsplash The first three initials of Boris Alexander De pfeffel Johnson badged him as BAD at birth, but few could have imagined the damage he would inflict on the country as a whole and on trust in politicians in particular. His sudden resignation as an MP was triggered by receipt of the report…
