BY DAVID EYLES In an earlier article, I suggested that there is an impending electoral disaster for the Conservatives on the scale of the 1997 General Election – i.e. a potential loss of 40% of their vote and the loss of a huge number of seats. I also suggested that there are equal problems within Labour. In other words, the Conservatives are hoping that Labour are … Continue reading Tories & the UKIP Menace
BY DAVID EYLES First it was going to be outside in the street. The lectern was set up. The press pack were alerted. But it was only going to be two journos from the Beeb, one television camera and no questions. It was certainly not going to be a press conference. Then there was a technical glitch – they couldn’t get the power to the … Continue reading A Landscape of Fear
BY DAVID EYLES A rarely spotted phenomenon, sometimes acknowledged by one or two of the more astute political pundits, is that the Labour Party has moved away from its core of working-class voters. The leadership has now fully embraced the demands of its middle and upper-middle class hierarchy and has gone full-on Quinoa Marxist. However, the Labour Party is not alone, because the Conservative Party has also … Continue reading The Quiet Revolution
BY DAVID EYLES In many ways, George Monbiot’s book Feral, is a curious amalgam of anecdote, ecological theory, polemic and autobiography. On two or three occasions, he seems to feel intimately and mystically connected to events (as he envisages them) in the distant geological past. These intense emotional experiences lead to ideas of a revelatory nature. So his nostrums for the correction of the UK’s environmental ills (as … Continue reading The Impact of Upland Farming
BY DAVID EYLES Two winters ago, in a spirit of inquiry, I set off early to Camelford and then to the north side of Bodmin Moor. My aim was to walk up to the top of Rough Tor, which is just to the north of Bodmin Moor’s highest top of Brown Willy. I was looking for evidence of ecological disaster caused by upland farming, as … Continue reading On Bodmin Moor
BY DAVID EYLES Most of us are mystified by the current course of events. There seem to be so many contradictions in politics and elsewhere. In fact, many contradictions seem to have become political even when they had nothing to do with politics in the first place. For example, the simple matter of deciding what sex you are has now been subdivided into a myriad … Continue reading The Post Modernist Final Solution
BY DAVID EYLES In his book Feral [1], George Monbiot outlines his ideas for the environmental transformation of the British uplands – from open sheep grazed pastures to wooded hillsides. He argues that this will considerably enhance biodiversity. Furthermore, that the release of large predators such as Lynx, Wolves and Wild Boar, will amount to a restoration of keystone species that will bring about an enormous ecological improvement … Continue reading The Ecology of Our Uplands
BY DAVID EYLES Culture is usually defined in terms of a higher understanding of the arts and other intellectual achievements – anything from opera at Glyndebourne to Morris Dancing and the Helston Floral Dance. But in this post, I use the term as meaning the characteristics and social interactions of a particular community. In this case, the community which revolves around hill farmers. There are … Continue reading The Invisible Strands of Culture
BY DAVID EYLES Upland farming has come under attack recently from a number of sources. Criticism is often levelled at hill farmers because they require large public subsidies to keep them going. Grumbling is also directed at hill farmers because they are perceived to be responsible for ‘overgrazing’ and thus denuding the upland landscape of its ability to hold back large quantities of water during … Continue reading Monbiot Vision Flawed
