BY DAVID EYLES Right. That’s it. I’ve had enough. What follows may well turn into a Jonathan Pie-type expletive-riddled rant. I make no apologies to those sensitive flowers who might read this article and feel a little faint. That’s tough. Go and read Winnie The Pooh if you are feeling a little peaky. The thing that has triggered me, the thing that has finally caused … Continue reading Signals of Contempt
BY DAVID EYLES In the early part of 2019, it would appear that Theresa May (without any apparent effort) has effectively sundered the Conservative Party into two irreconcilable groups. The first group is of the party in Westminster, including all MPs, peers, journalists, special advisers and so on. The second is the party in the constituencies – the holders of coffee mornings, bring and buy … Continue reading May’s Great Divide
BY DAVID EYLES Thursday 15th November 2018 might perhaps go down in British political history as one to remember. More likely is that it will be remembered as only one of a series of skirmishes by the Westminster political classes. But by the end of the day, two cabinet ministers had resigned, and four junior ministers had done likewise. Initially it was thought that 48 … Continue reading May’s Vichy Britain?
BY DAVID EYLES In September, to great fanfare and publicity alarums, Chris Packham and George Monbiot released “A Peoples Manifesto for Wildlife”. This wide-ranging document claims to having no party political bias, but admits to being political and even controversial. The manifesto declares its intentions to form no less than 17 separate ministries for the management of the British countryside and seas. These 17 separate … Continue reading Do Buzzards Eat Partridge?
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
BY DAVID EYLES Three days after Theresa May had imprisoned the entire Cabinet at Chequers and unleashed Olly Robbins to administer a day-long punishment beating, I received an e-mail from my local Conservative Association. It was an invitation to attend a meeting at which two local constituency MPs would attend, along with the star turn – Claire Perry, MP for Devizes and Minister of State (Business, … Continue reading Chequers & Steamrollers
BY DAVID EYLES So, a no deal with the EU will lead to civil unrest within 2 weeks, will it? That is the opinion of Doug Gurr of Amazon, who seems to look on the bright side of life. In the run up to the referendum, we were told (with perfectly straight faces by those who told us) that the economy would suffer an immediate … Continue reading Fear Not a No Deal
BY DAVID EYLES Back in the day, before the arrival of William of Normandy, the Anglo-Saxons had a pretty straightforward set of principles for the governance of England. It was the duty of the king (or queen) to protect and defend the people against foreign aggression. This allowed the rest of the country to get on with their lives and their farms and their businesses … Continue reading Theresa May’s Great Betrayal
BY DAVID EYLES Sufficient detail of the agreement made at Chequers on Friday has now emerged to make some sort of preliminary judgement. It is looking as if the offer that the government will make to the European Union will involve some sort of fudged trade deal which will involve continued EU jurisdiction over large chunks of our lives. The sovereignty of the United Kingdom … Continue reading This is Not Brexit
BY DAVID EYLES “When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it sharpens his mind wonderfully.” – Samuel Johnson (1709 – 1784). Note 1 – Declaration of interest: I am currently a member of the Conservative Party. However, in the light of recent events, that status is now under review. Note 2 – This article is a follow-on from an earlier article published … Continue reading A Conservative Apocalypse?
BY DAVID EYLES The current chaos and confusion exhibited by the government over the Brexit negotiations begs the question: What will be the electoral consequences of a ‘failed Brexit’ or a ‘weak Brexit’ or even ‘no Brexit’? To answer that question, this report analyses the 2015 and 2017 election results for every current Conservative MP and their constituencies. These are tied back to the 2016 … Continue reading Brexit – Or Else
BY DAVID EYLES In the bleak tundra of the far north of Canada, Scandinavia and Russia, live a number of species of rodents which are very closely related to our more familiar voles. These cute little furry creatures are called Lemmings. Most species of Lemmings eat grasses, sedges and dwarf shrubs. They create runs at ground level under the grass, in attempts to remain under … Continue reading Lemmings in the Lords
