vivweb01blog

  Starmer’s latest hobby-horse, which was given an outing in the media recently by his housing minister and deputy Angela Rayner, would seem to be setting his party up for failure…..  Almost everyone with any knowledge of the house-building industry seems to agree that under the circumstances we’re likely to see during the remaining 4.5 years of Labour’s term, building this many houses just isn’t feasible. The majority of our Local Authorities, who will be directly responsible for achieving the target in their areas, endorse this view.  Starmer is thus either a) just not listening or b) convinced that he is right and everyone else is wrong (or indeed both!)….Moreover, by setting himself and his party a fixed target such as this, he is virtually guaranteeing his government will be found wanting come the much-awaited ‘reckoning’ before the next election. So much for the continued ‘crazy’ politics then….but what about the feasibility of building this many houses – why does t...

Much water has flowed under the bridge since I first published this exposé of our relationship with domestic cats. As an honorary Civil Servant, the UK's high level Downing St. representative, Larry the Cat, has, as always, figured large in decision making behind the scenes, and has displayed some frustration recently at the way things seem to be going.  Keen-eyed observers of nightly BBCTV news may have noticed  Larry making a surprise entrance through the #10 front door  in Monday evening's broadcast. The door  opened as if by magic at his approach, suggesting he was expected for an important meeting of state. It is probably no coincidence that a major decision on the fate of HS2 is in the offing. Larry is normally reticent about things political, but went on the record recently in a press interview as voicing serious concerns about the project  – you can read a summary of his interview at the end of this expose.  The rumours circulating recently that Lar...

  Modern Warfare – The Future ? Introduction An extra-terrestrial observer looking at the behaviour of Homo Sapiens de novo might reasonably assess our species as: ‘..a primitive bipedal anthropoid primate having a marked addiction to conflict….’ This tendency towards competitive destructive aggression is certainly not a new phenomenon – evolution has done a remarkable job of embedding the need to compete into our psyche – and our genes. Without it, we would not have become the most successful and numerous species on the planet. It is that very success, however, and the remarkable advances in technology that has enabled it, that now threatens our very existence.... War has been our principal way of solving territorial disputes between tribes and nations for millennia. Until relatively recently, although often brutal in its execution, warfare caused little real harm from a global perspective. The First World War (WWI) was the first real ‘mass killing’ event for our specie...