People ask me...

Well, some folk ask how I can consider myself a conservative when I hold neo-Keynesian economic opinions, am a feminist, and believe the state should shoulder some of the burdens of living within its strictures.

In general I just say I'm for conserving and preserving that which we have which is worthwhile.

For example, on the anniversary of my daughter's birthday and the day we lost the American colonies I read this piece of news:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48868113

And I was sad.

Britain's oldest building firm, R Durtnell and Sons, has ceased trading, putting more than 100 jobs at risk. The company was founded in 1591, and has been run by 13 generations of the same family.

R Durtnell and Sons should be part of the warp and weft of England. And it is my opinion that, culturally and historically speaking, we can't afford to let entities/institutions/businesses of this age, venerability, and importance to just cease trading, or go into administration.

If ever a building company had a claim on English Heritage or the National Trust it is R Durtnell and Sons. And their records and archives are of historical importance as well.

This is a small, national tragedy. Mind you, we have bigger ones to appreciate ATM.

And I see that...

Christoper Booker has died:

www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jul/04/christopher-booker-obituary

The original Private Eye editor. He ended up becoming an irresponsible controversialist, which I suppose isn't a bad thing. After decades of complaining about the EEC/EU in his last published column in the Torygraph he issued a kind of apologia:

“Even those few of us who have been trying to explain the unrecognised realities of our situation since long before the referendum could not have predicted quite what a catastrophic mess we would end up with … By ripping us out of the incredibly complex system that had so tightly integrated our economy with the rest of the EU we were putting at risk not just a large part of our currently frictionless export trade with the EU itself which provides an eighth of our national income, we were also risking much of our trade with other countries across the world.”

Actually, some of us, younger and supposedly less wise, predicted exactly this catastrophic mess.