John Penrose became the Conservative MP for Weston-super-Mare in 2005. Since 2017, he has served in the Cabinet Office as the government’s Anti-Corruption Minister. His job is to make sure there are no thieves with snouts in the trough. In undeveloped nations and Banana Republics, petty dictators and charismatic popularists funnel juicy government contracts to […]
Monthly Archives: October 2021
Straight Glass Drinkers Are Not Amused
Straight glass drinkers are not amused, according to a poll carried out in my local. With a pint costing £5 in most pubs, being handed back two copper coins from your fiver is, at best, an inconvenience. Men don’t want wet 1p and 2p coins in their pockets. They want their government to do something […]
Water Companies Have Taken Back Control
We are lucky in this country – the best in the world. Now we have taken back control, we can swim in our coastal waters without the fear of immigrants sliding by in packed rubber dinghies. Environmental protection of our shores was overseen by the European Union. That’s all changed. We have taken back control. […]
Cutting Down the Trees and Capitalism
The earliest form of modern capitalism began in 1420 when Portuguese settlers arrived on the island of Madeira in their tall galleons and began cutting down the trees. Spread out before them was a sub-tropical forest with rare species of animals. But what they saw wasn’t an island paradise. They saw an opportunity. They saw […]
What is Spanish Fly?
They say in Amsterdam you can buy anything – even girls appear semi-clad in shop windows. Smoking cannabis is decriminalised and I was once offered Spanish Fly in a bar in De Wallen by a man wearing an eye patch. ‘It will make your dreams come true,’ he said and winked. Gabriel García Márquez may have […]
Death and the Maiden
In the story Death and the Maiden, a pretty young woman – innocent, probably a virgin – is seduced by Death, in the shape of a monstrous old man – sometimes with horns, sometimes just a skeleton. The two images capture the yin and yang of all things, all opposites. But, like yin and yang, each […]