Blogotariat

I try to replicate my more substantial posts on Substack here, but forgot this from a few weeks ago. So I’m now making amends.

When it comes to Magna Carta clause 39 is the one hanging in the foyer.

Keir Starmer’s attack on our planning system is an almost-perfect repeat of Boris Johnson’s disaster. Why can’t he see that?

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 15th May 2025

The precedent is uncanny, and the failure to learn from it downright mystifying. Keir Starmer is rushing gladly towards the catastrophe Boris Johnson inflicted on himself in 2020. Had he set out to stymie Labour’s chances of re-election, he couldn’t be doing it better.

Dartmoor National Park is not dying; it is being killed, and these are the killers.

By George Monbiot, adapted from a Bluesky thread, 11th May 2025.

This is Piles Copse, the largest remaining fragment of high-ground temperate rainforest on Dartmoor. It’s a tiny speck of green in a dismal, human-made desert. Prepare yourselves for a story of breathtaking perversity.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback on the draft strategy. Prosper Australia is an economic think tank working in the Georgist tradition, with a long history of research into property taxation. We wish to raise one major point: the draft strategy lacks an infrastructure funding strategy. The draft recommendations cover several governance and […]