Friday, May 05, 2023

The Joy of Six 1130

David Frum finds Britain is now paying the price for its decision to leave the European Union: "In March, the BBC reported that Britain’s departure from the European Union has added 10 to 20 minutes of additional paperwork to every truckload of tomatoes shipped from Spain - longer if the truckload mixes different produce varieties. Ten to 20 minutes may not sound like much. But multiply that burden by thousands of trucks, squeeze the trucks through the bottleneck of the single underwater tunnel that connects Britain to freight traffic from Europe, and costs and delays accumulate. The result: winter tomato gluts on the continent, winter tomato shortages in the United Kingdom."

"Holding politicians to account is crucial to democracy, but it’s also crucial to the provision of public services. When constituents are able to ask questions of politicians, and those politicians have to take the time to justify what they do in office, it slows the whole process down and can help avert or at least mitigate disasters of policy. It can save politicians from giving in to their worst instincts." Leigh Jones mourns the death of democracy on Teesside.

"The tragic death of Ruth Perry has brought extraordinary, unprecedented unity to the education community. It launched literally dozens of blog posts and articles in the press; it has featured in news and current affairs programmes; it has been the subject of radio phone-ins, a BBC documentary, and countless conversations in staff rooms all over the land." John Cosgrove says we are living English education’s 'Me Too' moment, with the focus firmly on Ofsted and its practices.

Who gets to play cricket in England is a question of class - Daniel Norcross reviews Duncan Stones's Different Class: The Untold Story of English Cricket.

Lynne About Loughborough on the Leicestershire town's connections with the Festival of Britain.

A London Inheritance follows his father to Ely in 1952.

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