A second day at Bonkers Hall.Tuesday
Spring has come to Rutland. Budget day finds me strolling on the quayside at Oakham, and I reflect upon the benefits brought by Free Trade.
Once we scanned these waters for Viking longships or German U-boats; now the world’s shipping arrives crammed with the good things of the season: wheels of Stilton and toppling towers of Melton Mowbray pork pies; tender asparagus from the Vale of Evesham and plump sticks of rhubarb from the West Riding of Yorkshire; richly patterned carpets from Persia and peppermint rock from Hunstanton and Herne Bay.
As I remarked to our own Vince ‘High-Voltage’ Cable the other day, whatever economic problems we face, the world must never again descend into protectionism.
Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10.
Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary
- Monday: Sir Clement Freud
whyever not ? The Persian rugs could be replaced by the products of Kidderminster and the West Riding.
ReplyDeleteOnce we've rebuilt the factories.