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An interesting choice of holiday venue Say what you like about our embattled UK prime minister, but he does at least have good taste in a place to relax on holiday: the Suffolk seaside town of Southwold. I am not sure if the locals will be thrilled at all the security types who will inevitably swarm all over the area, though.
Southwold is a charming, small place. It is the home of Adnams, the brewery of excellent beer. Now, my recommendation to Mr Brown and his family, in a spirit of generosity, is to pack the complete works of Ludwig von Mises in his luggage, visit the local pubs and go for some nice coastal walks. As a result of all this exercise, reading and drinking, he will return to Downing Street a wiser and better man.
Sizewell B nuclear power station is down the coast. You can actually see its massive dome from Southwold beach. I rather like it.
One word of caution to Mr Brown’s entourage: a lot of Suffolk folk have guns.
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Knowing the Grim Leader, he will stay an afternoon before deciding there is a crisis which demands his return to London, where he can smash mobile phones, kick over desks and shove the garden girls around, in the way he has perfected and which mark out his successful management style.
I’ll take your opening words as an invitation, if I may, JP.
Trousers Brown, like most modern day politicians, is a cargo cultist. This is exemplified by his, and their, approach to their currently most fashionable totem, “security”.
These people are not expert in the field of security. Nor will they listen to the views of those who are. But they appear to have decided that, if they do enough things that *look like* security, then security will somehow magically happen.
Ditto the economy, law enforcement, education etc ad nauseum.
Or, perhaps I’m giving them too much credit for having good intentions and it’s more a matter of “who gives a flying one, we’ll be long gone by the time the wheels come off.”
There, I feel a tiny bit better now. Sorry (ish) for venting.
I’ve had the misfortune of spending a week in Southwold. It’s like something out of the movies: one of those spooky towns populated by people whose next significant meeting will be with their undertaker.
Gordon Brown should feel right at home there!
Comments on Suffolk: Tanuki’s post took me back some 40 years ago to when I was stationed near Ipswitch in the USAF at RAF Bentwaters/Woodbridge. I was dating a young girl down in London whom I had met while visiting friends in Ipswitch. Her Father, a producer for BBC TV, told me (and this was in 1970) ” Suffolk is the only place in England where one can still obtain a glimpse of the England of thirty years ago.” If Tanuki’s comments are any guide, nothing much has changed–the beet farmers are still in control.
(It’s not for nothing that the crest of Ipswitch-Town FC features a plow-horse.)