Are enormous and expensive aircraft carriers the best way for Britain to ‘make friends and influence people’? The Americans have Route 66, the Chinese have the Silk Road and in the West of England we have the historic A303. The ‘303’ runs between Basingstoke and Exeter. Shortly after you leave Basingstoke, Popham Airfield is visible […]
Write to us at editor@westenglandbylines.co.uk At least Dominic Raab is talking to the BBC (he’s the one who did not realise that Dover is a significant port). On the Today Programme (16 March) Raab was leading forth on a leak from the forthcoming report on ‘Global Britain’. I may have been half-asleep, but I am sure […]
The following dramatisation depicts an event in the late seventies during strike action by HM Customs and Excise. Two besuited reps struggle to carry a heavy crate through the Port of Dover. Written on the box is ‘Les numéro treize widgettes’ with a cog wheel as illustration. Exhausted, they placed their burden on the bench […]
Based in Birmingham and forming part of the very epicentre of UK high-end engineering, GKN Automotive has more than 500 jobs at stake
For some light holiday reading I purchased the Guardian on Saturday and the Observer on Sunday after Christmas. I found it cathartic to move away from the epidemic towards something equally depressing. I should first vent my frustration because I feel the present tricky position is relevant to all our futures. But don’t worry dear […]
‘Resilience’ is an interesting word. I am used to hearing it deployed in connection with the climate crisis, particularly as it affects low-lying communities vulnerable to flooding, the word implying a capacity to recover from a catastrophe that may seem intractable due to social, environmental, and economic trauma and stress the crisis may cause. In […]