Category — Britain

Yesterday saw the launch of a major lobbying effort by ABTA, for a so-called “Fair Tax on Flying“:

The Fair Tax on Flying  campaign is an alliance of more than 25 airlines, airports, tour operators, destinations and trade associations who are uniting to call on the Government to make the system of aviation tax in the UK fairer.  We already pay the highest levels of aviation tax of any nation in Europe.

By fairer, of course, they largely mean lower. Or, at least, no higher than it is under current APD 4-band rules: £12 per person for economy class flights to Europe, £60 for the USA, and £85 to Australia, for example. There is a Facebook group, which has attracted “Likes” from plenty of respectable travel industry names, alongside the odd anti-all-tax nut and corporates with an obvious interest. Major players at the top level of the industry (largely the CEOs and MDs of the big airports, airlines, and large outbound tour operators) have written to the Chancellor outlining their case (pdf).

If the idea is to “unite the travel industry” behind the campaign, I’m afraid I’m not joining. [Read more →]

It’s been a busy few months working on two new guidebooks plus the new edition of an Italian phrasebook, but here are links to a couple of my recent contributions in print.

Every September, history and architecture buffs have a field day as countless private and government buildings across Britain throw open their doors to visitors – for free.

For Singapore Airlines’ SilverKris magazine; read it all at silverkris.com

One of my favourite Dorset walks takes me in and around the “ghost village” of Tyneham, by the southern coast of the Isle of Purbeck. This farming hamlet at the foot of Ridgeway Hill was requisitioned by the War Office in 1943 (the area was suited to gunnery practice), with a promise that it would be returned to the villagers after the war… It never was.

A short contribution to the Telegraph‘s “Best countryside holidays in Britain”; read it all at telegraph.co.uk

Finding the best late holiday deals online. It isn’t only tour operators’ websites that offer bargain holidays. For the best deals, you have to look farther afield.

Read it all at telegraph.co.uk

First visual impressions of Masterchef winner Mat Follas’s Beaminster dining room are of a tearoom that’s been subjected to a lick of paint and some design consultancy. Exposed brick, chunky wooden tables and a daily menu on the chalkboard give The Wild Garlic a studied “refined rustic” look. It’s not unpleasant, just a bit mannered. However, that’s the last so-so impression this place makes.

Follas’s love of foraging is evident right from the starter: both are delivered in hearty portions on wooden butcher’s blocks garnished with wild leaves and edible flowers. The brill ceviche is fresh and delicate with a whisper of zest, lacking only a grain or two of salt for my taste. A flash-fried and optimally cooked pigeon breast comes with a chunky compote of dark berries and beetroot. It’s delicious.

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IF (Lib–Lab deal) –> 100% reliance on assorted Nats and recalcitrant backbenchers –> Government falls without enacting anything significant –> Tory majority within six months –> Full enactment of Tory manifesto

IF (Minority Tory government) –> Tory extremes stymied in short-term –> (Lib–Lab opposition brings government down, takes blame as ‘irresponsible in time of crisis’) OR (Cameron goes for dissolution at time to suit Tories) –> Tory majority within a year –> Full enactment of Tory manifesto

IF (Lib–Con coalition deal) –> (Tory extremes stymied in short-term) AND (Small number of key LibDem priorities enacted in short term) AND [?]

There’s likely to be a whole load of flak flying the LibDems’ way in the coming days, months and years, especially from the “progressive left”. I suggest they accept no criticism that begins without unpicking the puzzle above – one that the election result set them. That [?] might include the implosion of the party. It might also include the large-scale loss of anti-Conservative tactical voters in the North and Scotland, or the gain of anti-Labour tactical voters in the South, or both. But it might just include major changes to the way we elect representatives to both Houses of Parliament. Our major political parties are stuck fighting for the perception of occupying a bland, but pernicious, centre ground. Voting reform (AV is just one essential baby-step) is the only way to unlock the system, to set them all free to properly represent their constituencies.

It reads to me like Clegg has bet the house on electoral reform. His coalition deal, for all its faults, was worth the risk. Maybe.

I wrote a longer, more speculative piece on this before the coalition deal was announced, at Liberal Conspiracy.

Dalston, De Beauvoir, Shoreditch. Not the standard chapter headings from your London guidebook, to be sure. But if you haven’t visited my city for a few years, here’s the bit you missed: London is moving east.

The tarmac thread that links those three is the Kingsland Road, the Broadway of the East End. A trip along its arrow-straight two miles serves up a United Nations of food influences. Restaurants are generally chaotic, informal, and great value. In other words, a perfect cipher for the waves of immigration that have made this London’s most varied (and, suddenly, most fashionable) cultural quarter.

Read the rest at Frommers.com

A year ago, I wrote a piece here about the great art of the Gothic and Renaissance periods, and how we owe its existence to the Dead Hand of the (Tuscan) State. But where should we look for actions of slightly more modern government working to enrich our lives? Certainly not in the unending flow of nutty, illiberal laws; nor in the insidious creep of compliance culture (subject of a memorable Stephen Fry podcast). So, here’s an idea: look to the British Library.

More specifically, their Turning the Pages project, 10 years in the developing, that put our national library in the very first rank of learning innovation worldwide. (See the video.) The project’s achievement has been to digitize 15 (so far) of the Library’s most valuable manuscripts, and deliver them inside an interactive online environment that re-creates the experience of handling them in the raw.
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Last November I wrote a piece outlining the worrying implications of the BBC’s acquisition of Lonely Planet for the Corporation’s non-commercial UK neutrality. I’m not the only travel journalist with these sorts of doubts. The BBC Royal Charter and Agreement, remember, is very clear on how the Beeb can and cannot interact with the UK media market:

The Agreement requires all commercial activities undertaken by the BBC to comply with four criteria. …

4. comply with BBC fair trading guidelines and in particular avoid distorting the market.

Of course, that begs a whole series of questions, but this much is plain: BBC Worldwide activities that distort a domestic market in which the corporation is a player are forbidden. This, essentially, was the basis for the decision to disallow BBC investment in ultra-local video last year. It’s the reason that the BBC’s acquisition (through BBC Worldwide) of Lonely Planet should be reversed at the first opportunity. [Read more →]

It’s a commonplace on this site that one should “defend” the BBC from unceasing, unsubtle and rather tiresome attacks from trenchant right-wingers. Very little written about the organization by either the Daily Mail, or any of its apers on the Web, has any merit. That’s true. The Beeb is worth defending: there’s something enriching about our ad-free broadcaster. Something that serves the public, that stands above the commercial white noise of modern television. Of course, the organization isn’t entirely non-commercial: BBC Worldwide makes decent profits that, at least nominally, feed back into UK public service broadcasting. So far, so uncontroversial. However, BBC Worldwide’s 2007 acquisition of travel guidebook publisher Lonely Planet did raise objections, [Read more →]

It costs me about £25–30 in petrol to drive the 55 miles from my home in Hackney to Brighton, and the same 55 back again. First Capital Connect is asking north of £90 for a return ticket for our family this weekend, starting from London Bridge. So if there’s a traffic jam on the northbound M23 this Sunday evening (inevitable), you can blame me.

If I lived in Florence, a family return trip of similar length to Livorno (birthplace of the PCI, home of the cacciucco) comes to about €33. From Brussels, a weekend rail trip to Bruges, 90km away, would cost us just over €49. A slightly longer journey in France, from Lyon to Chambery and back, comes to €59. [Read more →]

Not long after I moved to Hackney, I witnessed an armed robbery. From a range of about three feet, the fact that the robber was a crackhead was as obvious as the hammer and kitchen knife he was waving about.

A few years later, my partner and baby daughter were abducted outside my house. The guy, later convicted of kidnap and assault, was no Moriarty: he was in custody by nightfall. He was a known local crackhead.

Last month, a 27-year-old bloke had his phone stolen at knifepoint at 6pm in the next street to mine. A couple of days later Jamie Simpson, 33, was murdered for the day’s takings in my local Matalan. It would hardly be surprising if either or both attacks were drug-related. [Read more →]