Utopia, you are standing in it!

They’re very old men, now — all in their ’90s — and very few in number. The world war killed almost one in two airmen from their ranks, and the 75 or so intervening years have taken almost all those who survived.

But the few living pilots, navigators, gunners, radio-men and “bomb aimers” (how the Brits labeled bombardiers) gathered for one more remembrance of their duty, the perils they faced and the “dirty” work of bombing the enemy’s cities from their “Lancaster” bombers in a new documentary from the folks who made “Spitfire.”

“Lancaster” is a wide-ranging appreciation of one of the finest aircraft of World War II, a graceful Rolls-Royce powered marvel that carried the heaviest payloads of the European theater as Britain’s instrument for “taking the war to Germany” for air raids — often at night — that leveled many a Germany city.

Although most of those interviewed…

1322 – Robert I the Bruce, King of Scotland defeats King Edward II of England at the Battle of Old Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scotland’s independence.

The Battle of Old Byland (also known as the Battle of Byland Abbey, the Battle of Byland Moor and the Battle of Scotch Corner) was a significant encounter between Scots and English troops in Yorkshire in on October 14, 1322, forming part of the Wars of Scottish Independence. It was a victory for the Scots, the most significant since Bannockburn.

Ever since Robert Bruce’s victory at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, the Scots had taken the initiative in the wars with England, raiding deep into the north of the country repeatedly and with comparative ease to attempt to force the English to the peace-table.

The English king, Edward II seemed incapable of dealing with the problem, distracted, as he often was, in…

The new Government is clearly in an almighty mess, but I’ll leave the political commentary to others. Here are some thoughts on the economics and the markets.

Let’s start by summarising what went wrong. The tipping point was the mini-Budget in September. The mistake here was not the Energy Price Guarantee, or the cancellation of the increases in National Insurance and Corporation Tax. After all, these measures had already been discounted by the markets. It was not even the absence of the usual OBR analysis. That omission was not a surprise, either.

Instead, investors were spooked by the unexpected announcements of the additional cuts in income taxes, and by Kwasi Kwarteng’s apparent doubling down on tax cuts on Sunday, despite the markets’ obvious and growing concerns about fiscal credibility.

It is just about conceivable that this storm could have passed. Many independent economic commentators initially welcomed the broad thrust of…

On August 11, 1586, after being implicated in the Babington Plot, Queen Mary I was arrested while out riding and taken to Tixall Hall in Staffordshire. In a successful attempt to entrap her, Walsingham had deliberately arranged for Mary’s letters to be smuggled out of Chartley. Mary was misled into thinking her letters were secure, while in reality they were deciphered and read by Walsingham. From these letters it was clear that Mary had sanctioned the attempted assassination of Elizabeth. Mary was moved to Fotheringhay Castle in a four-day journey ending on September 25.

On October 14, she was put on trial for treason under the Act for the Queen’s Safety before a court of 36 noblemen, including Cecil, Shrewsbury, and Walsingham.

Spirited in her defence, Mary denied the charges. She told her triers, “Look to your consciences and remember that the theatre of the whole world is wider than…

The Battle of Hastings was fought on October 14, 1066 between the Norman-French army of William II, Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold II Godwinson, beginning the Norman conquest of England. It took place approximately 7 mi (11 km) northwest of Hastings, close to the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex, and was a decisive Norman victory. Senlac Hill (or Senlac Ridge) is the generally accepted location in which Harold Godwinson deployed his army for the Battle of Hastings. It is located near what is now the town of Battle, East Sussex.

The background to the battle was the death of the childless King Edward the Confessor in January 1066, which set up a succession struggle between several claimants to his throne. Harold Godwinson was elected by the Witan Council and crowned king shortly after Edward’s death, but faced invasions by William, his own…

As we head into Halloween, and the coming lapse of the Government’s Emergency Powers, the Covid Ghoul of the last two and half years has re-emerged with the same siren call to wanting the powers to paralyse everyone with masks and restrictions.

What I do think we need is that we have a system that when the risk of infection rises we have the equivalent of an alert level system that describes the level of risk in a way that people really understand.

We have alert level systems for fires, for earthquakes, for all these other threats. I think we need one again for the pandemic.

Michael Baker

You’d think Michael Baker would realise that in a sane world his time should be over. No one wants to hear about Covid Alert Systems and…