*opposite OF individual. (won’t let me edit).

I’ve never heard it put as simply as that but how does that ‘fundamental’ difference manifest itself?

I’ll wager that 99% of government spending and taxation will remain completely unchanged whoever ends up in power after the general election so how big really is this fundamental difference?

Probably true. But there is a fundamental confusion (this relates to the other thread about critical thinking etc) put about by some neo-liberal elements, particularly in the USA, that the ‘opposite’ individual is ‘state’. In fact, the opposite of ‘individual’ is ‘collective’, and this is what traditional Labour believed in.

It is much more ‘big society’ than ‘high tax’ in its original incarnation, and was very much the party of the working person, once upon a time. That there are elements of this collectivist thinking still within the Labour party is often held against it (usually by those who are told to by the press), but without much critical thinking applied as to why/whether it’s a bad thing in itself.

Without that moral compass, that commitment to the good of society as a whole (the ‘collective’, whether this is one’s own philosophy or not), one gets New Labour, Blair, Brown, and a bit of a mess – ‘Socialism’ built on Capitalism indeed, where taxes are raised and spending kept higher as a political principal with no real clue as to why except ‘it’s the opposite of what the Tories are doing, so it’s what we do’. Lack of critical thinking writ large.

Having said that, having a large public sector is surely a neutral thing, not a negative. Public sector workers pay tax, buy stuff, pay for services. The money doesn’t disappear.

Why is gainful taxpaying employment for private sector companies where the money gets accrued by individuals (who do their best not to pay tax on this money) and shareholders/traders a GOOD thing, and yet somehow gainful taxpaying employment in the public sector a BAD thing? Should we not look instead at what is being produced / made better for everyone and why rather than whether it is done by an organisation with a private profit function?

But back to the question – while the Labour party itself has a mistaken belief that it is the party of state over individuals (because that was what Tony Blair grew up being told) rather than the socially progressive party of the collective (or ‘the community’, or ‘the big society’ or whatever the currently fashionable term for the concept is) then there will be identity issues and a blind following of capital that makes the only distinction from the right slightly higher taxes.

Rant over! 🙂

Laugh it up, John. I’d rather have a sensible conversation with no twits chirping in.

Hmm. On reflection, and with the ‘gap in the wall’ reference earlier – it looks like that disturbed area was no more than the ‘pinch point’ where the gap was and therefore all traffic passed through? A muddy phenomenon familiar to any who have been to the Glastonbury festival (John Green, here’s your cue for a good old rant). Still, there would be no harm in a survey – and I’d be interested to see any crop marks, cheers Robert.

To reiterate – I do not believe in buried airframes here any more than in Burma or anywhere else. I do believe that MU’s sometimes buried bits and pieces, simply because these have been found elsewhere. Please don’t take the p*** without reading properly first.

The last above-ground Whirlwind bits. Sh*t

Oak trees around an SLG are quite normal. 23 SLG Down Farm (Westonbirt) had a whole bleedin’ arboretum attached to it.

The latter shot is from the people oneEigthBit suggested, and comes from the RAF, not via the Ordnance Survey. It is part of a set that when put together looks the same as the Google image, so in this case I am fairly confident.

Have to agree. The movement cards for the WW’s read “Reduced to Produce” – not “Buried in a big ‘ole”. Still, some bits and pieces were sometimes disposed of in this way, as witness what happened at Aston Down, for example. I remember the locals, including a farmer who was a boy at the time living right on the airfield boundary, telling me ‘whole aeroplanes buried’ stories when I was living nearby a kid – and later on a lot of clearly junked Lancaster bits and pieces, turrets etc, were unearthed right where the whole aeroplanes were said to have been.. These parts burials did seem to get inflated to whole aircraft, but at the same time these stories are based on something.

Any locally suggested spot would be worth a survey, bearing in mind the complete absence of Whirlwinds and Welkins, even for a few bits and pieces.