Things about Switzerland ...

  Things that mystify us about Switzerland ...

1. Swiss German. It is the bastard child of romance elisions and Germanic umlauts.
2. Their love of cows and jokes like 'have a nice hay'.
3. Curried corn. It is just so wrong. Unless your chef has spent at least three years at the foot of a South Asian master, stay away from the spice rack. And it doesn't matter how precisely the rice is shaped, if it's not cooked it's still not going to taste nice.Stick to things you're good at Switzerland, like fondue, and hiding large sums of money for dubious people.

  
Things that we love about Switzerland ...

1. Raclette.
2. Rosti.
3. Raclette on rosti.
4. Bread. Fondue. Potatoes. Fat and carbs basically. 
5. Engineering. No messing about. Just put the train line right through the Alps. 
6. 4pm wake up calls, otherwise known as Jagertee, leading to at least another two hours of skiing. Black run anyone? Absolutely.
7. Night skiing with a full moon over an amphitheatre of big mountains.

On lacking imagination and other political faults ....

Yesterday was a very depressing news day. Not only the ongoing stories of war and suffering but now we have George Osborne announcing that his vision for the UK is that we become the richest country in the world. Not the fairest, the most green, the most creative, the most skilled, the most critically thinking country in the world. No, we must become the richest. I don't mind a bit of wealth but if that is all we're aiming for with our collective talent and imagination then I imagine we're going to be one of the poorest countries in the world on many counts.

To top it off we then had London Mayor Boris Johnson on the BBC London news (10 July 2015) announcing his support for a 'loosening' of local planning laws that gives the government more compulsory purchase powers and the mayor more power to override local government planning decisions. According to Boris, the lack of home building in the capital is 'essentially because of democracy, because of restrictions that planning committees place, that councils place'.

Ah yes, that pesky thing called democracy hampering developers in their desire to run a steam roller over every council estate in the city, and constraining the entrepreneurial spirit of the good home owner who wants to add a floor without planning permission that they can then rent out for at least the £1200 per month you would pay for one bedroom in West Ealing. Let's not even look at renting in Zones 1-2, and forget about buying. Boris has yet to explain how this helps the lack of social and affordable housing in the city.

I don't get angry with developers. It is their nature to obfuscate and manipulate in order to make the most profit. It's the Scorpion and the Frog scenario (go watch The Crying Game if you don't know the reference but basically if you're a frog never give a scorpion a free ride across a pond because eventually it will sting you and you'll both drown - it cannot overcome its nature).  I do, however, get angry with government because it is the role of government to mediate, on our behalf, the excesses of developers, not get into bed with them.

So no, Boris, democracy is not the problem. A lack of it is the problem.