HARDMAN

Britain’s cornerstone: ROBERT HARDMAN says our defiant smaller stores still have all we need

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Historians still quibble over whether Napoleon Bonaparte actually said it or not. Yet it has stuck. And it was certainly not meant as a compliment.  ‘England,’ scoffed the former French Emperor in his twilight years, ‘is a nation of shopkeepers.’  To which, right now, one can only respond: ‘Amen to that.’  For as we confront … Read more

Greta Thunberg’s Green Disciples: ROBERT HARDMAN watches on as school’s out in Bristol

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Soaked, woke and angry though they might have been, the younger residents of Bristol were in carnival mood as the Greta Thunberg phenomenon descended yesterday. Britain’s greenest city (Bristol has just announced both an ‘ecological emergency’ and a ban on diesel cars) was both thrilled and honoured to welcome the pint-sized Pied Piper of eco-activism … Read more