AN OUTSIDE VIEW

What is the optimum population of Britain? Of Europe? Brighton is definitely over-populated. There is a limited amount of land and it is almost fully built-up. You could work out what the population should be on the basis of land area and density. London and the South-east region is probably over-populated. This is apparent from problems such as transport, also the relatively short distances now separating one built-up area from another. Now look at the map of Britain. Start at Bournemouth, then draw a line to Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, Preston, York, Leeds, Norwich, Dover and back to Bournemouth. I think this is between one-third and one-half of the land area of Great Britain. Call this the 'box' The only substantial conurbations in England outside this box are Tees-side, and Tyne and Wear (Newcastle, Gateshead and Sunderland), with a combined population of about 2 million. Scotland has a population of just over 5 million, which makes 7 million outside the box. Very few p...

Are you a "Socialist" or a "Capitalist"?. There is a serious problem of definition. Strictly speaking, a "capitalist" is simply someone who uses capital. And "Capital" is nothing more than goods used for production or in course of production - such as a craftman's tools or a shopkeeper's stock. The term "Capitalism" as generally used describes a system characterised by (1) free markets in goods and labour, (2) private ownership of land free of obligation to the community. It is possible to have the first without the second, as it is the second which gives rise to inequality and a perceived need for "protection" and"redistribution". Socialism misses the point, as its advocates rarely question why wealth is not distributed in the first instance. What it then gives us is bureaucratic control, either by brutal methods as in communist systems or by softer systems as in Western Europe. Either way, the results are b...

Whilst first impressions count, three weeks in a country gives you the chance to scratch below the surface. Paradise? There is definitely more care for public spaces than in Britain, and this makes the whole experience of being in the country more pleasant. People generally seem more relaxed and better tempered and teenagers are, on the whole, better behaved, and more polite and considerate. There just doesn't seem to be the underlying mood of aggression that is so prevalent in Britain. You see hardly any homeless people on the streets and sleeping in shop doorways. There is much less litter and vandalism. Public spaces are invariably designed and built to a high standard. It is easier to walk around towns because it is obviously accepted that people should be able to go easily and safely. In city centres, we find pedestrian crossings all in the right places, with good facilities such as controlled lights. In the countryside, we find well-placed but discreet footpath markings. Alco...

Sanctuary of Christ the King, Göteborg Originally uploaded by tji_rornoja . Went to Mass here yesterday. They do coffee and sandwiches afterwards which is an excellent thing as it helps bring people together. Pity about the language problem. My own Swedish is rudimentary, but with so many different nationalities coming here, it is a case of "united we stand..." Same thing in Brighton. The Polish people have their own Mass and the church is too small for them - we should not be separating like this. Sometimes we have visiting priests who struggle to say Mass in English, so why should they be expected to and why should congregations have to put up with hearing their native language massacred? The need to spread the use of Latin in the liturgy has never been greater.

Do you feel threatened by any of these? Originally uploaded by helen.2006 . The hoodie is a product of the breakdown of British society, a process that has been running for the past forty years. There are lots of factors - social, political and economic; educational policy obviously has a lot to do with it. There is a film called, "It's a Wonderful Life" in which a man is shown a vision of what his city would have been if he had never existed. It is not unlike Brighton on a weekend evening, with drunks, fights, the occasional murder. I am not usually around then, but as I make my way every morning through the trail of litter, broken glass and vandalism in the middle of Brighton, past the homeless people huddled in shop doorways, I see no reason to expect that things will improve. The burka is the one to worry about, and it threatens the whole of European society. That feeds on and gains strength from the so-called "War on Terror". Anyone who talks of su...

This reproduction of the original by Cranach hangs in the Maria church in Helsingborg. Really he has a lot to answer for, though of course he was a mere trigger who unleashed pent-up forces. Nevertheless, he is not an admirable person. Libraries have been written on the subject, but in brief, the Reformation split the Western church, and Europe with it. First it created a north-south divide, and then led to the creation of the modern nation-state. In England, there followed the collapse of the social welfare network of schools, hospitals and almshouses which had been run by the church, with dispersion of church lands to the new aristocracy, supporters of Henry VIII and Elizabeth. In Europe, it gave us the Thirty Years' War. Following Luther came further reformers, notoriously Calvin, whose doctrines made room for Capitalism, the Evangelical Right and the present hegemony of the United States. Luther himself was a notorious anti-semite and helped to sow the seeds of hatred which ult...

The Swedes got their government changed. But whether this will be beneficial remains to be seen. The country has a lot to lose. A few years of misapplied free-market policies could send it in the disastrous direction that Britain has gone, where there is hardly a public service that is functioning properly and adequately funded, wages are low and labour costs are high due to misconceived taxes. Which is not to say that it should have continued as it was, just that everywhere there is a need for genuine alternatives to the left-right options that is all that is usually being offered.

There is an election campaign in progress at the moment. Of course, as a visitor who speaks next to nothing of the language, it is impossible to get a true picture of things. However, a few points are pretty obvious. There are about seven parties. There is some form of proportional representation. And local, regional and national elections are simultaneous and at fixed - every four years - intervals. In conversation with one of the Greens, I mentioned the British first-post-the-post system, and his immediate response was "how horrible". But the Swedish system doesn't work. The same party - the Social Democrats - has been in power for most of the past seventy years, in recent times governing with a minority as the smaller parties are unable to combine to form an alternative government. That cannot be a good thing. Blair promised us electoral reform but New Labour abandoned that as soon at it was intoxicated by its first whiff of power. So we too are left with the dictators...

I logged onto this web site PHONEY COMPUTER TEST A popup window kept appearing telling me there was something wrong with my computer and urging me to select "fix it", so I did, just to see what would happen. It gave me various bits of information including my IP number and location (sort of except it spelled it wrong), told me my operating system was unknown and then gave me this information about exe programmes it had allegedly found. "Your system is currently sending private information and documents to a remote computer. One of these processes (Win32res.exe) has just sent us the following information: - \Windows\System32 - \Program Files\Internet Explorer - \My Documents - Drive C:\ files The point is that I don't have a Drive C:\ and am not running any .exe programmes, in fact I don't have any. So it is all invented as a way of trying to get poor Windows users to buy some software or other which probably opens their computers to attack as well as their bank ...

This country isn't paradise but there seems to be a lot more things they get right. The design of public spaces is literally streets ahead - high quality design and workmanship is the norm. And people generally treat them with respect. There is is plenty of graffiti, just like anywhere else, but a lot less litter and vandalism; I was astonished to see a that a sample greenhouse could be left permanently on display in the town square at Halmstad - a town of about 70,000 people. It wouldn't survive a weekend anywhere in Britain. The British bloody-minded attitude seems to be lacking here. This could be related to the prices of acoholic drinks - ferociously expensive. Instead of off-licences, there is the Systemboglaget, a nationalised outlet, and there aren't many of them, so the alcoholics hang around nearby where the police can keep an eye on the situation. This holds the lid down on consumption until the Swedes go abroad. Stockholm is nobody's stag-night destination. T...