30/04/09
"History" the dramatist said "it's just one f****** thing after another". Yet not a day goes by without someone proposing a past event or period they say is instructive in a recession.
Learn lessons, they urge, from the 1930s, or 80s, or the Three-Day Week (whatever that was). In the water business we need not go back so far.
Things have changed so much, in such a short time, that quite recent events provide answers to 'historical' questions. What ideas and forces were at work? What part did individuals play? Who were wise, who fools? And, yes, what are the lessons for those responsible for getting us out of the mire?
