• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
John Elkington

John Elkington

A world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development.

  • About
    • Ambassador from the future
  • Past lives
    • Professional
      • Volans
      • SustainAbility
      • CounterCurrent
      • Boards & Advisory Boards
      • Awards & Listings
    • Personal
      • Family
      • Other Influences
      • Education
      • Photography
      • Music
      • Cycling
    • Website
  • Speaking
    • Media
    • Exhibitions
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Reports
    • Articles & Blogs
    • Contributions
    • Tweets
    • Unpublished Writing
  • Journal
  • Contact
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Goodbye Harriers

John Elkington · 31 October 2010 · Leave a Comment

And goodbye No. 1?

Having been travelling in Australia, France and so on, I missed much of the furore about the Government cuts – but am coming across all sorts of implications. Yesterday it was the news that the RAF’s Harriers are to go, something that profoundly upsets my father – for whom No. 1 did a Harrier fly-past last month (see September 19 entries). Not sure whether No. 1 Squadron will go to, but it’s probably too good a brand not to slap on something else that flies.

I loathe much of the defence sector, where levels of corruption tend to be off the scale, as I was reminded when I chaired the Advisory Council of the Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD), but we do need to ensure our national security. The question whether we need Harriers to some degree depends for its answer on whether we need to project power into other parts of the world.

History says we shouldn’t be in Iraq, at least in the form that we have been there in recent years, and it says we shouldn’t be in Afghanistan. But the idiocy of the Bush II regime and the complicity of the UK Government mean that we are up to our eyeballs in unwinnable occupations.

One of the horrors of the moment, watching the Republicans and the Tea Party campaign in the US, is to witness the unbelievable dishonesty and self-delusion of the more conservative elements in US society. It’s almost as if they have a national death wish. Can’t help but feel that in the coming century the US is going to follow the UK down the inexorable, increasingly slippery slope to irrelevance.

Blog

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Introduction

I began this blog with an entry reporting on a visit to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, on 30 September 2003. The blog element of the website has gone through several iterations since, with much of the older material still available.

Like so many things in my life, blog entries blur the boundaries between the personal and the professional. As explained on this site’s Home Page, the website and the blog are part platform for ongoing projects, part autobiography, and part accountability mechanism.

In addition, my blogs have appeared on many sites such as: Chinadialogue, CSRWire, Fast Company, GreenBiz, Guardian Sustainable Business, and the Harvard Business Review.

Recent Comments

  • PATRICK DICK on Reminder of Glencot Years
  • Milton Marino Gómez Ortiz on Tickling Sharks
  • John Elkington on Green Swans A “Must-Read”

Journal Archive

About

John Elkington is a world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development. He is currently Founding Partner and Executive Chairman of Volans, a future-focused business working at the intersection of the sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation movements.

Contact

john@johnelkington.com  |  +44 203 701 7550 | Twitter: @volansjohn

John Elkington

Copyright © 2025 John Elkington. All rights reserved. Log in