Practical is political...

Readers write in to ask why they haven’t seen a thing in the magazine almost as often as they ask ‘what were you thinking publishing that?’ This month, Chris Caswell asked why the Midget 26 hasn’t had a mention since the 1990s, while in the published letters (page 12) we are firmly rebuked for ‘the temerity’ to express political leanings.

Well – to answer the first complaint – good question! The Midget range sounds like a very interesting series of used yachts. And to the second: I tend to agree. Contributors often send articles containing scathing political opinions and for the most part we edit them out, or suggest ‘toning them down’. We ought to call out the government without homing in on any one individual; attack the position, not the person.

So what issues and positions are we focussed in on this month? See page 82 for Kia Koropp’s report on her family’s time in the unspoiled paradise that is the Chagos Islands, which doesn’t shy away from the long-running dispute about why there are no people residing there.

And see page 72 for a reminder of the terrorist act perpetrated in New Zealand against Greenpeace by French spies one night in 1985.

And see the news pages for the latest on Brexit: how English, Scottish and Welsh pets may soon be banned from arriving in Northern Ireland on private vessels; and about how British cruisers are now uncertain about crossing borders all across the EU.

And do keep writing in!

The Chagos Islands are an uninhabited nature reserve, but there is a long-running dispute over UK government’s actions toward the Chagossians in the 1970s