Interesting. In business, we bought out a company in Germany and I ran it for a while whilst we installed a new management to take it forward.

Speaking to colleagues there, we decided the main differences were that in Germany, you rented your home but bought your factory but in The UK it was the other way around.

That was 20 years ago. I note that in our case it is still the same today.


On your other point, I was a miner in the strike. There were many officers without any way of seeing their number, rank and force, (a legal requirement even back then.) I often wonder if this had happened and at the time decided it was just so no complaint could be brought against a single police officer. If the bloke your son gave a lift to wasn't pulling his leg, an FOI could sort it, assuming you knew what to ask of where. The cynic in me does think though that if so many soldiers had been involved, there would gave been leaks, press investigations and public outcry before now?