[Edit 10th November: Mac app has been updated to fix a crash. Also macOS 12 is no longer in beta so if you are up to date you should be able to use the app.]
I was hoping I could publish the little app I've written to get updates of the data I want about case rates by age that weren't easy to get directly from the UK government website. The data is there but needs downloading and viewing in spreadsheet or database to get to the case data by age and I didn't find good ways to keep my analysis up to date.
To try the app you will either need to build it yourself from source with Xcode to use it on iPhone or iPad or you can install on a Mac but only if you are running macOS 12 (which at the time of writing is still in beta).
To learn more about the app see this post on my more technical blog.
]]>[This post has been edited since the original publication to remove references to the particular school and the Principal as the main problem is the government guidance which is being followed].
I have resigned as a parent governor and as a director of the trust of the secondary school because government guidance has made it impossible to fulfil my duty as a governor and under Health and Safety legislation to ensure that the school is safe for students from COVID-19. I will not be complicit in the government's plans that will inevitably lead to a massive scale of infections and a great deal of harm on a national level.
The current guidelines and policies may have been appropriate if the cases were at very low levels but that is not the current situation either locally or nationally with case rates higher in the 10-19 age range than at any point before this summer in Surrey Heath. Given how fortunate we have been in Surrey Heath to have low cases until this point (about 11% of 10-19 children in Surrey Heath have had confirmed cases of COVID at any point) we are actually more vulnerable now as there will be little natural immunity amongst school children.
I want to be clear that the school is fully sticking to the government guidance, going further in some places and the Head has expressed his willingness to go respond effectively in the event of outbreaks which I welcome. I have no reason to believe that any other local schools are in a substantially better position. Most of the information in this document has been conveyed to the Head in slightly different form, there may be some minor data updates or new different links to research that have not been shared if I didn't think that they were significantly persuasive.
I very much hope that I'm wrong as to the level of increase and the likely serious harms and I keep looking for evidence that it is safer than I think and not finding it or where it exists there are clear flaws in the information (e.g. studies on the safety of schools substantially covering periods when they are closed).
The exact timing is triggered by the failure of the government to announce a roll out of the vaccine programme to 12-15 year olds and local case rates continuing to rise for the 10-19 age range.
Below I set out:
Children are at lower risk than unvaccinated adults but that doesn't mean the risk itself is low and it should be assessed in absolute terms rather than relative to other groups. It is a preventable disease (see New Zealand) and actions can be taken to remove most of that risk. The government messaging seems to be that it doesn't matter if children catch covid and they will only take stronger action if the NHS viability is threatened but there is real harm and risks that they are glossing over, especially with the Delta variant (now absolutely dominant in the UK). In the US many states ICUs for children are full and there are real problems, especially where masks were discouraged.
I've resigned as Surrey Heath CLP Secretary today over the leadership's actions. This is my letter to Keir Starmer.
[UPDATE: 27th October. Note that the letter was written before Labour policy on COVID shifted to being for a circuit breaker lockdown. I'm not sure that is enough but it is a decent position and COVID wouldn't have been included in this letter if it was written now. It might though also contain views on abstentions on the Covert Human Intelligence Services Bill and some other abstentions instead.]
]]>Dear Michael Gove,
Please prove me wrong.
Your government seems set to take an irreversible and damaging step for the country this Friday. You take this step without the informed consent of the country as you have articulated no consistent achievable direction with the big decisions left up in the air apparently not even agreed by cabinet that come after Friday. You have the Parliamentary majority to enable you to do this but as is normal that majority was won on a minority of the national vote. You take the step of exit from the EU without my consent and against my will and the same is true of many others.
]]>Clearly the election result was very disappointing. Emotionally I’m taking it much better than the referendum. Possibly because it wasn’t as much of a surprise (I hoped it could be better and came up with a number of reasons why it might and the polls turn out wrong but they were broadly right).
Possibly the other reason why I’m taking it better is that I did what I could, unlike in the referendum I got out and campaigned and did my best. Mostly in the target marginal of Reading West (which we didn’t gain but got closer against national trends). We also held Reading East so my decision to work for a gain rather than defend didn’t come at a cost. I decided to go for the gain as it was clear from the start that southern gains would probably be necessary to stop a Tory majority, just holding what we had would mean defeat anyway so I worked for the gain that could have been crucial (although it didn’t happen and it wouldn’t have been crucial in the end).
A cheering and unifying day with big news and reliefs in and out of the hall with both Green New Deal motions passing including the one with the explicit 2030 target in it and obviously the Supreme Court judgement dropping during Rebecca Long Bailey’s speech before that debate. I ducked out of the hall to watch the announcement at the BBC stand and came back to hear the end of the speech which was pretty good although I think she misspoke on the location
During the debate there was a lot of enthusiasm and far stronger speeches for the 2030 commitment but if the only unions with us were the FBU and TSSA the vote would be close. I knew the 2030 commitment would pass when a speaker for Unite announced that they were backing both motions. Combined with the clear CLP support in the room that made clear it would pass which it later did on a show of hands without needing a card vote.
Debates opened on homelessness, local authority cuts and housing. Harrowing, powerful personal stories about the state of the modern UK. The diversity of the speakers and quality of the speeches was very high. That such a platform is provided is I think a powerful part of conference. I haven’t been counting but I suspect more women have spoken than men, with a number of speakers with disabilities too.
I’m going to jump into the main controversy of the day: the Brexit votes.
I voted for composite 13 (that Labour should adopt a remain position) and I also backed the other motion that confirmed the referendum in all circumstances composite 14 (current policy and was compatible with the remain position one). I voted against the NEC statement (which was before the other votes).
While a strong remainer myself it wasn’t an easy decision for me and I'm slightly disappointed rather than anything more. I’m not fully convinced that the current referendum position isn’t sufficient but I don’t like the NEC statement policy of a special pre-referendum conference very much either (seemed to have been rushed together and I’m not sure it should really be the priority when the campaigning should be starting). The way it was introduced and presented separately in the morning session and being voted on before the main composite Brexit motions didn’t sit well with me.
I’m very confident that the votes were called correctly and the chair just misspoke at one point (when she reversed). From my seat at the back of the hall it looked much more clearcut than some of the ones called as card votes on days 1 and 2. While Unison was backing the remain position the other unions including Unite and GMB were with the NEC. There was sufficient split that a card vote would have been reasonable but from looking at the room and knowing where the big unions were I’d be surprised if more than 40% were backing the remain position so I don’t think it would be good for Remain and it would spread the split story out another day as the result wouldn’t be out until the morning.
]]>Another long day. I spent a bit more time out of the hall and found time for some lunch today. The most interesting content is probably the last, the Green New Deal compositing which is potentially newsworthy.
More Campaign Creator training on Selections (custom filtering). This should allow to start targeted canvassing even where we don’t have our own data. Might be worth experimenting to see how good the data is and augment the data with some canvassing. I’ll be announcing some sessions soon.
SERA (https://www.sera.org.uk/about/) event on Tackling Brexit and the Climate Emergency with Hillary Benn, Seb Dance (London MEP) and Mike Buckley (Director of Remain and Reform). The session was packed and I think only two present were leavers (they seem very sparse on the ground generally although that is maybe them keeping a low profile and that there are divisions even amongst remain supporters about the best position for Labour).
It feels like it has been a long day.
I got to the conference area in time to get basic training on Contact Creator which I now have access to for Surrey Heath.
South East Labour Meeting including distribution of voting cards of numbered votes that can be applied to particular votes if either a show of hands is inconclusive or they are rules change votes.
Brexit policy forum with Keir Starmer and Richard Corbett. I didn’t get the chance to speak but it was well natured. No real opposition to a referendum and a range of views about whether the Labour leadership should take a remain position but all expressed without anger.
Minor controversy as a card vote was called to reject the CAC report. The principle concerns were:
The final vote on this was 60%-40 in favour of accepting but the accept side was dominated by the union block vote.
Highlight was Dawn Butler speaking on equalities. The person next to me and I both spontaneously had thoughts about whether she may be a candidate for leadership in the future.
On the rule change votes most of those lacking the support of the NEC were withdrawn. I voted against a few changes in particular where there were requirements around the EC make up that I didn’t think we could sustain with our current levels of interest. I was hugely torn on the disciplinary process changes proposed with good speeches against from a barrister, an NCC member and a Jewish member but I decided to back the change which puts greater power in the NEC’s hands to decide clear cut cases. I view it as a test/challenge to show that they are dealing with issues and hold them accountable for the outcomes.
No blood (or conclusion) but definitely sweat and tears. [I’m going to have to have words with Julian for proposing this motion when I see him next as I think the Brexit one might be easy in comparison]. A couple of core issues are risking split motions. It took a couple of hours to get to the point where a starting point combined text was decided on by vote (multiple earlier calls for votes were denied) but after finally voting the one the party staff had assembled was adopted as a base (I voted of the “Socialist Green New Deal” starting point but wished they had just done the vote earlier. I did contribute a little to break a deadlock on whether “HS2” was was to be supported by proposing that “high speed rail” was used instead so I wasn’t entirely useless. There is real feeling and dilemma in the room about how much watering down to accept and whether it should be split and the allowed to fall rather than compromising too much especially on target date.
]]>While the overall destination of Brexit was reasonably foreseeable what has caught me out is the lack of will to decide on a long term destination for the U.K. The willingness to fudge and to postpone making any choices that entail any trade offs has been spectacular. Even now the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration Leave almost anything on the table from Norway to something more like Canada. Issues around the border in Ireland are significantly due to the limits on the fudge the EU is prepared to accept where they apply there.
I honestly thought she was smarter than to trap herself into corners with red lines like she did, alienate “people of nowhere” and to fail to listen to the experienced advice around her like Ivan Rodgers.
The other surprise was May’s decision not to reach across to Labour to make them complicit in the deal and to provide her with more routes through Parliament. There were two main opportunities to do this; after the referendum and again after the general election. She could have said “Things have changed”, acknowledged her lack of majority and sort to find a compromise option. She could then have shared blame for aspects that were softer than the ERG wanted, could have blamed Labour if the walked away and critically potentially had a majority without DUP or ERG. The only thing she would have lost would be being able to act as if Corbyn was unfit to be near responsibility, a threat to be used against all who oppose her except Labour, maybe that was too high a price for her to pay.
That this stage was crossed without it seems the DUP or the ERG understanding the contents and melting down at that point was a surprise as the now unacceptable Withdrawal Agreement was essentially set out at that point. It did also seem at times like May didn’t understand what it meant either as she claimed the backstop was something that “no British PM” could agree to despite having done so in December 2017 and then proceeding to do so again in December 2018.
]]>This sets out a route that could remove everyone’s worst fears in voting no confidence in the current government and get the country through a referendum and allow parties to restore themselves before an early next election later.
]]>The Marr show is the wrong place to cover Banks. It is too general and get to know you to interview someone accused of serious crimes. A live interview where he can’t be fact checked and be asked to provide evidence is a mistake.
]]>
There appear to me to be absolute inaccuracy in their characterisation of the Labour proposed code of conduct which I will detail below. Essentially their one specific claim of what is acceptable is clearly and specifically forbidden in the Labour rules.
Short version is that the case against Corbyn and Labour regarding these definitions seems at least exaggerated and incorrect statements are made about specific examples casting doubt on the overall thrust. I do believe that there is a genuine problem to clear up in the Labour party but with such inaccuracies in reporting of basic facts it becomes harder to accept the extraordinary claims made without appropriate supporting information or evidence. This isn't to say that there might not be some room for improvement but the current document definitely doesn't seem to be something that should be triggering the level of outrage that it is unless people haven't read it and are basing their opinions on what they read in the inflammatory press.
I'm not in a good position to judge the general situation and would generally place a lot of trust in those media organisations better placed but when the factual details I can check are so wrong it makes it harder to trust them for the big picture and whether there really is a problem with the code and what it really won't catch. I also fully accept that there is antisemitism in Labour and want it to have strong and robust rules and practice to deal with it, this is purely about the best mechanism to do that and whether the criticism of the leadership is fair and valid; if I felt it was I would be having to change position on certain things but for the following reasons I still believe that the criticism of the leadership is overblown and exaggerated.
]]>I’ve been meaning to set out my views about the Labour’s position on Brexit and the in my view frequently unfair and very often plain wrong views of it from much of the hard remain community (to which I myself align). Yesterday there was an excellent and civil discussion between Femi of OFOC and Owen Jones who is closely aligned to the Labour leadership.
I am a Labour member who has also funded OFOC but was very frustrated recently by the attack posters they created aimed at Labour shadow cabinet individuals that I felt were highly counterproductive.
The thread is here, you may want to focus largely on Femi and Owen’s comments themselves.
That is kinda the point though. In any future vote, you won't have the majority of the establishment telling people which way to vote. You'll have ordinary people making the case to protect their own futures and jobs.
— Femi (@Femi_Sorry) June 26, 2018
My summary of the key areas of disagreement are:
Now on some of these points I lean more to Owen’s view and on others to Femi’s view.
]]>Theresa May is unlikely to to be able to talk Trump around back to the international system of rules and organisations and back towards human rights. She is also unlikely to be able to talk him down from the trade war that he has declared with the rest of the world. Without the USA as a trustworthy partner the precariousness of the UK’s currently planned place outside the EU is crystallised and it could become a moment of opportunity to change course.
The opportunity comes in how she responds, either in the closing press conference of the visit or within the days after Trump departs. This is an opportunity for Theresa May to say something resembling the following and potentially go down in history as one of this country’s greatest Prime Ministers (unfortunately from my point of view preventing a Corbyn government).
Things have changed the world is not the one in which a majority voted for Brexit, and this presidential visit has made clear to we no longer have a reliable partner for free trade across the Atlantic, that nationalism and even facism rising across the world and the current US government. Given this changing world it is time to rejoin forces with our strongest allies for a rules based global order, democracy and human rights. It is no longer even clear that we can rely on the systems of the WTO to enable trade to continue effectively.
Given this I have today spoken to my fellow leaders across Europe and received agreement to withdraw the Article 50 notification which I have now done. This means any Brexit will be substantially postponed and for the next few years we will return to our full place in in the EU to strengthen the values we hold dear across the continent of Europe and beyond. We will remain in the EU until at least the next election in 2022.
Now this does not mean the end of Brexit. We will keep DExEU operating to plan in detail how to implement Brexit effectively. We have learned a lot from the negotiations so far that will assist in this planning and legislation will be prepared so that when a future Parliament decides to proceed the bulk of the legislation can be in place before we again start an Article 50 process. They will also be producing a series of different proposals and the OBR will provide associated forecasts for their impacts especially in the run up to the next general election. The full information will be available for all parties and the public to read an understand.
I realise that this delay to Brexit will be disappointing and frustrating to many of you; this was not the news I wanted to deliver to you but global circumstances have changed and we must adapt our plans. Let me be clear, this is not the end of Brexit; all parties will have opportunities to set out their plans in their manifestos for the 2022 election based on the reports produced by DExEU and the OBR.
The collective sigh of relief that would come from across much of the country including virtually all of industry would audible from across the Atlantic although there would be a scream of rage from about fifteen percent of the country and the right wing press but I don’t believe there would be any substantial civil unrest and the papers would soon return their attacks to Labour. There would be a Tory leadership challenge but I think Theresa May would survive. In Parliament either the DUP or the Tory Brexit ultras would have the power to bring her down but to what end? The outcomes would either be Theresa May with a bigger majority or a Corbyn government for whom Brexit would be a low priority and if they did pursue it (unlikely I think if they went into an election more Brexity than the Tories they would lose).
Well, I can dream can’t I? While I think this is possible and would be good for May, the country, the government and Europe it is still a vanishingly unlikely fantasy and I’ll be out on the 13th July joining the protests against the criminal in the White House.
]]>There are a several inappropriate things I have done that still haunt me although none were done with malicious intent. Details concealed to protect the other parties. If any of them read this I give my apologies and want the relevant people to know that I regret these actions and hope that they didn't have significant impacts on them.
]]>TL;DR - Not impossible but probably less than 50% chance.
As I see it now it will be very hard for any government to deliver an actual Brexit through the Houses of Parliament. It is hard to see how the current government could reach a good negotiated outcome with Brussels given the red lines announced about the needing power to make external trade deals combined with the need for a frictionless Irish border and what are the likely red lines of the DUP. On the other hand a no deal exit will bring down the government, whether for an interim coalition, a new election or possibly a referendum on the no deal outcome.
On the other hand it is also fairly hard to see how Brexit could be completely avoided, some scenarios outlined may provide a path to remaining or a very soft exit.
I'll try to set out some scenarios but these are turbulent times and it is pretty much wild guesswork but I want to illustrate how hard it will be for Brexit to actually be delivered.
]]>This post is about me capturing my thoughts about the work of Steve Keen and the those areas where I don't completely agree. It is because I largely agree that I am bothering to write this and explore the areas of weakness I think I see in his arguments and proposals. I don't intend to include a full summary of his main theories, there are numerous videos on Youtube that can be viewed that do a better job of explaining them than I would do and you can also find his manifesto (although some of the ideas may have progressed since then. I'm also in places going to suggest work that I think should be done, I have no expectation that Steve Keen or anybody else will do this work because I would like to see it but it is what I think would help convince others.
I'm a big fan of Steve Keen's work. Both `Debunking Economics` and `Can we Avoid Another Financal Crisis` are excellent, I support his Patreon and have been to a couple of his talks. I'm completely convinced of his core contentions about the nature of banks and their creation of money, necessity of government deficits and the critical importance of private debt and particularly it's rate of change to the economy. I especially like the data based work that showing the corelations and the simulations using highly simplified, understandable models that produce dynamic behaviour that seems to show similar behavior to the real world. His descriptions of mainstream economics are almost unbelivable to me, I struggle to understand how anyone puts up with the limitations of equilibrium analysis as anything other than a massively simplifying assumption to calculate limits of possibility and that they don't include banks and debt in their models is fundamentally incredible but does appear to be true.
]]>I'm extremely concerned about the election of Trump and what it means for democracy and liberty across the world especially coming on top of the Brexit vote in the UK (I'm British and live in Britain). I felt the need to step up and do something, more than just voting at election time. These are my choices, there is no one true way to fight for the future and resist the apparent regrowth of facism (and its less loaded names of Populism and "Alt-Right") across many parts of the world.
Despair and hopelessness is not the answer, those of liberal, left and even centre views must stand up and take actions where they can, however small. Complacency and hopelessness are both forms of acquiescence and will only enable those looking to create hate and division.I wrote previously about the causes of the Brexit vote and how I felt that I should have done more, now I'm actually taking steps, small though they are. I plan to up my efforts further as the next election approaches.
How much action you can take will clearly depend on capacity, financial, time and emotional and it is important to focus on and look after the people nearest too. I'm not asking anyone to follow my actions but it would be great if you did. Also to focus on the local and within reach and trust that others will take action within their countries.
There are other things that I do that are not new, I don't support any Murdoch entities so I would not have Sky or buy The Times or Wall Street Journal. I also extremely minimise my use of Facebook. I do exist on Facebook but I only log in every couple of months and have explicitly (excluding the information revealed by who my network is) posted less information to Facebook than in this one blog post.
I did become a Guardian supporter last year but I withdrew in disgust at their position on the IP Bill. I'm still considering whether to disregard that to support their journalism and campaigning generally. Owen Jones in particular has been doing some good reports.
Especially if you are in are in a position of power and influence consider what actions you can take now to create the frameworks for human rights protection. Dispose of unnecessary personal information. Also think about how you could best throw a spanner in the works if necessary, whether by resigning, operating incompetently, delaying responses, causing additional work. Also decide now what warning signs to look for that there is a real problem. It won't be a sudden obvious change from valid constitutional government to dictatorship it will come fairly slowly with progressive steps and shifting goalposts and norms. What once would have seemed outrageous and impossible will seem like a small shift and you must remember what the situation was, can be and must be again.
There is a dangerous form of political lying where the aim is not to have the lie believed but for it, corrections of it and discussion about it. This post is about the art and power of the lie, it isn't meant to reopen Brexit discussions but be a warning for future cases.
We need to recognise that in a world where everyone is seen as liars that there is no longer shame in lies. We need to fear the world where the middle ground between groups is seen as truly moderate or the location of truth especially when one or more sides are extreme.
While I recognise the effect and the nature of these lies I don't know what the response should be, either from the media or the opposition. The left I feel is mostly too honest to practice this trick and different wings within the left would attack each other if they used it. I think the best that they can do is to put pressure on the media not to spend more time than absolutely necessary covering the issue.
The media is the part with the power, they need to get better and resisting the manufactured story, quickly point out that the information is incorrect and move on rather than getting rounds of pundits to discuss exactly how it is wrong. If one side to an argument is lying more than another then they must say so.
Interviewers and presenters have to feel confident to call out lies the very sentence after they they have been uttered, and not feel the need to give a right of reply. Only that way will politicians avoid the lies during discussions. As it is it seems that if they put at least two lies in a sentence one, if not both will go unchallenged.
Vigilance to lies and deliberate deceit is all we can really do but unfortunately they are effective.
I’m angry and disappointed about the vote for Brexit even a week later. I still hope that it won’t actually happen but I struggle to see which political leader might stand up and say it shouldn’t happen (or engineer a situation for another referendum). I have a long list of people that I’m angry with about getting us to this situation. They aren’t principally the people who voted, I’m more disappointed and sad about that but those both who have lied to achieve the referendum result and those who built the situation that led to the result.
The principal blame must lie with the immediate causes of the referendum and the result. Two Etonian, Bullingdon boys have brought us here, despite neither (I believe) actually wanting to leave. Both gambling the country’s interest for either their own or their party’s benefit. David Cameron feeling the need to offer the referendum both to hold some unity within the Conservative Party and limit the impact of UKIP in the election. I think that he almost hoped for another coalition with the Liberal Democrats who would have blocked the referendum. Boris Johnson on the other hand calculated that campaigning for remain would boost his popularity with the Conservative membership. He expected to lose but with a higher profile and having been on the correct side for most members. He saw that as the route to the Conservative leadership when after winning the referendum David Cameron stepped aside in a couple of years time. They should both be ashamed of themselves for taking such a big gamble with the country, with people’s livelihoods and lives. Their actions, more directly than others I will list led to this, which make break the union (with Scotland), diminish Britain in the world and do much harm beside. I feel no pity for David Cameron, he gambled not just with his future but with ours, not for the country’s gain but the Conservatives. Besides this both these characters will come up again in this blame list for other aspects of the blame.
The Leave campaign told mendacious lies and gave misleading information throughout the campaign. Most clearly the £350 million per week for the NHS. Not only are the payments to the EU less than that (after rebate) but much of that amount is spent in the UK in various ways anyway. In addition to the outright lies there were huge amounts of wishful thinking expressed as fact, the assertions that the UK will get a good deal with all the benefits and non of the responsibilities of a European state which is simply unrealistic; access to the single market will have a code whether it is free movement of people or a potentially increased contribution to the budget. They also accused the Remain campaign of “scaremongering” but the interesting thing is right or wrong the estimates now the vote has taken place are at least as bad suggesting that the estimates were really believed. Boris, Gove and many others are smart enough to have known that much of the campaign was based on lies. They fought a dishonourable campaign and it is isn’t OK. They should feel ashamed of the lies and I hope that they will be held to account by the leave supporters but I fear it will be forgotten or excuses will be found.
The press, particularly The Mail, The Express and The Sun but also to lesser degrees The Times and The Telegraph have day after day for several decades been publishing negative stories about Europe, some spun, some given undue prominence and some outright lies. Of course Boris also has personal responsibility in this area too, almost having invented the genre of borderline truthful stories and even complete lies, to the extent that he was sacked from The Times. The power of Murdoch and Dacre is undemocratic and damages civil society. In my view there need to be real constraints on the concentration of media power. Despite falling circulations the papers have a significant impact in setting the agenda for TV, Radio and online news. It isn’t just the impact of individual articles but the daily drip of xenophobia, anti-European and anti-immigrant stories and headlines that distorts views.
The broadcasters and their interpretations of impartiality are also to blame. The belief that if one economist or businessman speaks for Remain that one must be found to speak for Leave. If the overwhelming majority is on one side there should not be a need to provide balance, in fact balance is bias when it isn’t representative. There was similar with regard to the fact checking on broadcast TV of the campaigns. There seemed to be a need to balance the comments between the sides event when the mistruths were imbalanced. e.g. Leave’s £350m pledge is bad maths. In’s claims that it will cost everyone x per week is well within the range of most forecast but some disagree. They need to be stopping every interview or speech every time a lie is told, they need to give numbers of lies that can different for each campaign or candidate in an election. Too many were left with the belief that they “are all as bad as each other” and that isn’t good enough. Broadcasters must be clear about who is lying most and ideally call out each specific lie. If that interrupts every interview then so be it, politicians will learn that lying in those situations doesn’t work. There is also an education problem about the EU that the broadcasters could help with, there seems little awareness that the most power lies with the member states in the Council of Ministers where the elected leader of each country has a democratic say and much of the rest lies in the European Parliament and between the two they appoint and direct the European Commission. It is a democratic institution and while not a perfect seems like a better attempt at democracy than the UK Britain with the over-mighty Commons, the unelected Lords and the monarchy.
Politicians have been blaming Europe, for all sorts of things for decades, often when it is only an excuse. In other cases I suspect that the British government has laundered unpopular policies it wants to introduce through the EU so that it can be blamed despite the fact that the British government introduced it. The other unhelpful behaviour is the treatment of negotiations where the presentation is of battling over red lines and Prime Ministers acting as if they are saving us from something awful rather than discussing how by working together they can make things better for every country. The EU policy is rarely explained, justified and celebrated by the politicians.
Much of the Leave vote came from disadvantaged areas, there are large parts of this country that have been left behind as economic growth has focused on the richest and on London and the South East. Much of this is the result of government policy and inaction over my entire lifetime, at least back to Thatcher. The destruction of industrial communities, the high unemployment (acceptable cost for low inflation), sale of government assets, particularly the council house stock that has been hugely depleted without adequate investment to rebuild. This then plays into the immigration issue because housing is expensive and council homes unavailable. Solving the employment issue and people feeling prosperous is going to be harder especially with increasing automation of many jobs. My blame in this area definitely includes New Labour which always allowed itself to be too constrained, it felt the need to join the attacks on those claiming benefit, to penalise and in place vilify. They failed to rebuild the social housing, preferring to support home ownership and the rising debt that went along with it leading to the credit crunch (the Torys had the same policy and would have done no better).
And the final person I blame is myself. I didn’t actively engage with the remain campaign, I didn’t go door to door. All I did was wear an IN sticker when was being handed out near work, send a couple of tweets (probably ineffectual as most followers agree or are outside the UK anyway), discussed it at work (between a number of us we persuaded one wavering voter) and with some friends (I don’t think I shifted the couple of leavers although may have reinforced a couple of votes). I could and should have done more which is why I’m on the list.
This post is going to be somewhat broad brushed, I’m aware there are fine degrees and other issues. I’m also not expecting this to happen,
There are three key policy areas from my point of view, Europe (in-out along with immigration), Austerity and civil liberties (vs security).
Labour is split between a real left wing party that believes austerity as it stands is unnecessary and harmful (Jeremy Corbyn, the unions and a majority of party members) and in the New Labour wing which is the majority in Parliament. They are largely EU positive although some on the left are concerned that it is too much under the control of big business. On civil liberties they have been fairly weak at least since New Labour with a high willingness to favour security over liberty although there are fair numbers who do care about civil liberties.
The SNP are very similar to the Corbyn wing of the Labour party with the obvious exception of their wish for full independence for Scotland.
The Conservatives share a belief in austerity but with varying positions on the extent of public services and spending if the economic times were better. Their instinct is generally to cut taxes before investing in improved services. There is a huge and obvious split on the EU, with a majority of members anti-EU and split roughly in half in Parliament. On civil liberties most lean towards the security side but there are notable exceptions.
The Liberal Democrats are largely grudgingly accepting of austerity, pro EU and lean to the civil liberties side on security issues.
UKIP is obviously anti-EU and anti-immigration, they mostly favour security over civil liberties and I’m not up to date on their economic policy. Farage is very financially
As I write the Labour party is tearing itself apart. MPs have been briefing against Jeremy Corbyn continuously since before he was elected by the membership, union members and paying supporters (I’m one of these). The fundamental issue is whether Labour is to be a party of the left, opposing austerity, skeptical of foreign military interventions or to continue the New Labour direction of aiming for the centre, prioritising victory to then be in position to slightly mitigate the effects of globalisation and rising inequality rather than attempt to achieve true social justice.
In my personal view there needs to a party articulating a true left position, opposing austerity and fighting for true social justice. This is critical for several reasons even if it is hard or impossible for such a party to win a majority as without it the other parties are pulled relentlessly to the right. Without a party holding a realistic leftwing position there is no centre for the New Labour type parties to triangulate themselves to, and the risk is that the Conservatives move further right to distinguish and differentiate themselves. It is also essential that there is a party prepared to stand up and argue for the marginalised, whether those on benefits, refugees or other migrants.
Given all that I think that a more natural arrangement of parties would be for the Labour party to be Corbyn’s and the membership’s left wing party fighting for disadvantaged, for greater equality and an end to austerity. I can imagine it cooperating closely on many issues with the SNP, the Greens and Plaid Cymru.
The Blairite, New Labour wing has more in common with much of the Conservative party. I feel that a centre-right (although they would think themselves the party of the centre) party could be formed; lets call it the Popular Party. I’m picturing it taking maybe 150 of the current Labour MPs and 100 Conservatives. I could imagine it becoming the official opposition, possibly in a highly pro-EU stance working with the Liberal Democrats. If it didn’t oppose Brexit it would push for a close relationship even if some element of free movement was required.
Then comes the bulk of the Conservatives, largely anti-EU, very keen on privatisation and business deregulation. It would probably subsume many of the non-racist elements of UKIP.
Now while this may better fit the political views across the country and Parliament than the current status the first past the post electoral system acts against it and major party realignments are rare and usually harmful to the parties involved. Having said that anything seems possible at the moment and I feel that there has to be a split in the Labour Party. Whether the Conservatives also split may depend on how unpopular their next leader.
Whether to bomb ISIS is the controversy at the moment and I've been shuffling around on the fence for some time. On the one hand ISIS are clearly dangerous, vicious, evil and if they can be destroyed or defeated it will be a better world. On the other bombing is never clean, surgical or free from collateral damage; non-combatant men, women and children will die.
]]>I don't think anyone is suggesting that a terrorist using automatic weapons on the public or police they should not be stopped as quickly as possible and if it costs the terrorist's life very few tears will be shed.
A shoot to kill policy is different, it is a preference for dead bodies over arrests and trials and this should never be the policy in civilised countries.
I would describe my view as being that the policy should be shoot to protect and to save lives. Where shots are taken there are likely to be deaths but they are not the aim or the policy.
For those too young (or insufficiently British/Irish) to be aware there was considerable controversy about whether a shoot to kill policy was in operation particularly with the SAS with regard to the IRA and was particularly controversial when the [3 IRA members were shot dead in Gibraltar](http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/events/three_ira_members_shot_dead_in_gibraltar).
]]>This is just an asinine description for suicide bombers. These are people expecting to die for their beliefs. There isn't a shortage of descriptions that really can be applied to them, vicious, barbaric and murderous to suggest just three. To use the cowardly just devalues both language, whatever arguments you are making and any other words.
ISIS is clearly Islamic,(Very Islamic) they talk about Islam all the time and they follow large parts of the Qu'ran to great precision.
Islam is not ISIS. There are clearly a wide spread of views amongst those regarding themselves as Muslims and a vast majority are opposed to ISIS. That ISIS exists is no more the responsibility of most Muslims than the existence of the Westboro Baptist Church is the responsibility of a Church of England congregation in the UK (it isn't their responsibility).
Some of these things I don't normally say mostly because I'm don't want to offend people but today je suis Charlie and if people are going to take offence at this they should be offended. These are some things that I mostly don't say where I know or think that there might be people who disagree or might be offended. Comments are enabled for you to express your disagreement.
Father Christmas doesn't exist (OK I only avoid saying this around children).
God doesn't exist. And this statement shouldn't be more shocking than the previous one even if you disagree.
Unquestioning belief is harmful. If you are on a mission from god how can that be reasoned with and debated.
If you believe in god I find it hard to see how it can be anything other than unquestioning (pre-renaissance god or gods might have appeared logical).
Unquestioning belief combined with power is scary (I'm thinking Tony Blair and GW Bush here in addition to those with power in ISIS).
]]>Ever realised how fucking surreal reading a book actually is? You stare at marked slices of tree for hours on end, hallucinating vividly
— Katie Oldham (@KatieOldham) December 9, 2014
Text preserved in case Tweet deleted or
"Ever realised how fucking surreal reading a book actually is? You stare at marked slices of tree for hours on end, hallucinating vividly" - @KatieOldham
I’m fairly new to blogging, I’d been meaning to set up a blog for some time either off based on an existing open source blog/cms or creating my own basic one in Rails or Django but I hadn’t got round to it. I liked the attitude of Posthaven when it appeared, we will charge you money but you get to keep your name for life and I think it came out of the experience of one of the founders losing control of Posterious and it’s shutdown.
I hadn’t got round to getting set up myself so this would sort of defeat the purpose but there are a few options that I would consider.
I’m not quite happy with either for different reasons, will probably self host in the future.
The scripts from Google and Facebook will probably cause me to move away from Posthaven fairly soon. I use Noscript to avoid them when I am browsing and I would prefer not to impose them on readers as that would be hypocritical (although it does work fine without them if they are Noscript users).
As for Svbtle while I quite like the design and using Markdown but the lack of current business model bothers me and I’d rather migrate at my time of choosing than when they announce some new policy.
Dismissiveness and starting a cable TV service
FRAND, competition law and patents generally
Commercial use of GPL software
Nominet money grab (direct.uk)