Brexit reality bites – May’s deal or remain

So we now know what brexit means. And for once I’m forced to agree with the brexiters “this is not what was promised in the referendum” Boris and Mogg are saying. Agreed. However I would note that it should read “this is not what YOU promised in the referendum”. What they promised in the referendum was “the easiest deal in history”, along with free milk, honey and unicorns for all. That was never achievable. To draw an analogy, the brexiters set out to climb the distant Himalayan peak Rum doodle, without any Sherpa support, no experience and no mountaineering gear. So instead their mum (May) has suggested they make base camp at the back of the garden and pretend to be in the Himalaya. That way they can come back in the house when they get cold.

But having gotten the country into this mess the brexiters are now anxious to avoid the blame and instead shift it onto the shoulders of Theresa May (who was in full submarine mode during the referendum). The brexiter baby’s having screamed about how we should all go for ice-cream are now crying because its not right flavour and they don’t want ice-cream any more. Like General Luddendorf (the German World War I commander in chief) they led the country into a ludicrous campaign for no good reason. And with their lines collapsing, they’ve sent out a naïve lackey (May) to negotiate their surrender (to reality) and pull their ass out of the fire. Now with the deal done they’re trying to claim they were “stabbed in the back” by May and the EU. Not that playing that card has had serious consequences throughout history.

Theresa May is framing it as her deal or no deal, but this isn’t accurate. In truth its her deal or remain. I won’t go so far as to call this the best deal the UK could get. There’s the Norway or Swiss model. However, once you drink the brexiter kool aid and go the full unicorn (and you feel the need to appease the brexit bigot brigade), then you’ve got to do things like pretending to do something about immigration (truth is it won’t change much, in fact the UK will be struggling to bring in talent to fill job vacancies) and you’ve got to leave the ECJ for no apparent reason. And just for good measure, the Tories have undertaken the negotiations in bad faith, threatening not to pay your bills or renege on international treaties. In that context May’s deal is the best deal the brexiters are going to get. If you don’t like it, you probably should have voted remain.

No deal brexit? It would be a disaster. If you’ve been paying attention to the notices coming out of the UK government, the EU, the noises being made from business, or the Three-blokes in a pub podcasts, you’ll know it amounts to trying to turn the UK into Venezuela under Maduro. Do the maths and you’ll see that Dover would be swamped within days and shut down, there would be shortages of food, medicine and possibly energy supplies. All meaningful economic activity would stop.

Now to the brexiters that’s a price worth paying, but they don’t really live in the real world (and have all their money stashed either offshore, or somewhat ironically, in an EU based bank). What they don’t understand is that the rest of the country won’t be okay with it. Once people start dying (and inevitably they will, any interruption to NHS services or medical supplies will have an immediate effect) you’ll convert every soft leaver and timid releaver into hard core remainers. Very quickly there will be another referendum, except this will likely be a choice between some generic soft brexit option (likely the Norway model) and rejoining the EU (under the terms of a new member state, i.e. you lose your rebate and have to join the Euro). So that’s what going down the no deal route will amount too. And no matter how little you like May’s deal, its still better than these options.

So why then is May framing it as her deal or no deal? Because there’s not much point in her trying to appeal to the brexiter’s better nature. They have none. They are a bunch of Empire 2.0 fanatics and littlefingers, so engrossed in their game of thrones that they’d burn the country down just to slightly increase their odds of winning the top job. She’s hoping to scare enough remainers within her own party and labour to back the plan. But Jo Johnson’s resignation (Boris Johnson’s non-so-evil twin) suggests they smell a rat. The dirty tricks she pulled in the summer to get the withdrawal bill through inflamed the remainers and now they don’t trust her. What goes around, comes around.

Its possible they’ll hold their nose, close their eyes and think of Britain (or more precisely PM Boris!) and back her anyway. They may decide that they need to respect the referendum (ironic it would be if May’s brexit passed thanks to the votes of remain voting MP’s when those who campaigned for leave vote against it) but I’m doubting it. Aware that rejecting the deal means another referendum sooner or later, they might play hard ball. And if you’ve been following the polls you’ll know that a 2nd referendum will likely be remain, in which case they’ll have killed off the brexit question once and for all. And the brexiters in both labour and the Tory party will go down with the ship. So its hard to say how this will pan out.

But if the government collapses Corbyn will get a better deal, won’t he? Well possibly. He’s not as constrained by brexiters, or the the DUP, as May is. He’s also unlikely to undertake the negotiations in bad faith like the Tories did. A lot of the sticking points boil down to the fact that the EU stopped trusting the UK after awhile and hence we have a 600 page document, with backstops to the backstop. But Corbyn still has to contend with one ardent brexiter – himself. Unless he could be persuaded to adopt the Norway or Swiss model, then their isn’t a lot else he can get from the EU. He can make a few more concessions as regards the ECJ and the Irish border and get concessions back from the EU in return. But fundamentally, it will be the same deal as May has now got, just with a few extra bells and whistles.

To return to my analogy earlier, Corbyn will move his base camp from the foot of the garden to the foot of the local crag. Better, but still a long way from the Himalayas. The UK will still be opting to become a rule taker, rather than a rule maker. So 6 months on, we’ll be right back where we are now, with a PM trying to sell a deal that everyone hates and trying to get it through parliament.

So its reality bites time for the brexiters and leave voters (again!). They need to accept that in the context of what was promised in the referendum, give May some credit, she’s got a deal and its the best one you are going to get. If you don’t like, they maybe you don’t actually want to leave the EU. You might want to join the people’s vote campaign and vote remain next time.

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News roundup

Back from an overseas business trip, thought it would be time for a catchup…

The not so big blue wave

So the results of the US mid terms are in and it turned out much as predicted. The democrats took control of the house, but the GOP still hold the senate and hence can block impeachment and keep nominating supreme court justices.

Missing big blue wave, if found please forward to the DNC

While one has to call it a victory for the democrats, not that you’ll ever get Trump to admit to that. But at the same time, its pretty clear that any idea that the GOP voters will rebel against their party was wishful thinking. The fact is that the Republicans are less a political party and more of a cult, a cult of anti-liberalism. They don’t have any real policies, other than to opposite whatever it is the left are calling for….and of course doing some favours for their corporate donors along the way.

What is clear from this election is that republicans know exactly what they were voting for back in 2016. They know Trump is incompetent and not fit for the job, but they’d rather have an incompetent fascist than a competent democrat. They don’t support him despite his racism, his unchristian like behaviour and the fact he stands for everything the GOP has opposed since the civil war, but because of it.

Thus the democrats need to quit taking the moral high ground and grow a spine. My advice would be to pull every dirty mean trick they can to now shut down Trump’s and wait out the rest of his time in office. Its basically what the GOP did to Obama, so its only fair the democrats do the same.

And when they get back into power, then what goes around comes around. He’s going to appoint a couple of pro-lifers to the supreme court, we’ll just appoint a dozen 20 something members of the ACLU and the Brady foundation (then make any further changes to the structure illegal without the unanimous approval of every member of Congress).

Similarly if the GOP are going to cut welfare programmes, then once in power the democrats need to make clear they’ll be doing the same. An end to farm subsidies (which predominantly benefit republican voters), reforms to military spending and government contracts (which benefit the 1%) and ending the practice of democrat voting states effectively subsidizing republican voting states all needs to be on the table.

Only when confronted with the threat of such measures will the republicans be brought to heel.

 

The not surprising October surprise

The election also included the usual “October surprise”, which is basically something completely irrelevant to the campaign (e.g. Hilary’s e-mails) which the right wing media will blow out of all proportion. In this case it was a immigrant caravan…which is still hundreds of miles away from the country.

And you’ll notice how they only started talking about it to deflect attention from right wing terror attacks…sorry I mean a Trump supporter getting a little too carried away. Because when a white guy goes and shoots people (or mails bombs) that’s not terrorism apparently. And the immediate aftermath of such an attack is not the time to talk about new gun legislation, or the remarks made by Trump that inspired such an attack. But if a Muslim doesn’t anything…..

 

Wheels coming off in Italy

For me it was always a case of how long before the wheels started to come off the populist 5S/league horseshoe government rather that if. And it looks like we’ve not had to wait long.

In Rome (under the control of a 5S for several years now) there’s been protests as regards the collapse in public services, notably public transport (with bus fires still a major problem) and rubbish collection. The irony is that one of those stars of the party is access to good public transport and public services. So they can’t even get this right!

Now it has to be acknowledged that one of the difficulties that 5S faces is the enormous levels of corruption that exists within Italy, notably the public sector. However, the fact that 5S has gone into coalition with the very people behind that corruption (the league and their ally Berlusconi, not to mention members of 5S itself) doesn’t exactly help. And it highlights just how naive and inept 5S actually are that they didn’t anticipate that this would be a problem.

Meanwhile 5S’s fascist allies have been busy, well, doing fascist things. For example, one of them recently compared a black politician to a monkey. And not only did he not face any sanction over this, but when she called him out over it, he sued her. Yes this is Italy under a horseshoe government, its okay for politicians to be racist, but its illegal to criticise them over it.

You go into power with fascists, they’ll do fascist stuff, shock horror. I mean did any supporters of 5S really think this won’t happen? You did at lest google the term “Liga Nord” before voting to approve this coalition?

About the only thing that unites the two parties is their hatred of the EU. And inevitably their budget proposals have been rejected by the EU (in part because they know most of the extra cash will simply go straight into the pockets of the mafia). So it looks like they’re going to fight city hall and inevitably lose.

 

A sign of the times

The other week some racist brexiter nutter was caught on a Ryanair flight making racist remarks to a fellow passenger (an African granny). What I thought was interesting was how the Irish media made a federal case out of it (which seemed to be more along the lines of why didn’t Ryanair land immediately and sling Mr Gammon straight off the plane).

However, the British media (and it was a brit involved) largely ignored it. Post-brexit, racists making racist comments in public falls into the “dog bites man” category and just isn’t news worthy. Which I thought was an interesting contrast with the Irish media’s response.

 

Leave means LEAVE!!!!

The British, with just months to go, still don’t seem to understand the consequences of brexit. There’s even an organisation with the passive aggressive name leave means leave (or presumably that should be leave means LEAVE!!!!), which it will come as little surprise to learn is almost entirely made up of greyhaired old white men with sweaty red faces (like our racist in the previous story). But the thing is they don’t seem to grasp what leave actually means.

Spot the leave voter…..

For example one of the more serious consequences of leaving, as I mentioned before, is the UK’s decision to leave the ECJ at the same time. There have been test cases in Ireland which have seen people getting away with crimes, even in one case murder. It would appear that what leave means is that if you break British law and make a break for the border you can literally get away with murder.

And the British solution? Refer the matter to the ECJ! Yes the very body they are now leaving is being asked to pull their ass out of the fire. It would appear that the British think that just because they are pals with the Irish they can have some sort of associate membership of the ECJ (which presumably they aren’t going to pay for). And is not as if giving the Irish (or any other EU state) that sort of leverage over the UK won’t come back to haunt them later.

The real world consequences of this are not good. Basically if you live in the UK and someone from the EU owes you money, after March 2019, you’re stuffed. You’ll have to go to a European court, which means hiring an English speaking lawyer in the relevant country (which won’t be cheap) and waiting a long time, as the wheels of justice in some EU states are very slow to turn (as in years), especially when it comes to civil cases (they prioritise criminal cases, assuming that the longer they leave a civil case, the more likely the parties will settle out of court).

Should you be wondering at this point, why isn’t their a body to get around all of these problems? Well there is. Its called the ECJ! And it was set up because the British and Germans were sick of having to deal with the courts in countries like Italy or Spain (oh and in some EU states the law often varies depending on the region, a court in Catalonia cannot command local officials in Andalusia).

And this brings up the political fallout too. Take the position of the DUP. While one understands their opposition to the EU’s proposed backstop (that Northern Ireland remains part of the customs union), it at least settles the issue. That’s a far better alternative, where there’s a hard border that cripples the Northern Irish economy. The more people effected by brexit, the more will vote in a border poll to join the south. While previously you’d struggle to get a majority of Catholics to support a united Ireland in the North, now the polls show an overall figure with a margin of just 3%. Some that a bit of economic disruption will easily overturn. In short, if there’s ever a united Ireland, we’ll have the DUP to thank for it, rather than Sinn Fein.

I’m reminded of an ex-flat mate of mine. He decided he was spending too much money on nights out, so his solution was to cut back on expenses….which didn’t include his nights out. Instead he decided he didn’t need to pay his share of the gas bill any more (because he never turned on the heating), nor the TV license (ditto). He was also a member of a sports club and cancelled his membership. But given that all his friends were members he kept sneaking in and using the facilities, or going to social events.

That’s kind of where the brexiters are with the EU. They want out, but they still want all the benefits of being a members, just without paying for it. In short, it seems to me that many brexiters don’t seem to realise that leave actually does mean leave.

 

News flash – the UK is an Island

Dominc Raab gets a lot of stick for being…well a little bit thick. But to be fair he’s only been in the job as brexit secretary a few months and he’s doing better than his predecessor, who spent a grand total of 4 hours negotiating with the EU in the space of a year and a half. Then again, part of the price we pay for brexit is that fact that a lot of idiots have jobs in cabinet, simply to maintain the delicate balance that props up the PM.

Well anyway, Raab’s returned to the UK with news of an important revelation that he was unaware of. Apparently Britain is an “Island” and therefore needs these things called “ships” to trade with the rest of the world. This means Dover getting clogged up due to a no deal brexit might be kind of bad.

Dominic Raab…life is like a box of chocolates and he certainly doesn’t know what he’s going to get!

I mean who could of known. I remember going to Dover once and thinking I might walk to France, but then I my feet got wet. Well now I know why. Expect the Daily Mail to claim that the English Channel is moat dug by the French to punish the UK for brexit.

And if you think that’s a joke, consider that the head of HMRC (a lowly customs official) received death threats from angry Gammon’s when he pointed out the potential costs of leaving the customs union would cost businesses £20 billion a year.

 

So long and thanks for all the fish

But at least brexit will benefit the fishermen. That the one line you keep on hearing, the fishermen, the fishermen, deer god will someone think of the poor fishermen….who are going to get royally shafted by brexit.

Of course the people who own the fishing boats and fish quota’s, well that’s a different story. And who are these people? well a recent survey discovered that a small group of wealthy families control much of the UK’s fishing quota’s.

The UK takes control and goes from being able to fish in all of these waters, to just some of them

Just five families on the Sunday Times Rich List hold or control 29% of the UK’s fishing quota. More than two-thirds is controlled by just 25 businesses or families (half of whom are linked to criminal activities). And in England alone nearly 80% of fishing quota’s is held by foreign owners or domestic Rich List families. Half of Northern Ireland’s quota is held by just a single trawler.

This is the reality of brexit, the only real winners will be a handful of the very wealthiest, whose wealth and offshore assets leave them immune to the negative effects of brexit.

 

Trust gone

Another brexit related story was that of a phone conversation between the Irish PM and the British one. Almost as soon as he put the phone down, the Irish PM rushed out a media statement explaining what was said. Why? Because he’s all too aware that he’s dealing with a bunch of deluded manics back in London, who will have only heard what they wanted to hear and that the UK media will just make stuff up about what was actually said.

And the EU is now saying they won’t even consider holding a summit until the UK has basically decided what they want, written it down on paper and signed. That’s how low the trust between the UK and the EU is now. They don’t even trust the British to remember what was said over the phone a few minutes before and report that honestly.

 

The people’s will

Universities minster (and Boris Johnson own brother) Jo Johnson has just resigned, calling for another referendum. Which of course ain’t going to happen.

I mean consider that for months now, you even remotely question the wisdom of brexit, you’ll be told its “the will of the people”, ignoring recent polls suggesting the people are rather sick of it and would rather call the whole thing off.

In short, the “will of the people” has become the people’s last will and testament. A national suicide pact that only about a quarter  of the country voted for, without knowing that this was what they were voting for.

 

University bankruptcies loom

Brexit has made for choppy waters in universities. We lost a number of staff, through either redundancies or the fact they decided to tunnel out of the lunatic asylum and escaped back to Europe. Research funding has been cut and EU student numbers are down. But the thing is my uni don’t have it that bad. A recent report suggests that several of the UK’s universities are “one policy change away from collapse”.

Some have lost hundreds of staff through redundancies and the non-renewal of rolling contracts. And while the loss of a few students and a bit of research funding hasn’t exactly helped our situation, spare a thought for some other uni’s in receipt of hundreds of millions a year of EU R&D money, with courses almost entirely made up of fee paying foreign students. And remember we’ve not actually even left the EU yet, the real bad news is yet to arrive.

So with several universities literally circling the drain, it is time to address the question I asked sometime ago, what happens when a UK university actually goes bankrupt? The government seems to think, it won’t matter, it will serve to scare the rest straight, the magic of the market will fix everything. My fear is that opposite will happen.

Overseas students (from the EU or further a field) will flee the country (taking their money with them), R&D money (from the private & public sector) will disappear and banks will start cutting off lines of credit. So one collapse will probably be followed by several more. And in the context of brexit, its the larger more prestigious uni’s (basically any dependant on large EU research grants or with a large intake of foreign students), which are potentially in the firing line, not just the ex-polytechnics.

In many cases the local uni is the main local employer in its area and supports many tens of thousands of jobs (those student take-away meals don’t cook themselves!) and props up local property prices. So the political fallout of such a bankruptcy is going to be massive. And once one goes down, and others looking wobbly, this impact won’t be restricted to that constituency.

So the political price the Tories will pay if they allow such a thing to happen is going to be massive, more than enough to potentially swing an election Corbyn’s way. Hence why the question is are they actually prepared to pay that price? Or will they, as has happened so often when a privatised company gets in trouble, just be forced to step in and prop the universities up, same way public money is being used to prop up the failings of the privatised energy, water and rail industry?

Because that’s the reality of Thatcherism, make a mess of a perfectly functioning public service, let the private sector run it into the ground, then skip town with all the money, forcing the government to step in and pick up the pieces.

 

Moorside nuclear plant cancelled

Meanwhile, back in the real world, Hinkley C is increasingly looking like the hill and which the UK nuclear lobby are going to die on. This ridiculous boondoggle has so poisoned the well, that it could well be the last nuclear power station ever built in the UK.

Case in point, we now have news that the proposed Moorside nuclear project in Cumbria has been cancelled. This shouldn’t come as a huge shock. As I reported before, the bankruptcy of Westinghouse last year meant this was probably inevitable. However, it does highlight how bad the situation is for nuclear energy.

Consider that Toshiba would not have taken this decision lightly, its going to cost them about £125 million just to walk away with nothing to show for it. And there were efforts to try and get someone else (notably a South Korean firm) in to take over the project, but inevitably they weren’t interested in polishing a turd. Of course this highlights all the problems with the Tories unhealthy obsession with nuclear, lavishing money on expensive boondoogles that the private sector won’t touch with a barge pole, while punishing renewables for their successes.

 

Mars colonisation nixed

Elon Musk’s plans to colonise Mars may have taken a bit of dent due to a recent study published in Nature. Its behind a paywall, but the gist of the report is that in order to terraform Mars, you’d need to heat the planet up. That would involve releasing lots of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to bring up the atmospheric pressure and temperatures. Well the researchers did an inventory of available CO2 resources on Mars and concluded there isn’t nearly enough of it available to do the job.

And since we’re talking about it, the “heat the planet up” part of terraforming would be the easy part. Creating a stable oxygen rich atmosphere would be the harder part (this process took billions of years on earth). Along with stopping the solar wind eroding away the atmosphere again, much as happened to the original Martian atmosphere. And as Mars lacks a magnetosphere, colonists would still be vulnerable to things like solar flares even with an atmosphere.

So this seems to suggest terraforming Mars might well be impossible. However, it doesn’t rule out the option of para-terraforming, whereby you build a large dome over a deep Martian valley or crater and terraform the atmosphere within that dome.

 

No dogs, disabled or poor

A survey by the housing charity Shelter has revealed that 10% of rental property ads in the UK include the phrase “No DSS” (this is the scheme through which disabled and the unemployed get their housing benefit). In essence its the equivalent of putting up a sign saying “no working class scum need apply” or including a skin colour chart saying you must be this white to get a flat.

Now the only thing I find surprising about this is that its only 10%. I suspect its in truth a lot higher than that. Under UK law it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, religion or economic background. But the shocking thing is that while you could probably pull some of these landlords up for putting such a thing in their ad, under the current law prosecuting them for actually discriminating against people (even racial discrimination) is nearly impossible.

This is the problem with the UK, its property laws are like something out of a Dickensian novel. For too long UK law has favoured landlords over tenants, which is perhaps not surprising in a country where parliament is made up of the landlords rather than renters.

News roundup

The Pedo party

Is it just me or does it appear like the major qualification you need to get ahead in the Republican party is to be a pedo, kiddy fiddler or sex offender of some form or another? Since Trump took over we’ve seen a long line of dirty old men going into the white house. I mean they even set up a dating site (for straight blue blooded republicans) and the male model they chose in the ads turned out to be a sex offender. Its like Trump is some sort of magnet for this sort of thing.

Consider that evangelicals, who overwhelmingly vote GOP, have gone from being 80% likely to say that a president should resign for having an affair (and quote a bible verse), to being 80% likely to say, ah it doesn’t matter, the bible? Well that says lots of things, I mean its not as if we have to take it literary!

At least it does go to prove my theory of conservative flip flop syndrome. In essence the Republicans, much like the UK Tories, aren’t really a political party anymore. They have no actual policies, no direction. They are just a cult devoted to follow which ever random nutty sex offender/tax cheat happens to be in charge at the time. And once he loses power in disgrace, they’ll shrug their shoulders and say so what, then forget about him. Recall how back in the Bush days, or Romney in 2008, they were the true messiah, failing to support them was treason again the US….until they criticised Trump! Of course, like any cult, the GOP needs funding, so they’ll happily sell their services to whichever random billionaire can afford to bribe them.

What this shows is that the democrats need to take the gloves off. The GOP won’t fight fair and you won’t win a fair fight when they’ve stacked the system against you. I’d propose that as soon as they get power back, prioritise shoring up the checks and balances. I’d federally mandate how electoral districts are organised (the states draw the line, but according to rules set by the federal government, overseen by non-partisan officials) and introduce proportional representation. Both would guarantee that the party that wins the most votes gets the most seats (the only reason why the GOP get so many seats is gerrymandering). It would also open up the possibility of smaller parties getting representation.

As for this Brett guy, once a democratic president is in charge, I’d give him and any other Trump justices a choice, resign or we stack the supreme court. There’s nothing in the constitution that stops a democratic president/congress either setting term limits on supreme court justices (which would force all but two to resign and be immediately replaced) or say appointing a few dozen twenty something women (and card carrying members of the ACLU) to the supreme court (this incidentally is what FDR threatened to do). Suddenly its likely he’ll remember some important yard work in needs to catch up on and retire.

Jacinda and the peacocks

At the UN there was controversy when some delegations showed up with babies, but at least the NZ PM’s baby didn’t make a speech and crap all over the place….unlike America’s baby (who got laughed out of the room).

Much was made of the NZ PM’s speech and the contrast between it and Trump’s. She spoke of unity and fixing global problems, he spoke mostly about himself and blaming others for his problems. I was reminded of something a military officer once told me about the traits that the military look for in a good officer (good judgement, leadership, team player, etc.) and there are red flags which signal that this guy should never be given command, as he’s likely to become a dangerous liability (who’ll march his unit into a minefield and get them all killed).

Well we see a lot of those red flags on display at the UN summit. Selfishness and putting oneself first is always a worry (note to Trump, there’s no “i” in team….although there is a “u” in c*nt!). An officer like this is likely to send in his boys, then take off in the other direction when the shooting starts. I recall Oliver Stone once mentioning that on his first day in Vietnam his officer put him out on point!

Other worrying red flags include impulsive behaviour (Trump again, he who dares….usually walks straight into an ambush), or equally bad, indecisiveness (Theresa May). Its important for a commander to be aware of what’s going on around them, so a detachment from reality (Trump or the brexiters) is very dangerous. And a good commander needs to listen, a bad one ignores advice (Trump again) or even punishes (Corbyn) those who offer it.

However of all of the traits you want to avoid in a commander, its one who blames others for his misfortune (such as foreigners). He berates his own men for disloyalty (have you given them reasons to be loyal, or plenty of reasons to question everything you say?). Or worse, blaming the enemy (if the enemy isn’t co-operating with your plans, well that’s kind of supposed to happen!). In short, the buck stops with the commander and any who is unwilling or unable to accept that is unfit for command.

All in all, this populist wave has left us a world led by strutting chest puffing peacocks, all of whom won’t be so much as put in charge of anything more dangerous than a stapler if they joined the military. All we can do is hope there isn’t some sort of crisis in the next few years, because I have very little faith in the majority of the world’s leaders. And its no wonder NZ is becoming the bolt hole of choice.

Hilary would have been worse

How different it would have been if the person who got the most votes had won. Mention this of course to Trump voters (or the Bernie or bust brigade) and they’ll mumble something about “Hilary would have been worse”. Really?

Would Hilary have appointed a long list of sex offenders to senior positions? (granted she’d have had to lock Bill in the basement or put him in a chastity belt). Would she have appointed a bunch of incompetents (purely on the basis of loyalty rather than ability to do the job) to senior government positions? Would she have left hundreds of important posts vacant? Would her aides have to brief her using cue cards and take stuff of her desk in case she did something stupid? Would she have gone to Russia and buried her tongue up Putin’s a*s?. Would she have started rolling back environmental protections and workers rights, or given a massive tax cut to the super rich? Would she have started a trade war for no good reason? Would Chelsea Clinton be jetting around the world acting as the defacto foreign secretary? Would she have started to use the US treasury as her own personal piggy bank, striking deals with countries on the basis of what most benefited her personal businesses? Would America have fallen from the world’s most respected nation to the butt of the world’s jokes?

As I said from the beginning, Hilary would not have been my first choice as President. But in the election you had a choice between her and the pus*y grabber in chief. I know which of those two is the lest worse scenario. This is why I do worry about the mid terms. The democrats seem to be at war with themselves. The only condition that should apply is are you willing to oppose Trump and if possible get him impeached? Anyone who meets that criteria gets my vote.

On which point btw, I strongly advise voting for republicans, even the moderate ones critical of Trump. As recent events have shown, they can be leaned on by the party and made to toe the line (probably because having had their snout in the feeding trough for so long the GOP and its donors have a lot dirt on them that they could easily leak to the media).

To draw an analogy its like the US was this town out in the old west and the position for sheriff was open. The choice was some guy in a black hat, who had a English accent (despite being German), a large scar and an evil laugh (and when he laughs birds drop dead out of the sky). Or some other guy (the man with no name), who while not being necessarily a good guy, he clearly ain’t the baddie. But no, some of the town want to vote for old man Bernie, despite the fact he’s been pushing up the daises up on boothill for the last couple of months. Well now they’re getting bull whipped by the black hat, while he burns down the church (with the preacher inside) and they are trying to console themselves that might have been worse.

Musk out at Tesla

So Musk managed to get himself banned from running his own company. Well to be honest this was a train wreck that was going to happen sooner or later. There’s a certain discipline that comes with being a CEO, not unlike some of those qualities I mentioned earlier. However, they are really only optional. There is in fact one key skill which a CEO must have above all else – keeping your big mouth shut!

A CEO is the face of his company. Anything he says is going to have an impact on the share price. This is why most tend to be fairly guarded about what they say, often taking the view that if you don’t have anything good to say, then don’t say anything. Hence why some of the statements from CEO’s regarding brexit should be setting off alarm bells.

Musk got himself in trouble thanks to his efforts to stop short sellers driving down Tesla’s share price. Yes, this was unfair, but on the other hand, he was kind of making it easy for them. What with calling a British diver a pedo, refusing to answer questions at a press conference because “they weren’t cool” or smoking pot live on the internet. As his downfall should show, the markets are decidedly unfair. They are a bit of a wild west. Yes the corrupt sheriff can send out his one spurs to rob your farm. Yet when you set out to take revenge its you who ends up swinging from a rope, regardless of whether or not you shot the deputy.

Which is slightly ironic given his, and other tech billionaires, affinity for libertarianism. In a libertarian world it would be even worse. Ford and GM would in fact have likely crushed him along time ago, same as Standard oil would destroy its competitors. So I suppose what goes around comes around.

Minister for starvation

Its difficult to avoid talking about brexit. Firstly we have the story than given the difference between where the UK would be if we hadn’t voted for brexit and where we are now, the UK is now 500 million a week worse off (you’ll recall those ridiculous promises of an extra 350 million a week!). The UK has been forced to appoint a minster of starvation supply (for the first time outside of a war).

Meanwhile, back in fantasy land, at the Tory party conference, they were trying to outdo each other with their different brexit fantasies. It was less a conference and more of a unicorn horn measuring contest. Brexit to the Tories is more about who they want to be the captain of the Titanic as it sinks and whether or not they should burn the lifeboats before anyone can use them. Meanwhile, a bunch of young Tory activists got caught with racist and classist slogans on their T-shirts, but of course that’s allowed, yet a labour supporter did it, the newspapers would be wanting Corbyn to be hung.

On a positive note, it was noted that Theresa May never mentioned her Chequers plan in her speech, which could hint that she’s going to roll over and accept whatever the EU offers her….Or it could be because she knows that if she so much as mentioned that word, it would be like playing the rains of Castamere at a wedding. Within seconds they’ve have all started stabbing one another. So probably more of a survival instinct than anything.

Increasingly it looks like we’ll just have to wait for all the brexiters to die off and vote to re-join the EU….which probably won’t take too long, ironically thanks to brexit. The NHS (which again the bus ads promised would be better off) is already in crisis, with a Breixtus of EU staff leaving, not surprising when brexit threatens to turn them into 2nd class citizens. The government’s solution? Oh, we’ll just have the nurses train as doctors or shorten their training time. I mean its not as if people die if hospitals make a mistake or something.

Making rent

I’ve come across quite a few stories over the last few months about homelessness in California, one of the largest concentrations of wealth in the world. And we’re in many cases talking about people with jobs who are homeless, as its become difficult if not impossible to make rent in California, to the point where some are sleeping in their cars or living out of campervans. Let me repeat that, we’re talking about people with jobs, who work hard, who have kids and a family living in their cars. Welcome to Trump’s America.

Now too be fair, this is part of the hangover from the financial crisis. And we really have to pin the blame for that on past US presidents (notably G. W. Bush). And of course Obama’s recovery was a rising tide that didn’t lift all ships. Governors of California (who have come from both parties since the crash) also have to take some share of the blame. That said, Trump has cut federal housing aid, and who did he appoint in charge of housing? Ben Carson (the first person to conduct brain surgery on himself).

So there’s plenty blame to share out, the question is how to fix it. Well clearly a lack of rent control is part of the problem. If you let landlords charge $2000 a month for a flat (with a two month deposit on top), then nobody except the better off will be able to pay that. And there’s a lack of good affordable social housing. In Europe for example, try to get planning permission for a hundred luxury condos and you’ll be told nope, not going to happen, unless you add in a few dozen affordable homes or council houses.

Of course there’s an elephant in the room here we’re ignoring, one you can clearly see if you’ve ever flown over California and looked out of a window – urban sprawl and low density housing. While we’ve got problems with urban sprawl in Europe yes, but never to the same extend as it occurs in the US. Developments that would be refused in Europe are routinely approved in the US.

In fact, government policies intended to promote car ownership are a major contributory factor, by for example legally requiring large parking lots everywhere. By contrast, getting planning permission for car parks in Europe is tricky and will often be refused (we’ve a long standing issue in my block with parking, long story but the bottom line is the council will routinely turn down applications for parking lots, unless you’ve got a damn good reason for having one and even then they’ll insist its underground).

The end consequence of this is vast spread out cities where you need a car to just get around. Case in point, the population density of LA is around 1,000 per sq km, while in London is closer to 5,000 and Paris 21,000. If the oil ever runs out LA is going to starve to death, given in some LA neighbourhoods you can literally get picked up by the cops for just walking. The US has legally mandated a country full of vast parking lots, now its got them filled with homeless people rather than apartment blocks.

And, as always, this highlights the shortcomings of the libertarian politics of the tech billionaires. Their lassie-faire approach amounts to them amassing vast fortunes and living in huge mansions, while the serf’s who toil away making all that money have to steal food from work, then find a quiet parking lot to catch some sleep in and hope they don’t get mugged. This is what a libertarian world looks like.

A real magic money tree, scientific publishing

An interesting article here from George Monbiot about the racket of scientific publishing. If you are an academic, in almost all cases you have to publish your research in a peer reviewed journal. Many academics will in fact have it in their contract of employment that they must publish a certain number each year, often in specific journals.

However these journals are owned by private companies, notably Elsevier, which was the brain child of Robert Maxwell. So in essence we academics use public funds to generate intellectual property that we are then obliged to hand over to a private company, who then charge our own university library a small fortune to be able to access it. In essence we are being contractually obliged to participate in a wealth transfer scam from the public sector into the pockets of media billionaires.

This situation could be solved relatively simply. Either the government just nationalises these firms and makes their data publicly accessible free of charge. Or it puts in place a rule prohibiting uni’s from setting targets for staff based on for-profit journals. This would mean we publish in open access journals more frequently. Faced with the risk that the intellectual property they own would quickly become worthless (scientific data tends to get obsolete pretty quickly), the private publishing houses would then likely be forced to go open access themselves……

Comcast buys Sky, Murdoch on suicide watch

….So why you may ask, aren’t governments trying to move towards open access journals? Well because they don’t want to upset media tycoons like Rupert Murdoch of course. The media is something of a closed shop, a forbidden lawn onto which politicians dare not tread….or the Sun will publish an article calling them gay.

However, in amongst all the other stories recently, a little story slipped through that’s actually of significant importance. For many years now Rupert Murdoch has sought to take full control of UK broadcaster Sky. However, while the UK’s politicians are a spineless lot, they ain’t stupid enough not to see the danger with letting him have full control of all the newspapers and half the TV audience. So they’ve been obstructing that process, although more about going through the motions than any real opposition.

Well the phone hacking scandal forced those plans to be kicked into the long grass for a while. Brexit provided good cover to resume the process, but the chaos it unleashed slowed things down somewhat. However now at the moment of truth, what’s gone and happened? A rival firm, Comcast, has swooped in and bought Sky right out from under Murdoch’s nose. And if to make matters worse, its CEO while republican, is more of a moderate (read a greedy rich as*hole, but at least one whose vaguely sane). So its likely he’ll start to shift Sky more towards the centre ground of politics, rather than constantly supporting the Tories.

Keep in mind that for much of recent UK politics this has been going on in the background. Murdoch has supported this candidate or that and got his newspapers to sing their praises regardless of how nutty or ludicrous what they were proposing was. He’s more responsible for brexit or Trump than probably anything else. And now suddenly, in no small part thanks to Trump and brexit, he’s been pipped at the finishing post. Well, what goes around, sooner or later, it comes around. Karma can be a bitch!

Not so cool news

I had a bit of a rant before about Game of Thrones season 7. However my main bone of contention was with I’d call the “cool dude” school of film making, that seems to have taken over. This brand of film making views the plot and the script as secondary and merely a way of stitching together various epilepsy inducing CGI sequences (the point of which seems to be to get the audience to say “this is cool dude”).

The trouble is that this is a style of film making that gets boring very quickly. And as its necessary to throw away much of what makes any particular genre appealing to its fan base, it tends to piss off the fans. A situation not helped by hiring directors or producers whose knowledge of say, star wars/trek is limited to whatever they managed to google while in the cab on the way to the studio.

Well it would appear the wheels are starting to come off. On the back of poor box office and bad reviews several leading actors in the latest Star trek film have quit, reportedly over pay disputes (if the film ain’t making as much they need more of those dollars for the CGI budget, which the actors seem unwilling to accept). Its possible the next star trek film might be cancelled. There’s even a crazy rumour going around that the studio is so desperate they’re going to hand it over to Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Romulans? The hateful Klingons? Vulcan fiction? Kill Kirk?).

Also on their way to the job centre are the actors playing superman, batman and Cpt. America. Meanwhile, the star wars franchise is in such disarray after the Solo movie flop (that was a train wreck you could just see coming!), that it looks like any further movies (bar the ones too far into production to halt) are also going to get canned.

In short, the customer is always right. Piss off your fans, they’ll vote with their feet. I mean I’ve not been to say very many of these movies recently because, to be blunt I’d be as well off shining a strobe light in my eye for two hours.

Ultimately the problem is these major studios have a monopoly on the story lines, nobody else can make a star trek film without the risk of being sued, even though its a genre that’s over fifty years old and its original creator has been dead for twenty years. If you left any other company (cars, laptops, washing machines, etc.) with the exclusive rights to produce a product and they’d never innovate, their products would become increasingly bloated and over priced.

So this is probably one situation where we should let the markets sort it out. Let anyone who wants to make a superhero/sci-fi movie do so. Yes some will be dire and laughably bad (the Russian film Guardians for example), but others might well be much better than anything the mainstream studios can come up with.

Katla is isn’t going to blow….for now!

If you are a tabloid reader, you might have heard that the Icelandic volcano Katla was about to erupt. For those who don’t know, Katlia is the bigger brother of the big E volcano (I ain’t even going to try and get its spelling right!) that erupted in 2010 and disrupted all of those flights. Well Katla is many times larger (with a Caldera 10km’s across) and it erupts about every 100 years. When was the last eruption? About 100 years ago! So an eruption from Katla would be far worse and could last for much longer (possibly months).

However, before you start digging a shelter or stockpiling food (a sensible idea perhaps, but for other reasons!) no, that’s not what the scientists studying the volcano actually said. In fact they pointed out they could see no signs the volcano was in imminent danger of eruption. The study did reveal a lot more about the potential impact of its eruptions. For example, in one past eruption it created a flash flood with a flow rate the Nile, Mississippi, Amazon, and Yangtze combined.

So while its unlikely to go off tomorrow, the warning is that we probably won’t get a huge amount of warning prior to any future eruption. Which given how disruptive this could be, it would seem to make sense to put in place some contingency plans for how we are going to cope, if say transatlantic flights had to stop for a few months…..so not really something the British have to worry about after March 2019 then!

Countering anti-2nd vote arguments

So Corbyn & co have rightly stitched up the remainers within the labour party. They’ve watered it down to a vague commitment to a people’s vote, which may or may not include a remain option, but even that will only happen if there’s a general election, or maybe not. And it won’t be in the party’s election manifesto even if there is an election.

And of course the gang of four pro-brexit MP’s will be free to prop up Theresa May and keep their boss from power without any blow back from the party leadership. As I’ve said before, supporting labour with Corbyn in charge means supporting leave and leave at any cost, as he’s arguably a more committed leaver than many in the Tory party.

And as a result if you support Corbyn let’s be clear, you don’t really support social justice in any way shape or form. Brexit is turning upside down the lives of millions of people in the UK. The 3-blokes-in-a-pub were recently talking to EU citizens about what they’ve been through. In effect Corbyn believes its okay to turn millions of people into 2nd class citizens, on an issue which they were never allowed to vote on. Explain to me, how that’s any different from the Tories at their worst? And the EU has pointed out that what goes around comes around, anything the UK applies against EU citizens will be reciprocated by the EU.

Furthermore, if brexit goes ahead it makes everything labour committed to at conference impossible to deliver. To implement his policies, Corbyn will need money. But brexit is going to raise living costs, lower tax revenue and drive up borrowing costs. In short, there won’t be much wriggle room for him to put up taxes or borrow to fund anything. He’ll be spending most if not all of his premiership just putting out fires.

Hell he may as well have promised to give everyone houses made of gold bricks and keep the rich in a cage outside Downing Street, which he’ll occasionally poke with a stick. Its about as likely to happen as anything else in labour’s manifesto, so long as they ignore the brexit elephant. Labour under Corbyn isn’t a political party, its the cult of the one true Corbyn. And they will deliver dilly squat.

It is for these reasons I thought I’d debunk a few of the main arguments against having a 2nd vote:

“A people’s vote won’t be democratic”

The definition of the word democracy is “a system of government by the people for the people, typically through voting….”. The word breaks down into dêmos (which means “people“) and krátos (which means “force” or “power“). So a “people’s vote” won’t be a “people’s vote” WTF !?! I know all these posh boys who went to boarding schools speak Latin, but you really need to brush up on your language skills.

 

“We need to respect the original decision”

Okay so labour under Corbyn believes that the brexit vote was a sacred act, which cannot ever be voted on again, now and until the end of days. While the decision the electorate made just over a year ago to put the Tories in charge was a mistake and the public should be made to have another go, under threat of a general strike. And presumably they should keep voting until Corbyn wins!

Electorates change their minds. Especially when they learn that they’ve been conned, or that one side or another has been found guilty of electoral fraud. If you believe we should “respect the original decision” then you don’t believe in democracy. By that same logic MP’s should be voted into power once and for life, regardless of what crimes they commit or how crap they are at the job or how many lies they told to get elected.

 

“Twenty million/62% of consistences — insert massively over inflated figure — voted for leave….”

Brexit was only supported by 37% of the electorate, or only about a quarter of the current adult population (when we include those excluded from the poll). So it is stretching things to suggest it had actual majority support. And there’s polling evidence to suggest attitudes have changed.

Given the gravity of its potential impact it really does require some sort of 2nd vote in some form or another, preferably with a rule requiring support from 50% of the electorate or a two thirds majority in every region of the UK. Otherwise odds are, once Corbyn and May have both succeeded in screwing things up, there will be another referendum anyway, this one aimed at getting back into the EU (which btw will come with accepting the euro, proportional representation a proper constitution, etc.).

Furthermore, surely if you are that confident that leave is the “will of the people” surely you’d WANT a 2nd vote to kill off the issue for a generation. I mean if those numbers are correct, you’re going to win anyway, let the baby have his bottle.

 

“Remain lied too”

Given that Cameron Sir Pigalot and Osborne the slimy one were leading the remain vote, that’s probably true. I mean part of the reason he had to go is that he’d told so many porkies since getting elected it was getting hard to keep up. Recall Cameron’s problems remembering which football team he’s supposed to be a supporter of.

However, two wrongs do not make a right. This is not some sort of game we’re playing. If remain lied, that still makes the vote invalid and means the referendum should be re-run. In most other countries it would be. Indeed, it is this moral hazard aspect of the brexit vote that worries me. Letting the leave campaign get away with electoral fraud is opening a massive can of worms. It means that if you can bully and lie your way towards something, with the support of just a quarter of the people, then anything’s possible. Just read UKIP’s manifesto and imagine what sort of a bus they could drive through the country with this precedence on the books.

 

“In Greece/Ireland/—insert random EU country you know nothing about — they make you vote over and over until the EU wins”

By which they are referring to the fact that in some cases there’s been more than one referendum in these countries on the same issue. Ya, because we’re grown ups who realise that people make mistakes and need to be given the opportunity to think again. And also it has to be pointed out that in these referendums the no camp represented the status quo (we were voting on changing how the EU worked, not on leaving it and some didn’t want it to change, hence they voted to keep things the same, the opposite of the leave vote position).

Furthermore, there were specific problems with these past referendums, which is why they really had to be re-run. For example, in the lead up to the Nice Treaty vote in Ireland one politician even said he hadn’t bothered to read the treaty and you’d be mad to try. While Sinn Fein claimed that the minimum wage would fall to about 2 euro and Irish would be conscripted into the new European army.

So prior to the 2nd vote the government got “clarification” from the EU on various issues (i.e. that Sinn Fein are a bunch of lying ba$tards), they actually bothered to read it this time and even got some minor changes to the text approved. If anything, this makes the case for a 2nd referendum in the UK along similar lines.

 

The unspoken truth

Of course the real reason for not supporting a 2nd vote, which no leaver will ever admit to, is that they know they got lucky last time and fear that won’t happen again. A combination of Cameron being in charge (encouraging a protest leave vote), leave’s milk and honey lies, election fraud, a refugee crisis in Europe, Russian trolls and the mass surveillance and manipulation of millions via facebook, all served to tip the balance. I recall a pollster suggesting that there was only a one in four chance of leave winning the last time, so the odds of that happening again aren’t great.

And ultimately, the chaos of brexit won’t effect brexiters, with their gold plated pension and in many cases an EU passport and an offshore bank account. Instead, it presents them with an opportunity. While you’ll find nobody in labour who’ll admit it, they secretly hope brexit will go ahead and be a disaster as this increases the odds of Corbyn winning a future election. So in other words, they are happy to help the Tories burn the house down, in the hope they’ll be able to have a go at burning down the garage later. Its sadopopulism at its very worst.

Salzburg and the sound of brexit madness

Theresa May went to Salzburg this week….without watching the sound of music first (which is practically a crime in Salzburg, the hostel I stayed at showed the film every day!). She was hoping to get the EU to endorse her dead parrot chequers plan….that everyone in the UK (other than her) has already rejected. Inevitably it fell to Donald Tusk to point out to her that it was bleeding demised and was now a late plan, bereft of life that rests in peace. This threw May into a tizzy, claiming that the EU weren’t showing her respect (she’d been told many times before that the plan would be rejected, it could hardly come as a surprise) and if they don’t like it what’s the alternative.

Well the problem with this statement is it shows two years in and the UK still hasn’t got a clue what its doing. And that the PM, like so many brexiters, has a disturbing lack of knowledge about the EU and its institutions. The UK is the one who is leaving, it is up to the UK to come up with an acceptable plan. And the EU has hinted at options it considers acceptable (Norway model, Canada plus, Swiss model, reverse Greenland, etc.). In fact they’ve practically rubbed them in the UK’s face! You can lead a horse to water….but if its a brexiter its going to demand Bollinger champagne and caviar…..which it sees no need to pay for.

The EU commission has to stick to this policy because, contrary to what the Daily Mail will tell you, its not a political organisation. Its an executive body charged with implementing policy as opposed to setting policy (that’s up to the EU parliament and the 27 EU member states). Thus its treating the UK’s exit as a legal process, as outlined by article 50 (which its clear nobody in government bothered to actually read before triggering it). While there is some leeway and wriggle room, they can’t change the rules of the EU to accommodate the UK. Why? Because that would require all of the EU member states to agree to it. In other words all of the national governments and parliaments would have to approve such a change (whereas some fudge on the terms of article 50 only requires a qualified majority, 60% of them, to approve). Some countries would even have to have a referendum (including Ireland). And there’s no way all of that can get done in 6 months.

In short, Theresa May should have done her home work and decided on a brexit plan, before invoking article 50. Its a bit late now for tears and prima donna theatrics. As is so often the case, the Tories will use an incident like this to bury bad news. And while their boss was in meltdown mode, they were having a field day.

For example, some members of the Windrush are to be refused citizenship, as the Tories have clearly judged that the media storm over this has died down enough that they can go back to being racists. Oh and EU migrants will receive no particularly special treatment post-brexit, so expect history to repeat itself soon enough. At least until it causes enough chaos (i.e. enough crops rot in the field and enough old gits die on dirty hospital floors) for them to realise its unworkable. But I mean come on, when the British give their word, it clearly doesn’t count when it comes to foreigners or plebs (the 17th rule of acquisition).

Meanwhile, Liam Fox quietly revealed to parliament exactly what remainers had told him prior to the referendum – that all the BS about how easy it would be to trade under WTO rules was a big fat lie. Far from the UK winning concessions off other countries outside the EU, its likely to have to make concessions of its own as a condition for continued trade (under WTO rules, which will be much harsher than under the EU’s free trade agreements).

Under WTO rules if a country changes its trade rules this presents other WTO members with the option of triggering a trade dispute. And by leaving the EU and single market (oh and changing your immigration laws also counts), this means the UK is changing its trading rules for every country in the WTO. And needless to say, the sharks are starting to circle the UK.

Across town, Michael Gove of house Slytherin the environment secretary was also confirming for farmers what they were warned about prior to brexit is going to happen – that there will be no farm subsidies anymore. Yes, there will be a transition period of a few years and the government is promising some subsidies for environmentally beneficial activities but that’s it. However, these reforms do look kind of suspiciously like the ones the EU has previously proposed and guess who was the main objector to them? So again, why are we leaving the EU, just to plagiarise its policies that we are ourselves objected too?

Furthermore, EU’s CAP reform comes with a few key caveats. Notably they want to do away with so-called “slipper farmers” (city types who buy up land and pretend to be farmers just to collect subsidy money). The UK government’s proposals mention nothing about that. Which again, should hardly come as a surprise, hazard a guess who objected to the EU’s attempts to crack down on slipper farmers last time?

There also seems to be no support for small holdings, notably hill farmers or crofters. These are vital industries, not least because in order to manage the land you need to pay someone to live out in the middle of nowhere, half way up a mountain, surrounded by midges. The EU, as well as the Scottish and Welsh governments, have long recognised that pushing a bit of money their way to keep the wolf from the door makes more sense than hiring someone in to do the land management for them. But it appears the Tories plan a repeat of the highland clearances.

And of course we need to consider the impact of the supposed post-brexit trade deals the UK is proposing to sign. These will force UK farmers to compete against cheap foreign imports, which will often have been produced at a lower environmental standard. Plus there’s issues such as the risk of diseases prevalent in these countries spreading to UK farms (most notably foot and mouth disease).

This is why the EU is very selective about who it signs trades with and on what terms for which products. There is little point in them enforcing strict food safety and environmental standards on European producers, if we are just going to let every jackass in the world sell into the trading block without any standards at all. Furthermore, under WTO trade rules, farm subsidies could be seen as giving UK farmers an unfair advantage, hence they might be subject to a trade dispute post-brexit.

And to say the least I’m a little suspicious of this road to Damascus conversion of Gove and the Tories towards the environment. I suspect the real reason behind this announcement is party politics. If May gets ousted, the party will split into two factions, one behind Boris or the monocled mutineer Mogg, the other behind Hammond or Soubry. If either faction wins, the Tory party will probably split. So the odds are good in favour of a compromise candidate, such as Gove. So this announcement is probably more about him making peace with the moderate wing of the Tory party than anything.

Of course once the leadership contest is over and the incompatibility of such measures with the Tories post-brexit plans becomes obvious, even these subsidies will probably be jettisoned and the farmers will be hung out to dry.

The three blokes in a pub vloggers have recently been to Geneva and they’ve been told by WTO officials there that UK farming has two good years left post-brexit, then its lights out. I suspect that might be a bit off, there is (as noted) a transition period, it will take far longer for the brexiters to sign the trade deals than they think. But certainly yes, when the dust settles, UK farmers, like the fishermen, or the factory workers, are going to find they’ve been conned and betrayed. Much as they were warned would happen many years ago. They were just too caught up in the nationalistic xenophobic rhetoric of the brexiters to bother to listen.

As President Marcon rightly pointed out the brexiters sold the country brexit on a torrent of lies. Not the chickens are coming home to roost and those lies are being exposed. But, as the brexiters value their careers more than their country, they’d rather drive the nation off the cliff than admit to these lies.

Post-brexit trade delusions: Africa edition

Theresa May is starting to remind me of a 80’s film, weekend at Bernie’s, the plot of which was how two low level employees are stuck with pretending their boss isn’t dead, or else assassins will kill them. Not a great film (it has one joke that wears thin pretty quickly), but an apt metaphor for Theresa May dragging around her Chequers deal, unwilling or able to admit its bleeding demised and joined the choir invisible, because if she does that will be the end of her.

But for brexit to work both she and the hard brexiters still have to prove that life outside the single market can bring benefits to the UK. That we’re better off out than in, a question Corbyn refused to answer last week – six times!

Theresa May’s Chequer’s deal, its just resting!

So, having realised that the kebab model ain’t going to work and having googled the south sea bubble and realised that South America isn’t a mysterious continent full of riches, that idea too has been ditched. And with New Zealand, the US and Australia leading opposition to the UK’s WTO proposed quota’s post-brexit, that suggests no empire 2.0. As a result now they are pinning their hopes on Africa, with May and Fox jetting off to set up trade deals….with the world’s poorest continent….which has a combined GDP less than that of France. Hardly sounds like they’ll be buying many UK cars! And via the EU of course the UK already HAS a host of trade deals with Africa that it will lose at the end of March 2019.

Furthermore trade with Africa is something that presents a bit of dilemma. On the one hand it is generally agreed that trade is the best way Africa can grow its economy and develop itself out of poverty. However, the issues with corruption in the continent means there is always a risk that money won’t trickle down to the people who need it the most. And least we forget a lot of Africa’s problems stem from past trade deals which screwed over the locals to the benefit of Western countries and a handful of the wealthy elites in Africa. So the devil is very much in the detail in any trade deal with Africa.

However, the hints coming from the brexiters seem to indicate that they plan the very worst of the exploitative trade deals of the past. They are talking about using aid for example as a carrot to subsidise the sale of British goods. What’s wrong with that? Well because it means locals (again, some of the poorest people in the world) paying over the odds for equipment they might be able to buy cheaper elsewhere, with corrupt local politicians often creaming off their share of the take (or simply sell the equipment on to a foreign buyer and pocket the profits). And it often comes with the further price tag of the locals having something thrust upon them (e.g. they lose their water supply to the benefit of a foreign owned farm growing cash crops).

And the brexiters also talk about getting “cheap food” from Africa. Or to translate that into practical on the ground consequences, they want to take the food out of the mouths of starving children just so UK shoppers can save a few penny’s. If the UK starts buying more food, be it cash crops or worse the very food the locals rely on to survive, then this pushes up food prices in Africa. And it doesn’t have to go up by much to become unaffordable to locals.

Furthermore, there’s a number of practical reasons, why most countries are restrictive in their trade with Africa. For example the issue of disease, most notably foot and mouth. As I pointed out before its endemic in certain parts of the world, most notably Africa. If the UK starts trading in meat products (or feed) with Africa we’d lose our disease free status meaning UK farmers would lose access to many international markets. And recall a past outbreak of foot and mouth in the UK, an event the farming sector is still reeling from, was caused by someone violating these very rules. So all in all it doesn’t sound like a great idea.

Foot and mouth disease is endemic in most of Africa

And hand in hand with free trade goes freedom of movement. If a African entrepreneur who wants to say, set up a new car brand (I met someone at a conference a few years ago and this was his goal) and he wants to export to the UK, or get finance through UK banks, he and his staff are going to be able to get in and out of the UK without having to apply for visa’s two months in advance (after filling in an 85 page form and paying £500 a pop) and having them turned down or delayed for no apparent reason. So any such trade deals would only work if the UK is prepared to open up its borders with Africa.

And the UK will not have Africa all to itself. Both China and India are actively investing in Africa and they can both make far better offers than any deal the UK could offer. Indeed, one of the brexiters big ideas is to lower the import tariffs into the UK to zero. Ya, ok but you do realise that under WTO rules all the other countries are legally obliged to keep the tariffs on UK imports at the WTO levels until an agreement can be reached. If the UK has already lowered its tariff’s what possible incentive do these other countries have to negotiate the lowering of their tariffs?

The brexiters seem to forget that the “exciting” trade deals they got in the past, which they signed on the deck of the Royal yacht Britannia, they only got those because they had the Royal Navy backing them up (and pointing the guns of warships at the city!). These days its a little different. Go into a trade negotiation now, even with African countries, and you are facing off against an army of lawyers and expert trade negotiators. Many of these negotiators will be Western educated (Oxford, Harvard school of law, LSE, PSE, etc.) and grizzled veterans of multiple past trade negotiations (of which the UK has almost no recent experience). The idea that the UK is going to get a better deal than the EU has managed, even against smaller African countries, is somewhat dubious.

And if the plan is to resort to the robber baron tactics of the past, Empire 2.0 and all of that, well like I said China and India are now backing these countries up. You’ll be facing off against global economic powerhouses….with two of the world’s largest armies.

And speaking of which, on brexit related matters, we have stories about how impractical and expensive stockpiling medicines and food will be, of the massive drop in nurses (the nurses union are now so worried about the shortfall that they are backing a 2nd referendum), farm workers (as well as fears of food shortages) and the likely impact of brexit on research (as well as the fact the UK will be frozen out of the Galileo navigation system). As experts have pointed out the government’s recent post-brexit advice is to go away and buy software (which doesn’t exist), hire a bunch of lawyers to fill out the tons of documents you’ll need to export (hardly practical for a small business)….then bend over and kiss your arse goodbye. Oh and if you live in Northern Ireland, talk to the Irish government (which is kind of like getting on a BA flight and the pilot saying “I have no idea what all these buttons do, you might want to find someone from Ryanair”).

Plus we now have clashes between French and UK boats over fishing rights (worth noting the boat actually doing the ramming below is a British registered trawler who has been found guilty of fishing offences before), probably a foretaste of what’s to come post-brexit.

A British boat rams a French fishing boat off the coast of France as the Scallop wars start

And what’s the government’s solution to all of this? The go-to Daily Mail/Express solution to every problem, call in the army! Who’ll be parachuted in to protect fishermen (who again are the ones doing the ramming!), distribute food, fuel and medicine post brexit….and presumably pick fruit, staff hospitals and do scientific research (while riding on Unicorns one assumes!). I think Tories played with their action man figures a little too much as a child!

And I just got back from Ireland and it came up in idle conversation how a number of the UK chain which have gone belly up recently are actually still up and running in Ireland, including Maplin and ironically enough Poundland (ya while they’ve gone broke in the UK, they are still in business in Ireland even though we joined the Euro two decades ago!). The media agonises over what could possibly be causing this crisis in the high street, the internet? The weather? Changing tastes?…or maybe its because some dickheads decided to vote for brexit, causing a 25% drop in the value of the pound, which if your importing stock from abroad, means your costs just went up 25% pushing many firms into the red.

Like I’ve said before brexit is now the official state religion of the UK. The CEO of a company could jump off the roof of a building wearing a sweatshirt that said brexit killed my business and land in front of a UK journalist or politician and they’d put his death down to an unfortunate accident with gravity.

But all in all it appears even the brexiters are resigned to the fact that brexit is going to render the UK worse off. Its an unspeakable heresy they can’t dare speak, so they need to at least make sure there’s some positives they can point too. So when all the factories closing and millions are unemployed and certain food items have become harder to find than in Venezuela, they can at least point out, oh but look pork is now 3p cheaper per kg, aren’t we reaping the rewards of brexit…. just ignore the stories about food riots in Africa or a foot and mouth outbreak in Sussex and eat your brexit tripe.

Brexit deal or no deal

Theresa May, aka the yellow submarine, is famous as a politician who doesn’t actually advocate any particular policies. Largely because she knows that any idea she comes up with is generally going to be a bad idea (e.g. the treatment of the Windrush or the dementia tax).

So its probably not a huge surprise to hear that her brexit trade policy has been criticised from both sides of the house, with both leavers and remainers arguing against it. Even Donald Trump turned his nose up at it. And its almost certain to be rejected by the EU. Its effectively been declared dead before the ink’s had a chance to dry.

And the Tories are now taking a pounding in the polls, slipping behind labour again, with a sharp rise in UKIP support (recall that in some marginal seats every vote for UKIP is effectively a vote for Corbyn, given that labour is often the 2nd party in those constituencies).

The downside is that the brexiters will see this as furthering their goal of a “no deal” brexit. However there is a dangerous flaw in their logic (inevitable really, most of them are posh kids used to getting their way by holding their breath until they turned blue and the nanny panics). Arguing no deal is better than a bad deal, is the sort of thing you’d hear a dead beat husband say to justify not show up to his divorce hearings (which just means his ex gets the car, the house, the kids, the dog and half of all the money!).

They seem to think we’re playing a version of the TV gameshow Deal or No Deal, with the EU cast in the role of the unseen banker. However, the truth is a little different. And if we were playing a version of Deal or no deal, then the box is already opened and we know what’s in it (a bill for tens of billions of euro’s and a drop of several points of GDP) and the banker/EU can decide what else to put in the box or how much its worth and make the UK accept the deal regardless of how awful or unfair it is.

In the event of a “no deal” or a break down in talks, then the EU will activate its contingency plans and its lawyers will decide what the implications of a no deal brexit are. In effect, they’ll go through what the UK has already agreed to and signed and pick the bits out of that which they like (and ignore the bits they don’t like). In other words the only one who gets to “have their cake” in a no deal brexit is the EU.

And keep in mind what the UK has a agreed to already includes a hefty exit bill, continued freedom of movement and the UK (or at the very least NI) remaining part of the customs union, forever! Which hardly sounds like the sort of outcome the brexiters would want.

Now granted, the UK can try to defy the EU….if we ignore the little fact that over half the UK’s food is imported from the EU and how dependant the UK is on electricity from the continent (southern England depends of several GW’s worth to get through the winter) or gas from Norway (40% of all imports, Norway being part of the EEA and thus trade will be affected by a no deal brexit). I think the definition of the term “fucked” is when experts start to seriously debate how you should go about stockpiling tinned food.

And, as discussed previously, sooner or later a court case will go against the UK government and they’ll be forced into an about face. e.g. a car maker sues them due to delays at the ports and either wins a massive compensation bill or an injunction prohibiting customs officials from interfering with their trucks.

As the Irish labour leader recently pointed out, what the brexiters are proposing to do is renege on international treaties (you know the sort of stuff Hitler and his cronies got in a spot of bother over), which is almost certainly illegal under international law. Contrary to what Trump says (he suggested suing the EU, then again he has a habit of using slapp lawsuits, which he usually loses!) the UK is likely to be the loser in any such legal cases.

Hence why its possible that at some point in the event of a no deal, the International court of justice in the Hague (not to be confused with the ICC, or the ECJ in Luxembourg) will get involved, or more specifically the PCA (the Permanent Court of Arbitration). They are basically the UN equivalent of VAR and they could well be called in to rule on the legality of a no deal brexit.

While I’m not calling myself an expert on this (plus we are into uncharted legal territory anyways), but my guess is that they’ll rule that no, you can’t just break an international treaty because you feel like it (or because Russian trolls managed to con large number of voters into doing something really dumb). The UK can only break treaties its signed by the mutual agreement of both the UK and EU.

Equally however, the PCA might also rule that some aspects of article 50 aren’t legal either. Notably the imposition of this artificial deadline (which is clearly intended to give the EU the upper hand in the closing stages of negotiations). The court could well rule that no, talks have to keep going on for as long as they have to. And if that’s inconvenient for either party, well tough!

So its possible that the outcome of a no deal (e.g. a cabal of hard brexiters ousts Theresa May and ends negotiations), would be several months of chaos, which is then interrupted by court rulings that annul everything, forcing the UK and EU back to the negotiating table. If the UK wants out quickly, then they can just sign whatever exit terms the EU’s lawyers have prepared. Yes it will be an awful deal, but just close your eyes, think of England (because Scotland, NI or Wales won’t be hanging around for much longer in such a scenario!) and sign. Equally if the EU wants the UK out of the room in five minutes flat, then compromise on some of those red lines.

So the consequences of a “no deal” could actually be the UK stays locked in negotiations with the EU more or less indefinitely. Of course it probably won’t get to that. Because it will quickly become obvious to brexiters and remainers alike that the Tory party simply can’t deliver on brexit, at least a brexit that doesn’t involve economic chaos and the breakup of the UK. They will therefore pivot behind Corbyn who will win a snap election.

Corbyn is arguably a more committed brexiter than anyone in the Tory party (in Westminster’s circles he’s known as “May’s chief whip”). Largely because he has bigger fish to fry (overturning every piece of legislation both the Tories and new labour have passed since 1970!) and he’ll want to get the talks over with as soon as possible. And he’s willing to compromise on areas such as freedom of movement or the custom’s union to do it. But of course, this will mean the UK remaining tidally locked in the EU’s orbit forever more (or until the penny drops and people ask what’s the point of being in the EU’s orbit but having no influence over it? leading to a 2nd vote and the UK rejoining).

So before the brexiters reject Theresa May’s policy….or more to the point, the edited version that Brussels will approve of in a few weeks time! Consider that this is probably the best brexit deal they will get. The alternatives are likely to be either one negotiated by Corbyn, or a 2nd referendum overturning the previous result. With the splitting up and/or collapse of the Tory party shortly thereafter.

The brexit red flags you might have missed

Therssa May’s little Brexit away day in Chequers seem to go well, at the time of writing, nobody’s thrown their toys out of the pram yet (save the odd grumble of discontent). As before, with the brexit bill we were told “the party won’t wear it” that there would be mass resignations, a leadership challenge, rebellion, destruction of the death star, fire & brimstone, etc.

However, instead, nothing. When push comes to shove, the brexiters have about as much backbone between them as an English adder. Although that said, what May is proposing, just doesn’t go far enough for the EU. They’ll likely turn her down and force her and the brexiters to concede more ground, which probably will result in some push back eventually.

As I mentioned before the brexiters have to oppose a soft brexit of any kind because they know demographics are against them. Sometime over the next decade a significant number of those who voted leave will have died….likely in a pool of their own piss an a dirty hospital floor because the UK can’t hire nurses anymore (thanks to brexit) to treat them. Already recent polls have shown a majority in favour of remaining in (or rejoining) the EU. Hence why the brexiters have to go for a brexit that’s as difficult as possible to unpick or reverse. Its basically what they did with rail privatisation.

So like I said, I suspect some sort of push back will come at some point. However, outside of Chequers there’s been a number of worrying developments over this past week which would give anyone, leave or remain good reason to be concerned and be looking to either halt the brexit process or go for the softest brexit possible.

Trading places

Firstly there’s the issue of future trade deals. One of the assumptions the brexiters are making is that they can get “exciting” trade deals in “emerging” markets. However in order to qualify as “British” as part of any future trade deals, said goods, such as cars for example, then the majority of the parts and materials have to have been made in the UK (and yes I know that sounds obvious, but the brexiters don’t seem to get it). Currently many UK made products, most notably cars, are mostly built out of parts coming in from overseas (notably Europe).

Hence if for example Trump gives the UK this much vaunted trade deal (and that’s a big if, you honestly think he’s going to screw America just to do the brits a favour?), that won’t matter, UK made cars will still count as “European” when they arrive in the US. In fact UK based car companies will be in the worst of both worlds in the event of a hard brexit. They’ll have to pay a tariff on parts imported from the EU into the UK and then pay a further tariff on the car when its exported (and 75% of the UK’s vehicle production is for export, as in they roll off the production line in right hand drive!).

I would note that this scenario is not unusual. Many car makers, particularly in places like China or Mexico, face the same problem. However, they have the advantage of much lower labour costs. If you’re paying half what it costs to make a car in the UK, do you really care if someone slaps a 20% tariff on you. Yes you’ll try to get a trade deal to eliminate that, but ultimately, its not going to break the bank. However for the UK this could immediately render UK car production uneconomic. Further, in order to avoid similar problems, European car makers might stop buying UK made parts as well.

But what about Nissan, didn’t they invest in brexit Britain? Well yes, but only because the government effectively bribed them. Further it was pointed out to me this week that basically Nissan far from being naive, actually played May and the brexiters like a fiddle. Car makers chance their car models about every five years or so. But it takes the best part of several years to actually do that. Hence Nissan’s board had probably already decided to continue production in the UK prior to brexit, under the assumption of a remain vote. Aware that it would be several years before any of the aforementioned tariffs actually hit them (when production of the planned models will be winding down) and that shutting the plant now would mean throwing away a lot of money, it is not surprising they decided that this was a hit they could absorb, particularly if they could scare a kick back from May in the order of a few billion.

Now the problem is that sometime around about 2020 Nissan and other car makers are going to have to make the more important decisions about future car production. As things stand many will have to look at introducing hybrid or all-electric version of their vehicles and the UK doesn’t make a lot of that hardware and, for reasons noted earlier, they might not sell such parts (or vehicles in the UK post-brexit). So in the absence of any comprehensive trade deal with the EU, its all but certain that at this point Nissan et al will take their multi billion pound cheque from the government, tuck it in their back pocket, fire a few thousand British workers and ride off into the sunset.

A is for atom, C is for chaos

Secondly, we have news about Euroatom and the UK’s supposed replacement for it. As I pointed out in a prior post, the brexiters assumption that they could leave Euroatom, but yet still somehow be part of it (or just gate crash future meetings) was bollix. Well it seems that message got through eventually (kudos to Barnier for somehow getting that into Dave2’s thick skull!). So they scuttled away and prepared to set up their own version of Euroatom. Whose job it will be, much as I warned, to basically google and then plagiarise all of those pesky EU regulations the brexiters hate and implement them in the UK.

The UK nuclear industry’s readiness for brexit….all red lights!

Well a recent audit judged the UK’s preparedness for brexit (with around 8 months to go) as regards nuclear regulation and rated the UK at red in all five categories. And just to be clear to the brexiters, no this isn’t something you can fudge or make do and mend at the last minute. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL! You know the stuff that glows in the dark! If the UK isn’t up to speed on this by March 2019 the consequences could be pretty serious. Nuclear plants might have to shut down, hospitals could run short of isotopes, factories could be forced to shut. Hell, even your average smoke alarm has a small quantity of radioactive material in it. So leaving the nuclear industry unregulated isn’t an option.

I know people who work in the nuclear industry and while they will be quick to point out that, they’re name isn’t Homer Simpson and they do take safety very seriously. Unfortunately, they are also the first to admit there’s a good few jackasses in the industry (typically upper class twit’s who went to the right school and have been overly promoted as a consequence) who are only one mistake away from a Darwin award. The many foul ups over the years at UK nuclear facilities are testament to the fact that the UK nuclear industry needs regulating.

And this isn’t a matter the UK government can simply fudge. Private companies might not play ball, if they fear losing their insurance cover or line of credit (quite apart from the consequences if several of their workers ending up glowing in the dark!). And the IAEA has to sign off on everything. And if come March 2019, the UK nuclear regulator consists of a port-a- cabin at Sellafield with a few clueless trainees inside frantically googling what is a Geiger counter?, odds are they’ll shut the whole thing down.

Border polls

Thirdly, a poll has come out regarding Irish reunification that would have Ian Paisley rising out of his grave….and likely going off to beat the DUP leadership to death with a crucifix. Prior to brexit you’d struggle to even get a majority of Catholics to support re-unification, polls (both catholic and protestant combined) typically ran at 65% no, 30% yes (the rest don’t know’s). Well that lead of +30% has now been slashed to just 3% with 45% no and 43% yes (the balance again undecided). Need I point out but 3% is within the margin of error for an opinion poll, but also easily within the margin of what can be overturned in an actual referendum campaign.

And again, the really bad news economically as a result of brexit hasn’t struck yet. In short, the odds of NI (and recall the DUP campaigned for brexit) becoming part of the south are probably in the order of 50/50.

Reacting to this poll, the Irish PM did point out his best guess that the North probably won’t vote for reunification. However, his comments have to be put in the context that his main rivals politically are Sinn Fein and that the NI economy is much weaker than in the Republic, with a GDP about 20% lower. Hence there would be a price to pay for reunification and I’m not sure if people in the south appreciate that (or are willing to pay that price).

Personally, I’d argue that in a soft-brexit scenario (particularly where it was pretty obvious that a 2nd referendum and the UK rejoining was a likely possibility in the medium term) Varadkar is probably right. However, in hard brexit scenario I’d argue its very likely he’s wrong and NI would in fact join the south. But either way, if this isn’t setting off alarm bells and having unionists wake up in a cold sweat, I don’t know what will. The DUP backing brexit was a historic mistake for the party.

Vote leave’s illegal campaign

Finally, we have the not so small matter of the legality and legitimacy of the brexit vote being called into question (again!). As I’ve pointed out before on this blog a couple of times, questions have been asked about the tactics and funding of the vote leave campaign, not to mention undisclosed links to hedge funds, the misuse of personal data and links to both US far right groups and the Kremlin.

Well a leaked report suggests the electoral commission is going to find that vote leave broke UK electoral law during the referendum. And this “leak” came from none other than the vote leave camp themselves, suggesting that they wanted to get the news out in advance because the actual report is going to be so much worse. Indeed, they submitted a 500 page rebuttal (the lady doth protest too much me thinks!).

Now leave voters will likely shrug their shoulders at this and say “fake news” (buddy, its an official independent investigation, the very opposite of fake news!). However, you might want to consult the small print of the Vienna commission, which both the UK and US (among others) have signed. Under this, the referendum result should now be annulled and the vote re-held. And there are a number of precedence’s set across Europe where similar votes were annulled and then re-run (most recently in Austria).

But of course the UK isn’t Europe or the US. With no proper constitution, under British law, the UK government can just ignore this inconvenient little fact….until a court ruling goes against them! At some point they are going to face further legal challenges to brexit. And this ruling from the electoral commission means they can’t hide behind “the will of the people” any more (i.e the 37% who voted for brexit, closer to 25% if we consider those who were denied a vote or leave voters who’ve already died since the vote).

And its not the Gina Miller types I’d be worrying about. Its corporations and businesses who will be able to show how brexit has caused them real and serious economic harm. And they can hire high priced lawyers to fight their case. And recall some of these cases will be fought in court rooms in Europe or in the US, meaning it doesn’t matter diddly squat what laws the UK government passes to try and wriggle out from under it.

Such legal cases could get pretty nasty. We are kind of into uncharted legal territory here. The lawyers will start subpoenaing government documents left right and centre, and who knows what will come out from that (nothing good I suspect!). Ministers will be hit with summons to testify in court under oath. Think about, if Boris Johnson ends up in the dock there are three possible outcomes, A) he lies under oath, is found to have committed perjury and gets hauled off to jail. B) He tries to make a joke out of it with a latin quote and gets done for contempt. C) He cracks under cross examination and fesses up to everything, then gets arrested for obstruction of justice and electoral fraud. Or D) knowing Boris, he manages to do all three!

The smart legal advice to the government (well unless they want to hold the next cabinet away day in Wandsworth scrubs!) would be to just settle these cases out of court. Take the lawyers aside, offer them whatever amount of money it costs to make them go away (which is basically what they did with Nissan after all) and hush the whole thing up. Of course once word gets out and you have corporate lawyers queuing round the block, at the same time the public are seeing their taxes going up to pay for brexit, it will probably get to the stage where they’ll have to have another referendum at some point….

…..Or maybe, they won’t. In theory if a pro-EU government were to come to power at some point in future, they could argue, not unreasonably, that brexit was an illegal act undertaken by corrupt ideologically driven bigots, power hungry fifth columnist and traitors in the pay of a foreign power. Rather than have a 2nd referendum, they’d could simply vote to annul the result and proceed with EU membership without even bothering to hold another referendum. So the seeds in brexit’s downfall might have already been sown.

But either way, there’s enough red flags starting to go up that only a fool would ignore them. But unfortunately the brexiters, like captain Ahab, are committed. Brexit is the hill on which they’ve chosen to die on. They can’t back down now, if they do they are finished. It would be the end of Tory party, the DUP and Corbyn.

The Southsea bubble: brexit edition

I joked before about how when the brexiters talk the talk about “exciting” trade deals “in emerging markets” they don’t say where are these mysterious new markets. Timbuktu? Peru? El Salvador?….Well actually yes. The brexiters think that they can substitute trade with the largest single economy in the world, for trade with Latin America. Things I’ll say in jest, they’ll say with a straight face. Humour and satire are again being outrun by facts.

So, what’s wrong with this idea? Well firstly the South American economy is worth only about a quarter of that of the EU economy. And while the UK literally has a pipeline to the EU, via the channel tunnel, Latin America is the other side of the world…and on the other side of the inter-tropical convergence zone (if you’re a nervous flyer, you don’t want to fly to south America, it gets pretty choppy).

And while you’ll come out of the channel tunnel onto either a high speed railway line or an eight lane motorway, the transport infrastructure down south isn’t that developed. The roads away from major cities aren’t great and there are large gaps in the network, the unfortunate consequence of living on a continent with vast jungles, massive rivers, high mountains and uncontacted tribes (who’d sooner eat Boris Johnson than buy a Dyson vacuum cleaner off him!).

In short its a bonkers suggestion. Even more bonkers when you realise the UK already HAS a number of trade deals with Latin American countries, with other deals being negotiated via the EU. Deals the UK will lose upon leaving.

I mean what are we going to sell them? Given that the Tories have been principally trying to re-assure farmers, one assumes they mean beef. Well, you do realise that Argentina is beef country? Order a steak in Argentina, you get a massive steak that’s half the side of a cow (for a fraction of the price you’d pay in the UK), and no sides (and they don’t exactly do vegetarian food out there btw!). So I don’t see how British farmers could compete. And as they’d be looking to export meat to the UK, this would flood the UK market and bankrupt UK farmers. Plus, given the presence of foot and mouth disease, the UK would risk losing its disease free status, meaning it would lose access to the European and north American markets.

Should I be accused of saying south American’s don’t eat their greens, they do, but its more fruit and salads. Brazil also has large sugar cane and grain growing plantations. I don’t see how the UK could compete and it would inevitably be the losers in any such deal. Plus a number of south American countries are somewhat paranoid about their agricultural production and might be reluctant to allow UK imports, as they would worry about diseases being brought in, threatening a vital industry. Its illegal to bring fruit (or in some cases grains of any kind) into a number of south American countries (they search bags at customs and they will fine you if they find some much as an apple core). And speaking of fruit, Argentina and Chile both have a large wine industry. Do the brexiters seriously think English wine (what the French call “du vin roast beef”) is going to compete against that?

But what about cars or planes? Well given that a number of car and plane manufacturers are now threatening to leave the UK, that might be a moot point soon. But since we’re talking about, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina have their own car industries (Mexico and Brazil’s each manufacture more cars than the UK).

As a European traveller down south you’ll notice how a lot of their cars (Clio’s, Golf’s Megane’s, etc.) all seem to be a generation or two behind the ones back in Europe. I assume the car manufacturers are moving equipment from Europe down there, allowing them to get a bit more revenue out of model before its retired. And as they’ll have worked out any issues with the car back in Europe, they can build them cheaply in Latin America (quite apart from the lower labour costs). Again, there ain’t no way UK based manufacturers could compete (and as they will no longer comply with EU emission standards and safety requirements, we can’t sell them or even drive them on European roads).

The luxury end of the car industry is dominated by US or Asian brands (Lexus, Cadillac, etc.) so that’s going to be a difficult one to break into and it likely won’t go down well in Washington, where it will be seen as trying to eat America’s lunch.

As for aircraft, Brazil is home to Embraer, the world’s third largest aircraft manufacturer. More famous for small regional jets, they’ve recently begun to branch into medium sized jets. While I can see a few UK airlines buy the odd plane off them….well not that we’ll have many airlines left, most are already registered in the EU (even BA!). But either way, the UK is unlikely to see any real gains.

One feature of south America you do notice is how the contrasts between rich and poor are fairly stark. The poor are very poor and the rich are very rich. Hence why if you hang around the posher parts of Buenos Aires or Rio, you’ll be paying London prices, and that’s the cheap places! There’s also a certain level of social apartheid in south America. This is a part of the world where boys from the favelas can literally get picked up by the cops (or shot!) for just walking down the street in a posh part of town. South America had the misfortune to be where a number of right wing thinkers, in collaboration with various military dictatorships, were allowed to run various social and economic experiments. And needless to say, the results haven’t been pretty.

That said, the vast bulk of people in this part of the world, while not poor (nor are they rude rich snobs), they ain’t exactly rolling in money. The sort of high value expensive stuff the UK would be looking to sell they won’t want to buy and they can get something similar locally (or made in China) for a fraction of the UK price. So in short, there’s pretty much no way any of the trade the UK will lose post-brexit with the EU can be made up in Latin America. Indeed, given the loss of Latin American trade deals post-brexit (once existing trade deals are lost upon brexit), its questionable whether any of the trade the UK already has with the region can be recovered quickly.

Another consideration is that while many South American countries have free trade agreements with each other and freedom of movement, its not as all encompassing as it is in the EU. In fact it wouldn’t be far removed from the “bespoke” trade deals May often talks about. And the end result is that if you try to go across any border in South America, there’s generally going to be a queue (and a delay of a few hours), as there will be customs and passport checks of some form or another. Its inevitable that the same will happen at Dover and in Northern Ireland, particularly if the UK starts signing trade deals with third parties (such as the US) which aren’t compatible with EU rules.

However, there is one sector of the south American economy where the UK could potentially see a market for its wares – financial services, which they can sell to the many nouveau riche in the region (social apartheid? Our kind of people! you know we used to do great business with the ones committing actual apartheid?). I mean seriously, the Tories have never in their history cared about factory workers , farmers or fishermen. Do you honestly think they’ve gone through some sort of road to Damascus conversion?

No, instead when they boast about how “we” can get “exciting” new trade deals, they are talking into a mirror. The “we” refers to them and their boarding school chums in the city. The plebs in the factories and fields are snookered. But that’s hardly the Tories problem. After all, why do you think the likes of Farage and Aaron Banks wanted brexit in the first place? (so they could bet against the pound and make a killing from its collapse in value after the brexit vote).

However if this is the plan, its a crap plan. Latin America is not exactly the most politically, nor economically, stable part of the world. Those right wing social and economic experiments I mentioned? Let’s just say that there was a certain level of what the CIA would refer to as “blowback”. As we speak Argentina might be about to go bankrupt (again!). In Brazil there’s strikes and unrest, with talk of martial law and military dictatorship. And Venezuela? Don’t ask! Tying the UK’s economic fate to that of south and central America doesn’t exactly sound like a brilliant plan.

Oh, and there’s the small matter of those Islands in the South Atlantic that the UK is occupying, which tends to get up the noses of the locals a bit. I suspect any sort of a trade deal might involve them being jettisoned.

Its also important to remember that the Tories will place their ideology above the well-being of the country. As I pointed out in a prior post, the privatisation of the UK’s railways wasn’t undertaken in a way that would be most likely to succeed and produce an efficient service. It was undertaken in a way that would be as difficult for a future labour government to unpick as possible. That this would destroy British railways long term or cost the government more than it saved was of little concern (they don’t use the train, that’s what the Jag is for!). So to is it with brexit.

The brexiters are all to aware that demographics are against them. That once the older generation who voted leave have all died off, the odds are the younger generation who voted remain (or were denied the chance to vote at all) will simply vote to rejoin the EU (indeed recent polling suggests public opinion is already turning against them). So a critical goal of the brexiters is thus to achieve “a clean break”, which is code word for a brexit that as difficult as possible to reverse, even if its detrimental to the UK.

In short, what the brexiters propose is a re-run of the south sea bubble. That bubble grew out a false claim that a UK company had been granted a monopoly on trade in South America (in truth they had permission to send exactly one ship a year!….to trade in slaves!). This was then blown out of all proportion by speculators, not unlike the very spiv types behind brexit, who then buggered off and left an awful mess for a future government to clean up, which bankrupted many in the UK. When you forget the lessons of history….

News roundup

Do panic

A few months back the brexiters complained that they wanted the Royal Mail to celebrate brexit by issuing stamps to mark the occasion. Well RM seem to have met them half way by issuing a set of “Dad’s Army” stamps. Clearly someone at RM is trolling the brexiters.

Inevitably perhaps, others have been creating their own versions of potential brexit stamps.

 

Our Brexit, hallowed be thy name

Meanwhile, back in the mad house, Saint Theresa of Maidenhead May suggested that an extra £20 billion would be available after brexit for the NHS thanks to the “brexit dividend”.

This was met with incredulity by many. At the time of the referendum when they made similar claims, it was pointed out that the UK only really spends about £8 billion on its EU membership, once farm subsidies, rebates, research funding, structural funds and other things Brussels pays for are taken into account. Of course the implication would be that, much as I warned might happen prior to the referendum, this could indicate that the Tories do not plan to pick up the tab for these bills. Farm subsidies will end in March 2019, the fishermen and deprived communities in Wales, Scotland and Cornwall will see their lifeline cut off and universities will see research budgets slashed, with a knock effect to the many high tech start ups who depend on that research funding to get them off the ground.

And there’s the not so small matter that the UK will be stuck, not with a brexit dividend, but a brexit deficit. There’s the exit bill the UK will need to pay, £40-50 billion net (depending on rebates and currency exchange differences, since its calculated in euro’s). And then there’s the economic cost of undertaking brexit (about 3-7% of GDP, best guess £72 billion).

Plus, what do you think the EU does with all of that cash? They spend it on hiring civil servants to administer all the EU regulations, that May is trying to squeeze into UK law. It was improper regulation on the British end that led to the Grenfell tower fire. In China, there’s a controversy over baby formula, leading to shelves being emptied in Australia because some mum’s don’t trust the Chinese stuff anymore. So regulations are something you neglect at your peril. And the three immediate areas that will need tackling are nuclear materials, medicines and food safety…..so no pressure then! And in any event the conditions of any trade deal, be it with the EU or other parties, will need to include a budget to account for paying for the regulation of that deal.

In short, never has a UK Prime Minster said something so inaccurate since Lord North told parliament that the Americans loved being part of the UK so much, they’d happily pay a bit more for tea. But as I’ve said before, brexit is now the state religion of the UK.

While May, perhaps sensing what she was implying, did backtrack and mubble something about a tax rise to pay for the extra money until the (non-existent) dividend kicks in. But even this is worrying. Basically what she said was that the Tory party is abandoning its manifesto and sacrificing it on the altar of brexit. And while more money for the NHS isn’t a bad thing, its almost certain that this new tax burden will fall on the middle and low income earners (this is the Tories after all, which is more likely, they give up smoked salmon once a week to pay for hospitals, or they get the plebs to pick up the tab?).

Brexit is now to the UK what Juche is to North Korea. The excuse upon which anything can be sold. A tax rise? Its for brexit (but don’t worry we’ll pay you back later). An end to farm subsidies? Privatise the NHS? Strip workers of their right to strike? Its all to make sure brexit works!

Of course the problem with this attitude is it means they just can’t understand why for example Rolls Royce or JLR would suddenly want to move thousands of jobs out of the glorious thousand year reich British empire mark II (because they are companies with shareholders perhaps?). Nor can they understand why the EU are being such assholes and threatening to cut the UK off from intelligence data and the European arrest warrant (because they have this thing in Europe called “rights” and “laws” and the UK will join Belarus and Kazakhstan as the only non-signatory to the ECHR). In other words, they are blind to the consequences of their actions. Like the suicide pilots flying their plane into the world trade centre they cannot see the obvious insanity of what they are doing and genuinely think they’ll be going to a better place.

Lock em up….by which we mean the kids

In between picking fights with China, Trump has been busy locking up kids in cages after tearing them out of their the parents arms (what’s the bet he’ll put Roy Moore in charge!). Conditions at the facility where the kids are detained, referred to as the dog kennel, are described as inhumane and equivalent to a prison. Experts warn of the emotional scaring this will inflict. Parallels have been made to concentration camps and the detention of Japanese Americans during world II.

The day you know you’re living in a fascist state is the day you hear your justice secretary (soon to be named ministry for state security) deny he’s running concentration camps. The irony is one of the justifications of the Alex Jones mob for opposing Obama was that he was black was planning to set up FEMA concentration camps.

Oh, and for good measure the US is quitting the UN human rights council. Because clearly the words “human rights” and “America” should not be sharing the same sentence right now, even Trump can figure that one out.

Let’s be clear if you voted for Trump (or voted for a third party in a swing state, which is basically the same thing under the US system) then this is what you voted for. And frankly it shouldn’t surprise anybody, its exactly what was warned would happen if Trump was elected. At least now when reading the history books and you wonder, how could the Germans vote for Hitler, well now you know how and why. And part of the reason why international pressure failed to contain him, wasn’t because Neville Chamberlain was a weak and naïve leader. It was because he was leading a divided Britain, which had more than a few (Daily Mail reading) fascists of its own, who couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about.

Trump, upon realising that this might not look so well, immediately tried to dodge responsibility, blaming the democrats, the immigrants themselves and pretty much anyone else he could think of. Its worth noting that something similar played out during the holocaust, the Yugoslav civil war and the Rwandan genocide, in which often those in senior roles were separated from the actual atrocities and generally tried to avoid taking responsibility for such things, leaving it to a handful of fanatical racist nut cases to do the dirty deeds. This of course made it so much easier to order more of the same and treat as mere bureaucratic exercise. Forget the lessons of history and they will repeat themselves.

The really big short

Trump’s tariff policy has sent stock markets crashing to the point where all of this years gains have been wiped out. And the main losers won’t be in Wall street, they’ll be ma and pa firms across the US, as well as many ordinary Americans who are about to see their living costs rise in response to these tariffs (you’ll be paying them, not the Chinese). It sounds like typical Trump. He’s not doing it because he thinks its a good idea, its an action driven purely by ego…..

…Or is it? Given that Trump has not actually fully separated himself from his businesses (which is illegal btw), we need to consider the possibility that he’s colluding with others, and doing a little bit of insider trading. Its possible to profit from a falling market by shorting the market. If you can correctly guess that the stock of a particular company is going to fall, you can bet on the share price declining (by borrowing shares, selling them at a high price and then buying them back later after the price has fallen).

However, shorting is a risky business. Its the equivalent of betting that Brazil or Germany were going to lose their opening matches. Now while this will happen occasionally (as indeed happened to Germany….guess they won’t be eating Taco’s for a while!), but the odds are you’ll be wrong more often than you are right. And to make matters worse its possible with short selling to lose more than your original investment if the market moves against you. Hence most traders will often hedge their bets (basically bet both ways, but slightly bet higher one particular way). This reduces the risk, but also the profit margin.

Of course if you have access to insider information, e.g. you are the president and you know there’s a big tax cut coming, or you’re going to impose tariff’s on the EU, then change your mind and then impose them anyway. A trader with advanced knowledge of this could easily adopt short positions and profit considerably from this.

But, not only is it illegal for a president to be in any way linked to these sorts of deals, but insider trading is also illegal and for good reason. Because if you get it wrong (and markets can be difficult to predict, even if you have access to insider information) things can go from bad to catastrophic pretty quickly. Consider how rogue trader Nick Leeson managed to lose over £800 million, wiping out Barings bank.

Indeed one has to look at Trump’s real estate losses in a new light. People laugh and say oh Trump is such a loser he can lose money running a casino. How can you do that? I mean people literally walk into a casino and hand over their money!

Well, not if your running a casino skim operation. Its possibly that Trump, under pressure from his mob connections, was deliberately running the joint into the ground. Its just they miscalculated. Normally you skim just a little off the top, but not enough anyone will notice, nor that might risk bringing down the racket. But Trump was such a balloon head, or he and his co-conspirators just got too greedy, they managed to bleed the place dry. Which doesn’t bode well if this same lot are at the helm of the US economy.

Enabling fascism

Speaking of fascists, in Italy the populist horseshoe government is split because one of their leaders, looking to emulate Trump, wants to build his own concentration camps….sorry I mean happy camps (I’m sure they’ll come up with a more PC name!). He also wants to count Roma gypsies and presumably make them go around with little stars on them, I mean nothing bad ever happened from doing that. He’s also suggested that an anti-mafia journalist, who criticised him should have his police protection removed.

This has all come as a bit of a shock to a number of 5S voters. But what should it? You enabled a bunch of fascists and helped them into power, now they are enacting fascist policies. What did you think was going to happen? They were going to go door to door handing out milk and cookies?

Its possible that this might bring down the horseshoe government a little earlier than was expected. Which I’d consider a good thing…..if it weren’t for opinion polls suggesting a likely win for the Northern League and Forza Italia (Mr Bunga Bunga’s outfit).

The Glasgow school of art fire

In Scotland the Glasgow School of art burnt down. Designed by Rennie Mackintosh, the Mac, is to Glasgow what the Casa Mila is to Barcelona. This fire occurred just four years after another fire, which destroyed the college library, which was in the process of being rebuilt. Incidentally, lost in the story about the art school fire, was the fact that another important building, the neighbouring ABC theatre, had also burnt down after the fire spread to it.

Two fires in the space of four years is more than bad luck. Clearly there’s something up with the building in terms of fire safety. My understanding is the contractors for the restoration after the previous fire were on site, so they’ll have some questions to answer.

The library of the Glasgow school of art, prior to the fire in 2014

But clearly there’s some issues with fire safety that needs to be addressed. And this is not just a problem for the school of art. There’s been several large fires in older buildings in Glasgow and the basic problem is, they ain’t up to current fire codes and need to be modified accordingly. This article discusses some of the issues, although in the context of post-war era buildings, but much of the same policy should be applied to Victorian and Edwardian era buildings. E.g. fitting external fire escapes (as in New York) and sprinklers, fire resistant barriers, etc.

Meanwhile the question now being asked is whether the art school can be rebuilt. Some suggest it might not be feasible, others feel it is possible. We’ll have to see. There will inevitably be a strong desire from the art community and the Scottish government to rebuild it, but some polls suggest there might be opposition from the public, if it costs too much money.

For the moment, given that its basically now a burnt out shell, the best that can be hoped for is facade retention. Which would have to be undertaken quickly, given that its on a hill and exposed to the winds (it probably won’t survive the winter in its current state). Even then if the building were rebuilt, you’d be rebuilding everything inside that retained facade. And as noted, you’d have to modify the design to account for modern fire codes, which would require considerable modification from the original. So it would be more of a replica, rather than the real thing.

The thinking wing nut’s troll

The Toronto academic Jordan Paterson has been in the news recently, largely thanks to an encounter on Channel 4 news earlier this year, which has made him something of an intellectual hero for the alt-right. However, in truth he’s just a slight better inform right wing troll, who engages in many of their same tactics (gish gallop’s, contrarian arguments, weasel words, etc.)

Take this example where he attempts to argue that much as the right is basically anti-liberalism ID politics (his alt-right followers only hearing what they want to hear will have no doubt filtered that out) that the left is basically the same. That many on the left for example only support social welfare programs that they’ll never benefit from due to a similar commitment towards ID politics.

This position combines a number of contrarian arguments based on a falsehoods. It relies on the myth that working class people tend to vote conservative, and its the “champagne socialists” who vote for left wing parties. However, data from both the last UK election and US elections show that those who are working class tend to vote for left wing parties. When those on right try to claim the opposite, they are often forced to use weasel words statements (e.g. focus on white men over 40 in specific states).

But certainly it is true that a certain portion of those on higher incomes do vote for left wing causes. As I happen to be one of those, although real ale socialist would be more accurate, I can tell Mr Patterson my views have nothing to do with ID politics. Its because I understand that I might end up needing that social welfare safety net myself someday. No matter how hard working you are, or how well paid, all it takes is one accident, cancer diagnosis, bankruptcy of your employer or misadventure and suddenly you’re in a world of trouble.

For example (and this is just one of many examples I could give), I know a guy back in Ireland, hard worker, used to lead scouting groups, took a fall at work one day. He seemed to be fine after a few days, but as the months and years passed he developed ever worse back problems (not unusual for these to take time to surface) and eventually he had to give up work. Now if we take the right at its word, he should be dragged to the side of the street and left to die just because he had the misfortune to have an accident that wasn’t his fault (should you wonder why he hasn’t sued, his employer went bust during the crash and it was only a small building firm anyway, there won’t have been any money to sue for).

That’s all it takes to ruin your income. I wonder if Mr Paterson has paused to consider what would happen to him if he, or one of his relatives, were to fall ill and need expensive medical treatment, which his HMO wasn’t willing to cover (pre-existing conditions and all that). In fact I know of a lecturer who found himself in this very situation. A relative got ill and he had to drop everything, give up his well paid job and fly home to Pakistan. Now while last I heard he’d gotten a part time job over there, but I’m going to hazard a guess its paid a lot less than a lecturing post in the UK. And given his likely outgoings I suspect he’s probably only just about managing. Voting in favour of social welfare is not ID politics, its basic common sense.

Indeed perhaps more the question is why is it that some, notably those over 40’s blue collar workers don’t vote for left wing parties. I would argue that this stems from a long instilled ideology of rugged individualism (you’re considered less of a man if you ask for help), as well as the usual right wing lies and propaganda. And more crucially this tendency does tend to be growing (while those on lower income tended to vote overwhelmingly for left wing candidates by at least 80/20, now its closer to 60/40). So its more a sign of desperation and frustration than meaning an increase in support for the politics of the right. Which perhaps isn’t surprising given how the right doesn’t really have a political philosophy anymore, other than “anti-liberalism”.

The calm rational logic of Trump voters

But either way, the only real difference between Mr Paterson and Alex Jones (and they are both believers in the paranormal, living on wing nut welfare, which kind of makes his point regard social welfare more than a little hypocritical), is that Paterson knows how not to look and sound like a nut, even when he’s saying pretty crazy things.

The Wakanda conundrum

I came across an interesting little video on youtube, which discuss “the Wakanda conundrum”. For those who didn’t see the movies (Black Panther, age of infinity), or don’t read comic books, Wakanda is a small yet highly advanced African country which has kept itself hidden from the world for many centuries (for reasons we won’t get into right now). It owes its formation to the arrival of a meteorite from space made of a strange and nearly indestructible metal. As a result its now extremely wealthy and century’s ahead of the rest of the world technologically.

So what’s the problem? Well there’s simply no way such a society could exist. No matter how valuable this resource is, without trading with the outside world (and thus sharing ideas and technology) they’d struggle to figure out how to exploit it. And without trading this resource, they’d never be able to earn any cash from it and thus never be able to buy in the stuff they’d need to exploit the resource and develop their economy. In short the economic policy of Wakanda is basically the same as that of North Korea, and they ain’t exactly the richest country in the world, nor the most advanced (I’m sure Trump would tell you differently tho!).

And speaking of which, the government of Wakanda is an absolute monarchy, with kings picked by barbaric fights (okay, if you’ve ever seen a bunch of politicians fighting over whose in charge, its not that much different maybe). The problem with such a system is all it takes is one bad king to ruin everything. And essentially, that’s the plot of the Black Panther film, but they ignore the consequences of that.

Then there’s the matter of the so-called “resource curse”, which means that small countries with valuable resources can sometimes end up worse off than countries without any. While this doesn’t apply in every situation, Iceland and Norway or Bahrain, for example. But generally countries tend to only avoid the resource curse so long as they’ve got open borders, good trade and a reasonably free society and competent government. Inevitably Wakanda would hit the buffers sooner or later and descent into a corrupt, autocratic mess.

And the other problem with having resources is it tends to draw attention to you. African dictators surrounding Wakanda, not to mention western colonists (notably the Belgians), would soon learn of it and be very quick to swoop in and try to take over the country. And given how in the last film the Wakandian army got the snot kicked out of them by a large pack of dogs, I doubt they’d be able to hold off an invasion, regardless of how advanced their technology.

Uber scooters

A number of silicon valley based firms have begun to set up dockless bike and scooter hire schemes. The logic is, rather than the traditional bike hire schemes, where bikes are picked up and dropped off at designated spots (which can mean trucks rolling around transporting bikes from docking station to docking station). Instead, the system is more free flowing. You pick up the bikes wherever you find one (a mobile phone app directs you to the nearest one) and then leave it wherever you are when you’re finished. Simple!

So what’s the problem? Well many of these schemes are being set up by companies without the support of local governments and councils. This is causing all sorts of problems, from people riding bikes and electric scooters on pavements, then abandoning them in the middle of the pavement, where they represent a trip hazard, particularly for blind people.

I think this is a good idea that needs to be developed more, indeed I’d be curious to see if its possible to marry this idea with current car sharing schemes. However, clearly there needs to be some sort of regulation. Frankly the operators of these schemes are lucky councils didn’t just classify all of their scooters as litter and bin them (then fine the company for waste disposal), which is actually what happened in China. No doubt these rules would specify where the bikes and scooters could be used and that where they can be left (if not at designated docking points, then off the pavement and parked neatly). Presumably a system of fines imposed (and/or penalty points) on those who break the rules might bring some discipline to the situation. So it would be a good idea for these firms to start working with local authorities, rather than trying to go the whole uber.

So long and thanks for all the fish

The one shining reason for brexit we were told was the fish. The fish, dear god will someone think of the fish! Those poor fishermen, Farage said as he cried crocodile tears. Well, aside from the fact that this ignored the realities of how trade deals work, and that the Tories have already screwed the fishermen over, there’s a more specific problem – the fish are moving.

As a result of climate change North sea cod and north Atlantic cod are migrating northward out of UK waters and into Scandinavian waters. You would think the Scandinavians would be delighted about this, but they aren’t. Their preferred fish is the Arctic cod and the increasing presence of North Atlantic cod is not only making fishing difficult for them, but threatens the long term viability of their industry. While I’m not much of a fish eater, I’m told by those who do that there’s a distinct difference in taste between the two types and that as a result, the Arctic cod is considered a more valuable product. So you can see the problem. Its issues like this that underline the need for action on climate change.

One possible temporary fix would be for the Faroese, Greenland, Norwegian and Icelandic governments to agree to let EU boats into their waters (for a fee of course) to catch the North Atlantic cod and basically take em back down south. Of course given that the UK is leaving the EU, its inevitable we’ll be cut out of any such deal. Given that all are part of the single market, its going to make a lot more sense to deal with the EU than the UK. So it looks like the UK isn’t even going to get a smoked kipper out of post-brexit fishing deals.

Free range parenting

I got into a discussion on another blog recently about how parents are becoming increasingly controlling of their kids, so called helicopter parenting, and how this wasn’t a good idea. Well now its official. A study from America suggests that overly controlling parents can lead to behaviour problems.

I’d argue the problems go much further. We end up with students in university, who are used to having every little obstacle swept out of their way and thus haven’t learnt how to strike a work life balance or think for themselves. Its long been my observation, as both a student and a lecturer, that students from the strictest parenting background tend to be the ones who become complete tear away’s in uni.

They’ll show up in the first week of term dressed like a Mormon, or in full islamic dress, but by the end of the first semester they’re complete party animals (for whom breakfast consists of peeling last night’s pizza off their face before eating it), who start missing classes and falling behind. By contrast those from more “liberal” backgrounds (who’ve already learnt how to manage their time and say no to a night out) are able to maintain focus. And they tend to be the ones more likely to drop out, not least because it can sometimes turn out that their parents picked the course and uni for them, which turned out to be something (or somewhere) they didn’t want to study.

In contrast to this is so-called free range parenting. Rather than for example, walking the kids to school, parents take the view, well he/she knows what time classes start, they know how to get there, so its the kids responsibility to get up on time and get there. If they don’t, its going to be a steep learning curve. While there are merits to this, there are problems with it, not least of possible legal issues.

But my view is that parents need to think of the long term impact of what they are doing. While you have to have some rules and boundaries with kids, if you don’t give them some level of independence, they’ll never learn it. Then you are stuck with them living at home and you have to get them evicted. Birds won’t leave the nest if they don’t learn how to fly.