Money vs. Integrity in Elections

Money and politics. There’s a combination that goes together like clouds and rain. It’s difficult to conceive of one without the other. Money doesn’t guarantee success, but it does tip the balance in the favour of those who have it. If a political party is out of sync with the voters, then piling on the pounds will barely tip the scales. Same is true if a candidate’s credibility is in the pan. What money does in the run up to elections is summed up in three points.

One. It is used to influence the climate of opinion. Journalists are a fickle bunch. Raining issues down on them and pushing hard gets lots of coverage. Having a team of fresh thinkers drafting speeches and doing research (hard graft) means arguments can be placed for maximum impact. Volunteers can be superb. Trouble is there’s never enough of them to go around.

Two. Professionalising campaigns. British politics, at a local level, is renowned for its amateurism. In so many ways that’s a wonderful situation. Petty reveries, few ancient but dedicated leafleteers, committee rooms with dry rot, out of date records of voting intentions, a dream, never fulfilled, that a bigwig’s visit is just around the corner, all that and more. Money does afford the recruitment of motivated campaign managers and organisers who know how to get a message out and follow-up on voters’ concerns.

Three. Pure swagger. Saying that a new candidate will never win here, is not from around here or is an accidental choice of a struggling local committee, they can all be pushed aside. Money allows even the most desperate, disorganised, dishevelled individual to be bigged-up. Confident candidates, with adoring supporters run the full distance, whatever the inevitable knocks. Money is great for maintaining momentum and papering over the cracks.

It’s interesting to note that none of the above means that a constituency gets a better Members of Parliament at the end of the process. However, if all the candidates on the ballot have access to some of the above then local voters do get a wider choice.

On the basis that no political party will ever win all the seats in the House of Commons, targeting has become the number one strategy. Only expend resources where they may best produce positive results. That can be 300-400 parliamentary constituencies, all with their idiosyncratic issues and 70,000 voters poised to put a cross in a box. A third of them will not bother with the entire process.

So, what’s the problem with money? Well, that depends what you hold in your heart about liberal democracy. Afterall the ideals of democracy are played out in a fraction of the 200 or so, sovereign countries across the globe.

My view is that all citizens should be eligible to put themselves forward for election to a political post. The pool should be as wide as possible. Naturally, there are a few exceptions, jail being one of the more notable. In standing for election there should be a reasonable level playing field. Ideally, it’s effort, ideas and talent that should win the day. Not piles of cash or undue influence.

For the voters, it’s come as you are. I lament when hearing of candidates trying to change minds on the doorstep with nothing but a metaphorical pea shooter and tendency to take the moral high ground. There are difficult issues to address. Where vast amounts of money can be destructive is where they used to shift the climate of opinion onto subject that are far away from the ones that really count. The major topics of education, health, employment, tax, and spending should never be marginalised. I’d even add transport to that list.

Vast sums thrown about by wealthy people distort that level playing field. That’s not right.

Town & Village

What’s a cultural tradition from your country that you love?

It’s not carnival as an exuberance after lent. It roots maybe more pagan. At a time when the harvest has been brought in celebration seems eminently sensible to me. as the nights draw in and a chill sets in the air standing about on the pavement in a small West Country town doesn’t sound that appealing. It is. A parade of illuminated tractors and trailers often leads me to wonder at the inventiveness of their constructors. That’s carnival in Somerset.

Sorry. Should have said before lent.

Ideologies and Education

Listening to a new Labour Education Minister say, for all intents and purposes, that Gove[1] caused young people classed as NEETs (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) isn’t what might be called objective thinking.

Education and training in the UK have long been a victim of the classical political ding-dong. Right leaning politicians support elitism (masquerading as aspiration). Left leaning politicians support egalitarianism (within class hierarchies). Both claim to celebrate achievement, merit and social mobility. I say “claim” because the outcomes of their polices are often so different from their utterings.

It’s not too difficult to understand why. Historic social prejudices run deep. They remain embedded in our institutions. Public and private. Comedians Cleese, Barker and Corbett star in a BBC sketch of 66 years ago[2] that sums-up stubborn in-grained British attitudes. As a 66-year-old this doesn’t sit well with me.

Although the public are gradually freeing themselves from an addiction to political creeds, the current cohort of elected members and the media moguls still perpetuate a dated world of stereotypes. From Classical Greece to now, the phrase “everything changes, but nothing changes” still has its place.

Here’s a view that might be different. On a day when examination results are published, much of what has been said this morning is about education pushing young people out into the world. Like products coming off the end of a production line. Ready to be integrated into society. Both from political right and left this is horribly mechanistic.

If something isn’t working, it’s the fault of the implementation of policies, processes and procedures dreamed up by past Ministers.

What about looking at the subject from the other end of the telescope. Our society isn’t going away. Whatever the successes or failures, in 66-years from now, that’s 2092, people will be writing articles about education and training. The good and bad.

Within the lives of this generation of young people the rivers of change will flow ever faster. Instead of pushing young people out into the world, let’s imagine the factors that will pull them into different life outcomes. What will success or failure look like in their time between leaving school and retirement. Assuming such a condition as retirement continues to exist.

[This is where Gove got it mighty wrong. Retro education policies born of imperial public-school thinking contained no vision of the future.]

To thrive in let’s say, the period between 2026 and 2066, adaptability and resilience will surely be needed. Attitude comes into the equation too. A “can do” mentality will be an asset. There’s no need to downplay achievement, merit and social mobility. More a need to supress the pigeonholes and categories that hold people back. The forces that demotivate.

Our classical two faced political ding-dong does a lot of harm.

[1]UK Education Secretary (2010–2014): Led reforms, including the expansion of the academies and changes in what’s taught in schools.

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00hhrwl

Political Farce: Clacton’s By-Election

Solar eclipse, Perseid meteor shower and planets in alignment happening at the same time, it could be an omen. Well, maybe not. A by-election has just taken place in an English seaside town. Not exactly a ripple in the fabric of space-time.

A Member of Parliament (MP) who was under an intense spotlight for alleged misbehaviours, decided to step-down from the Parliamentary seat he had won at the last General Election. Then he decided to stand for re-election in a by-election that was called after his resignation.

Yes, political acts like this could go on at infinitum. It’s like that classic picture of a snake eating its own tail. In the event, the larger political parties in the UK looked at this strange situation and concluded that standing a candidate in this by-election would only add to the media show that the former MP probably wished to promote.

Now, you could say that this choice of standing aside was potentially disrespectful to the electorate in this English constituency. There’s a case for that political argument, if it wasn’t for the primary cause of the by-election in the first place.

The political complexion of this seaside Parliamentary constituency is well known. It sits in an area where the British political right often does exceedingly well. The underlying reasons for this fact are strange to me. Years of voting for right-wing candidates never seems to improve the lot of the constituents of that part of the world. But vote that way they do.

Anyway, whatever the tactical political play the cards fell the way that the former MP wanted. Grumbling about the “establishment” political parties shunning him is not a new platform, even if the results of the byelection give him an opportunity to say so.

There’re several takeaways from this strange episode.

One. Imagine doing this and still claiming to be a potentially good manager the economy. The cost of putting on a by-election of choice is not trivial. Local authority bank accounts are not briming with surplus cash.

Two. Disrespect for the electorate cuts both ways. Having a job, giving up a job, and then taking up the same job again is doing nothing to improve life of people in that part of the country. In fact, lot of people all over Britain may now have a less than favourable view.

Three. The “new” MP remains in jeopardy. The House of Commons Standards Committee investigation continues, and so another byelection is a real prospect. If the outcome of the investigation is suspension for ten or more sitting days, a recall is triggered.

Four. The Reform Party has lost even more of its reputation and spent much money campaigning against a man who wears a bin on his head. Add to that, Binface will have secured his reputation as the number one alternative (comic) candidate in future elections.

Five. The argument that this episode was a stunt aimed at distracting people from other matters will not die because of the results of the by-election. Yes, a humiliating electoral defeat was avoided only next time the process may not be so simple.

Clacton’s by-election day will get written-up in the book that nerdy electoral fanatics keep on a dusty shelf. A political tactic of delaying what some people say is inevitably has a point but it’s immensely wasteful and does nothing whatsoever to address most people’s cost-of-living concerns of the moment.

Around a table

John Wyndham wasn’t his real name. He may have been the least likely dinner guest. I’d certain bore him with questions. What’s the source of inspiration? Do you always imagine a calamity just around the corner? Do you think human nature is intrinsically good or bad? What’s frightens you the most? Has space always fascinated you? There wouldn’t be time to eat. If I had a working time machine I’d sit him next to H. G. Wells.

Moments of Decision

It’s the time of year. Young people pass through a gateway. Exam results hit the streets. Through life there are moments of decision. Life is not linear or proportionate. Swaths of time will pass when nothing much happens. Then bang. There’s a moment of decision.

Certainly, education has a role to play in preparing people for those moments. This is where the race for superior exam performance statistics fails. It’s great for someone to struggle through and ace one subject. It’s great for a person of moderate ability to excel out of the blue. It’s great when a naturally talented individual gets more than their expected grades. The difficulty arises when people, consequently, are not prepared to know what to do.

Conflicting advice shovelled out by a fickle media isn’t the bast source on offer. Politicians juggling with volumes of statistic, a barrage of recommendations and a pile of prejudices struggle to find a line to maintain.

Is going to university important? Now, there’s a question mark that’s doing the rounds.

It’s true, I should not, on any account, judge the current situation as if it was the same as my experience of 50-years ago. 1976 was a world away from where we are in 2026. That said there are some fundamentals that stick.

At the deepest level there’s the reason universities exit at all. Let’s face it they are not an invention of the modern world. There’s a reason special places of learning were established in every human civilisation. It’s that basic hierarchy of needs. Once food and shelter are commonplace humanity gets around to asking endless questions about the world and the universe.

Is going to university important? I find the question strange in so many ways. Fine there’s a small number of institutions that don’t offer the ideals of university life or an uplift in future opportunities. However, the vast majority provide the next steps that a maturing adult needs. It may lead to a specialisation or a jumping-off point to a radically different destination.

A hardy perennial that keeps cropping up is this war of the vocational verses the academic. It’s a persistent theme.

Mechanics that fix semi-autonomous electric vehicles may not need a degree in oceanography. Researchers in the art of renaissance architecture may not need to know how to lay bricks. Engineers developing farm machinery may not need a qualification in linguistics. Need is not all.

What this presents is a false conflict. In my mind, people with a diversity of experiences are going to be much better equipped to deal with the future than those who tramline. Thus, the “hard hat verses gradation cap” is the most moronic of slogans. It’s the ultimate visualisation of the tramline. It paints a picture of a fork in the road (or rail).

I started by writing that there are moments of decision. The point I want to make is that the decision of university or not university shouldn’t be based solely on career aspiration or finances or popular fashion. Believe it or not it’s possible to read medieval illiterate and be a gifted welder. To be fascinated by the Greeks and Romans and fly a plane. To enjoy construction work and play a musical instrument to a high level. Motivation and passion are the key.

Please let’s think more widely about lifelong learning. Let’s build systems that enable lifelong learning.

Britain Needs a Written Constitution

Who cares? That’s what a lot of people might say. I mean look at our everyday problems. A cost-of-living crisis, crumbling infrastructure, conflicts in the world, turbulence of identity politics and a host of live issue that would take the whole page to list.

Lord Sumption, a crusty establishment lawyer debates with Baroness Chakrabarti, a lefty advocate and lawyer. Both capable and seasoned debaters with respectably different backgrounds. Listening to one I might say; that’s a sound reasoning. Listening to the other I might say; exceptionally good point. Thus, I my view remains the same whatever their debate.

So, for a brief few minutes this morning the subject of a written British constitution hit the airwaves. I can’t break the habit of listening to the Today programme on the BBC Radio 4.

Firstly, to explain. The UK, and its parliamentary way of doing business, is unlike our cousins across the other side of the Atlantic. They are now celebrating a nation’s coming into being, 250 years ago. The foundation stone and a launch into nationhood was a written constitution.

We have done thing differently in the UK. It’s not so easy to trace our constitution back to a moment of birth. Naturally, I will cite one document that has influenced both nations. The Magna Carta’s importance[1] is recognised across the globe. Not only by its influence on modern constitutions but what it says about the rule of law.

[Last year, was the 800th anniversary of the sealing of one version of the Magna Carta].

As an infant a school trip we made was to Runnymede. My teachers clearly wanted to plant an idea in our heads long before we would have any appreciation of what it meant.

[That primary school trip included a visit to the Rufus Stone[2]. A place where I wandered off and got lost in the New Forest but that’s a story for another time].

What I’d say to both Sumption and Chakrabarti is that the subject you debate is fundamentally important. However, it’s easy to get hung up on the word – constitution. As if there’s only two models of such a key construct. To put it basically, one we make it up as we go along and the other, we write rules on tablets of stone.

An argument for leaving things well alone is the flexibility that the traditional make it up as we go along approach can offer. Parliament being sovereign, without question. Even when it’s foolish and unrepresentative. To counter this supremacy of the executive is the dangers of fragility and vulnerability that can be exploited by an errant leader, despot or tyrant.

An argument for change, one I favour, is that our medieval system holds the country back and its not as if we don’t recognise the importance of solemn written commitments. Every Act of Parliament is as such. In fact, Acts can be enabling. So, why can’t a written constitution be an enabling document. It doesn’t have to be overly constraining or practically unamendable.

The problem lies not with agreements in favour of a written constitution; it’s more a problem of how on earth can British society take up this challenge when its mind is on so many day-to-day trials and tribulations. It’s a modern dilemma.

We have a partially broken system that’s unsuited to the coming decades, but we don’t know how to fix it. To fix it, everyone needs to engage.

[1] https://www.magnacartatrust.org/home

[2] https://new-forest-national-park.com/the-rufus-stone/

Rise of AI: A Double-Edged Sword

Spotting AI generated articles is a hobby that is designed to be a minority pursuit. There will, no doubt, come a time when the writings of a human and that of a machine will become indistinguishable. I don’t think we are there – yet. Headlines like “Aircraft flies through heavy rain” are either a bored human scribbler or a machine with time on its hands.

The early promoters of the INTERNET imagined a great library of existing material becoming easily and freely accessible to anyone and everyone. It was to be an enlightened development that drove the digitisation of massive amounts of information. Although, even now, it’s not too difficult to pick an obscure book or magazine off a charity shop shelf and find that there’s no reference to it on-line. True, it’s getting harder to do.

That which hasn’t made it to the digital world, like boxes of 35mm slides I inherited from my father-in-law, will sit quietly gathering dust in the attic. I hardly think this is a great loss to humanity. Although, random holiday snaps of Cornish landscapes from the 1970s might one day become fashionable. More likely they will gather another decade’s dust.

Making the INTERNET the modern equivalent of the great library of Alexandria[1] is a worthy ambition. Civilisation could be defined in a way that embraces a preservation of knowledge. What we find is that the 21st century version of the digital world has strayed from these high-minded ideas of its early promoters.

My desktop, tablet, and phone can access a universal store of fact and fiction, truth and lies. What is troubling is that the line between these is becoming increasingly blurred. The demand for instant and every changing material is insatiable. In the past, technology was the limiting factor. Now, it’s not.

Here’s a compilation of likely headlines from our machine friends. I can’t be sure and it remains possible that a human may have authored some of these eye-catching wonders.

“Astronauts face dangers during spacewalks.” “Most fascinating deserts on Earth.” “The beach that many consider to be the best on the entire planet.” “Study claims aliens may be hiding on Earth.” “They found a triangular UFO in the woods – then it vanished without a sound.”

I note from 5-minutes watching headlines change that the craft of catching our attention is the one that is most valued. The term – click-bait – was made to describe what’s going on. Whatever words can be framed to entice a potential reader/viewer to go here and not there, that has value.

Again, what’s concerning is that it will be algorithms that will master the art of catching our attention. They do. They will surpass smart thinkers and artful writers. Mainly because they instantly have a whole well of past successes to draw upon.

For sanity’s sake, I need to stop this line of thinking. The further I look the more we become destined to a dystopia that was portrayed in a movie that hit the screens before the mobile phone became ubiquitous. A 20th century fiction that made everyone sit up and think, as well as being highly entertaining, was The Matrix. Now, it called a classic.

A generation on and AI produced material is filling our screens. It’s not yet dominant. There’s a small amount of kick-back too. Not time for a rebellion. Question is – will those born now be the rebels or the captives of this digital revolution. 

[1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Library-of-Alexandria

Exploring ‘Project Hail Mary’

I’m sure there’s a lot of great science fiction scripts out there waiting to be discovered. Unknown authors trying to get someone to read their story. To me, it’s often astonishing the movies that get made. It goes without saying, movie making is an expensive business. Being invested in a story, to the extent of finding millions to fund filming, is no mean feat. The lower risk option is to take a book, that isn’t terrible and adapt it in a way that takes full advantage of the visual medium. The higher risk option is to do something truly original.

It’s now on Prime, so I thought to watch it. The recent movie “Project Hail Mary” is a struggle. I started watching it and quickly got bored. That’s me, someone who likes an imaginative Sci-fi. The only way I could handle it was to watch the movie in chunks. Digest a bit at a time.

Ryan Gosling is an able lead. Trouble is that he acts an off-beat, highly unlikely, irritating character that bumbles along like a space bound Mr Bean. The premise of a spaceman waking not knowing where they are in the universe is not a new one. Having to work out the whole purpose of a mission, in what seems like a few minutes flat, is pushing it.

At the core of the plot is the relationship between Ryland Grace (Gosling) and an unusual alien. A highly advanced alien whose physical appearance seems to undermine that fact. In the whole universe, at least there’s a reasonable explanation for this unlikely meeting of these two smart lifeforms. A common interest. Saving their homelands.

It’s one of the biggest questions that humans can ask. Ever since spaceflight has been a possibility the question arises. What do we do in the event of a first contact? This movie plays with the event in a jovial way. Then it veers into seriousness as it’s disclosed that both protagonists are alone. Their colleagues are all dead. This flipping backwards and forwards from semi-comical routines to serious hardcore predicaments gets waring over the length of a long movie. The storytelling plodded.

There’re some daft aspects of the spaceships and their occupants too. Grance has human dexterity but “Rocky” would seem to have the superior ship. So, why did they go to the target planet in the last-minute cobbled together humans ship? That had no pilot.

On the plus side the themes that come through, at the end, are hopeful ones. Cooperation, mutual understanding and respect are far more powerful than fear and cowardliness.

From the outset, Grace knew that the likelihood of failure was enormous but in a Dr Who like way the – something will come up – attitude prevailed. Problem with the overall story was that it was improbably staked so heavily against the heroes that it became ridiculous in places.

Again, on the plus side the characters did have an emotional connection. A long way from home the two bonded. It’s questionable whether such two different lifeforms would share a similar sense of wonder, appreciation of beauty and respect for learning. That said, this merry space romp should be taken with a pinch of salt.

I don’t think I’d watch this one again unless I was strapped to an aircraft seat on a long journey.

Digital Age Dilemma

There was a time when most of the political parties in the UK would object to mass surveillance and the State having a watchful eye on every one of its citizens. The influence of the Magna Carta, that 800-year-old document, was a keystone of thinking in this country. Although it was aimed at the privileged when first placed in front of a Monarch, it embraced the idea of liberty. It so upset the establishment that a Pope denounced it.

Ideas endure and those contained in the Magna Carta went on to inspire the framers of the constitutions and legislation in many countries. It doesn’t sound so strange in modern times that a person should be able to go about their lives without an overbearing State impinging on their liberty. Well, at least in theory.

I remember the intense debates that took place in the mid-1990s. The subject being the introduction of identity cards in the UK. Technical arguments were made of how such a measure would simplify lives in the coming digital age. Those agreements paid little attention to the erosion of fundamental rights that the centralising personal data on citizens would bring.

What’s happened now, through a process of stealth, is that people have given away vast qualities of data to international commercial entities without batting an eyelid. The legal device that has been used is a contract that few people ever read. The End User License Agreement (EULA). This detailed fine print addresses data collection and aims to protect software providers from liability.

I suspect that Conservative politicians have observed how little attention people are paying to the erosion of their rights that they feel emboldened to abandon any commitments to liberty. For some time now the Conservative mantra of has been to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This is based on a gamble that most people will not have read the document. It’s a bit like the snatch and grab that the typical EULA has become.

Now, the Conservative Party has doubled down on a shift to the right of politics by inviting the prospect of mass surveillance. There’s a reasonable argument for the police to excurse powers to delve into the digital world when investigating crime. In fact, how can they not do so. However, this should be done so when there’s reasonable basis for doing so. Not everyone is a suspect of criminal activity. The law of the land still upholds the idea that guilt must be proven.

Computational tools are getting ever more powerful. I could joke that the number of articles on AI would reach to the Moon and back, but I wouldn’t be far wrong. One of the powerful software tools that’s accumulating uses is that of digital facial recognition. We’ve advanced from the days of inky fingerprints, although such prints are still valuable identifiers.

Where do we have a problem with liberty? The framers of many longstanding constitutions didn’t have to think to hard about what liberty meant in a world devoid of digital cameras. Now, any citizen’s image is going to be caught hundreds of times through the day. Maybe thousands of times. That instant image can be present on storage devices across the globe.

Who owns that image of me or you? Can it be used by anyone? Tricky questions given phones, traffic cameras, doorbells and home and business security cameras are subject to EULAs. On a superficial basis, requiring police forces to extract digital images and run them through a national database can sound like a good crime fighting idea.

The problem is where is the line drawn? Mass surveillance? Where everyone is an immediate suspect until proven not guilty? Not guilty by virtue of the calculation of an algorithm. Widespread digital camera coverage does put this in prospect. Images stored all over the world. Do we need to reframe the Magna Carta for the AI age? Now, there’s a thought.