johnwvincent

Build-A-Car

How many people do you know who have taken a sharp axe to a Morris 1000[1] van? It’s a surprisingly effective tool. It was a hot day. The task took a fair degree of persistence. Nothing for an energetic 16-year-old.

What I was doing was to cut out the front sub-frame complete with the suspension complete. The van differed from the construction of the car by having a separate chassis. The Morris Minor had a straightforward torsion bar front suspension. Corrosion can be a real problem with these cars, but this old grey van was structurally sound.

The reason? For popular cars of its era, it had a ruggedness and simplicity that made it easy to work with and, I suppose, we got hold of an MOT failure with ease and probably little money. Besides a working BMC “A” series engine always had a value.

After the careful attention of my axe the remaining parts were to become the rear part of a car that we were building at school. That Morris 1000 front end would be welded to a Triumph Herald[2] front end. We didn’t do that. Our friend, mentor and teacher did the welding of the two chassis components. It was another year before I picked up that useful skill.

Why a Triumph Herald? That small car had a tight turning circle. I think it was about 28 feet. Funny, what gets remembered. That, and its availability in 1976 were the reasons it was valuable to my school friends and me. Putting all that together formed the basic frame of a car. Four wheels, brakes, steering and suspension. It was an ungainly looking crude construction, but it did the job. It was a good start.

What came next was an engine. This really was a version of that story from Johnny Cash’s[3] “One Piece At A Time.” No, the engine didn’t come from a Morris or a Triumph. It came from a Reliant[4].

That question of why comes up again? Well, the Reliant engine we had got out hands on was made of aluminium. It was considerably lighter than the engines of a Morris or a Triumph. The baby Reliant engine we had was bathed in oil. It took a good kicking to get it to spark into life. I recall trying to fix brackets for engine mountings. It was an exercise done by eye. Getting the engine to run smoothly and without too much vibration was fun.

What was entity novel for a small car was our transmission system. I don’t know how this came about but we wrote to Volvo asking for them to sponsor our school’s project. They did. They provided our school with a hydrostatic drive system. That’s the pumps/motors and the assorted hydraulic plumbing. The removal of a mechanical transmission with fixed gears was the benefit we were promoting. Hydrostatic transmissions were used in boats and construction machinery but not in a small car.

All of this was stored in a tin shed at our school. Without the stubbornness of our teacher this project may have fallen into the wilderness, but we kept the faith. As I left school the project was handed on to the next generation. It was mobile. It worked, after a fashion.

The basic car became an entry in the BP Build-a-Car competition in October 1976[5]. This was a national competition where schools around the country designed and built a “practical” 2-seater car. The prize was a new school minibus. So, the competition attracted some capable, smart, and well-resourced schools.

I’d started an apprenticeship by then so didn’t get to go on the trip to the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME). This was the site for the contest to show off what the cars could do.

It was reported back to me that some of my designs for an electronic dashboard using LEDs attracted the interest of the judges. At the time Lagonda were ready to take on the world with a bold new design and a car with electronic instrumentation[6].

Later in my career, aircraft cockpit instrumentation design and integration were a big feature.

NOTE: I suddenly have more respect for Rick Astley. Just watch She Makes Me (Official Music Video)

[1] https://www.mmoc.org.uk/

[2] https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/classic-cars/104977/triumph-herald-buying-guide-and-review-1959-1971

[3] https://youtu.be/Pv8yTqjYCGM

[4] https://www.reliant.website/history.shtml

[5] https://youtu.be/evDWFB58Vo0

[6] https://www.auto-data.net/en/aston-martin-lagonda-ii-5.3-310hp-3052#image3

Momentous Vote

Will a line be drawn under the shenanigans of the last few years?

Number 3 on the BBC News list? This was not a vote in the Conservative Party it was a vote in the mother of Parliaments. It was a vote that put the likelihood of Boris Johnson making a political comeback at extremely improbable. Yet, it was number 3 on BBC News. Well, I guess it was considered by the newsroom as a minority interests subject at 10 pm in the evening.

A House of Commons (HoCs) vote took place on the findings of the Committee on Privileges[1]. Not a great title but that committee thoroughly undertook the job of addressing the vexed question of a Prime Minister lying to Parliament. That means lying to us all.

19 June 2023 should go down in British history. There was no civil war. The statue of Cromwell outside parliament remained unmoved. Parliament deftly asserted its right to take a view on the behaviours of a former member. Not just any former member but a former Prime Minister (PM). A PM being held in contempt of Parliament is not an everyday event.

The current PM staying away was a show of poor pollical antenna. Images of a vacuum in leadership will haunt him here on in. While another former PM endorsed the report and thanked the committee for their work. Several cabinet members did the same. The leader of the house acted with a solemn certitude that she is becoming known for.

For Conservative Members of Parliament, it was a sad and difficult duty. Each member was given the chance to make up their own minds about the report.

Upholding the truth matters. Both the Parliament’s HoCs and the Committee on Privileges set themselves on the path to restore public confidence in democracy.

Questions as to why Boris Johnson was ever elevated to the position of PM in the first place were not answered. Some members spoke with anger in their voice. It’s the case that magnificent oratory was missing from many contributions, but the heartfelt reflection of constituents’ rage was sincere.

To succeed, in the British political system a PM must have an effective working relationship with Parliament. They don’t need to like each other but a degree of respect is essential.

Parliament may look weak in that there’s limited meaningful sanctions that it can impose on a past member. A member who jumps before they are pushed appears to get off. However, the impact of the events of 19 June 2023 means that Boris Johnson will practice only with a media bully pulpit.

What remains for us to find out over the next few years is how that will play out[2]. Will a line be drawn under the shenanigans of the last few years?

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65953605

[2] https://news.sky.com/story/boris-johnson-vote-sunak-privileges-committee-report-on-lied-to-parliament-12593360

Vinyl

Vinyl records gave us a whole langauage.

When I think about playing music a couple of sketches come to mind. One is the Not The Nine O’clock News sketch about a HiFi Shop[1]. It’s jargon loaded customer service that’s now moved on-line whereas then it was a face-to-face experience. The term Audiophile doesn’t seem to have become Digitalphile. No not Digital File. Maybe it should for those who impatiently mock anyone wrestling with a poorly designed App.

The other is Flanders and Swann and their Song of Reproduction (1957)[2]. Again, the joke is a superb mockery of the non-technically minded when faced with the modern fashion of the time. This obsession with getting better and better sound reproduction hasn’t gone away. My tinkering with amps and speakers in the 1970s may have led to my interest in electronics.

The above are comic stories of the era of Polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Better known simply as Vinyl when talking about to the way we played music for several decades. Collecting vinyl records is making a big resurgence. I’ve been hit by the bug.

Pick it up for £1 in a charity shop. Play it. It’s perfect. Well, not in every case but there are some surprises when playing 50-year-old disks. Some former owners cherished and cared for their collections. 45 RPM may not mean a lot to the streaming generation. That said, there are not so many popular objects that are a half a century old that you can simply play as if they were new.

I’m playing the 1972 hit “Stuck in the Middle with You” by Stealers Wheel.

Vinyl records gave us a whole langauage. The phonograph, disk jockey, jukebox and hit parade are becoming as unfamiliar as a conversation in a Victorian salon. The inconvenience of having to get-up and place a disk on a turntable is part of the experience. It’s a task that isn’t matched by swiping a small glass screen.

Yes, vinyl disks get scratched, warped, and cracked. That makes them ephemeral and more akin to a living artifact. A stream of digital “1” and “0” never ages. There’s something sterile about that.

Strangely the 6-inch disk shaped the way popular music was made as much as how it was played. Having to fit everything into a 2- or 3-minutes slot focused song writers, musicians, and producers to go the extra mile.

I’m now in 1967 and playing “Autumn Almanac” by The Kinks[3].

A number of these plastic artifacts may end up being one of the rare items playable in a 1000 years’ time. I wonder what those in 3023 will make of these primitive tactile objects. They may value them greatly.

[1] https://youtu.be/HoPXQ9fotZM

[2] https://youtu.be/EL5SzTSMxLU?list=RDEL5SzTSMxLU

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autumn_Almanac

Time for Change

….people have been living, loving, and telling tales for thousands of years on this great European island.

The past is another country. So, it’s said. We now hear those who claimed Boris Johnson was the only man who could unite the Conservative Party eating their words. Eating them with a shovel. It wasn’t as if their support for the former Prime Minister was measured and rational, earlier it reached blind obedience as the troubles of the last decade accumulated. Lies, monstrous errors and blatant foolishness were defended by many who claim to be – working for you.

I know loyalty is important. Any team, or institution needs a degree of unity to go forward with confidence that it can deliver. It’s the miss-appropriation of that loyalty and its twisting into unquestioning conformity that corrupts democratic processes. Politician minions will tramp along under any flag that will give them gongs.

It’s fascinating how flamboyant and raucous personalities can steamroller over convention and Pied Piper[1] like lead us into misfortunes. Hang about – we have a recuring problem here. This week, I was reminded of Itay’s challenges of a couple of decades ago. I remember Italian colleagues quietly apologising for Silvio Berlusconi[2].

A common feature of these personalities is an immense sense of self-importance. Whatever the story, it’s always about them. This is playing out with Boris Johnson’s departure from parliament. It’s playing out with Trump’s ambitions in the US. There are others but the mere act of using their names is distasteful.

Vulgar, scandal-ridden, and manipulative characters make good drama. On the pages of plays or the big or small screen we like to see rampage and for them get their just deserts. Classic stories of the rise and fall of demi-gods, showmen and tyrants are a literary staple. They are fictional warnings that can, and do, get copied into real life. We should, more often, heed those warnings.

There such a thing as a free lunch. Having your cake and eating it too, is a myth.

It’s coming up to Brexit’s 7^th birthday and the annual pagan midsummer celebrations at Stonehenge[3]. Of the two, one reminds us of how foolish we can be. The other, reminds us of the enduring nature of our beautiful landscape and heritage. It comforts me every time I go up and down the A303. The reason being that whatever folly we encounter in our era, people have been living, loving, and telling tales for thousands of years on this great European island.

The people of Stonehenge were not isolationists. Artifacts found show that they traded widely. They communicated over large distances as part of a widespread prehistoric society. Brexit will be consigned to the dustbin of history in coming years. What counts about this wonderful land will endure for generations.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20200902-the-grim-truth-behind-the-pied-piper

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65877241

[3] https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/things-to-do/solstice/

What Town?

It’s a confusing film. I enjoyed it in a strange way. This is one of many times fiction has wrestled with the idea of parallel universes. “Everything Everywhere All at Once” gets crazy[1] and has some absurdly funny moments. Embracing all possibilities, however unlikely is a lot of fun. Childlike fun.

Life’s branches – it’s easy enough to grasp if there are a not many to think about. Lifelong “what ifs” are familiar territory. What if, I’d taken a different path? What if, I’d met this person instead of that person? What if that accident had been more, or less severe? It’s so human to play with imagination and different scenarios. What’s difficult to grasp is the notion that there might be an infinite number of different branches in and infinite numbers of universes.

When large numbers of possibilities arise, it can be the source of anxiety. Me being on the stoic side, I shrug my shoulders and carry on. Don’t get me wrong, thinking about lost opportunities or idiotic mistakes stirs-up more than a few feelings. Living in synchronisation with reality means choosing to focus on changing the things that can be changed and choosing not to bash one’s head against a wall. The key words being to choose.

This is the time of year when future students are looking at future possibilities. Walking past the gates of the local college, a group of school leavers could be seen eyeing up the building. That one first major step at 16 years. Up and down the county, universities are hosting potential students. Trying to answer all their questions. That step, at 18-years is one of the biggest those lucky enough to make, get to make. This town, or city, or that out-of-town campus.

I wonder what I’d be doing now if I’d gone to Bath university or Brunell in Uxbridge? How did I make those choices? Well, there was the factor of sponsorship so there was no way that the chance to study art, politics or philosophy would come up. My search was for a sandwich course to be able to mix study and work. My chosen trade was electrical and electronic design. That fascination with how stuff works continues to this day.

At 18 years, I had little grasp of the fact that university, or polytechnic as it was, was far more than technical study and the usual bundle of exams. The 4-years I had going backwards and forwards between the west country and Coventry was a mammoth transformation.

Although, I had no particular leaning towards aviation there was moments when aircraft and aeronautics came into the mix. On my journeys north to the midlands, I’d often stop at a lay-by at the end of the runway of RAF Kemble and watch the Red Arrow practice[2].

Coventry in the early 1980s was the home of GEC. That being the case there was a telecommunications bias in some of what we were taught. That suited me fine. Let’s face it, in that period we lived in an analogue world with a strong technological push to adopt the early generations of digital systems. Although electro-mechanical telephone exchange production had finished[3] much of the installed equipment in the country was still a mass of relays.

Coventry between 1978 and 1982 was the place to be. It was rough and ready. It was suffering the onslaught of Thatcher’s march to destroy the past and transplant the new. The pace of change left oceans of people behind. Culturally the pressure of that grim social revolution liberated a generation of music and rebellion that we look back on as magic.

As if by magic, and I didn’t plan this, BBC Radio 4 is playing “Ghost Town” by The Specials[4]. Yes, that was a defining soundtrack to influential moments in my life.

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6710474/

[2] https://the-buccaneer-aviation-group.com/history-of-cotswold-airport/

[3] http://www.telephoneworks.co.uk/history/gec_telecomms.htm

[4] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001n1h5

Safety is poltical

It’s a surprisingly controversial statement. It’s particularly difficult for those working in traditionally technical specialisations to come to openly acknowledge “politics” in their work. By raising the subject, it’s almost as if one had stepped in something unpleasant.

I recall the period when a new aviation agency was being established. That’s in the dawn of this new century. EASA, the European Aviation Safety Agency came into operation in 2003, but the debate about its shape and form occupied many of the preceding years. Politicians, administrators, technocrats, and industry were vocal about the direction to take.

The impact of liberalising European civil aviation, that stated in the 1970s, was primarily a political drive. It envisaged both a commercial and social benefits. Separating the operation of aviation from the vagaries of political personalities seemed to offer a future that would be led by the customers needs.

The general acceptance that State control of businesses, like airlines and manufacturers, had a stifling effect, limiting innovation and opportunity was questioned but not so much by those with the power to make changes. Momentum pushing liberalisation was given a boost by the apparent successes of businesses, like Southwest airlines[1] in the US. Freddie Laker had a big influence in the UK[2].

In these decades of transformation aviation safety has always been heralded as a priority. Whoever is speaking, that’s the line that is taken. Safety is number one. What industry has experienced is a decades long transition from the ways and mean of trying to control safety to an approach more based on managing potential outcomes. This is characterised in a shift from mostly prescriptive rules and regulations to other more adaptive approaches.

Back to the proposition that safety is political. There are several ways to address this as an exercise of analysis. There’s a mammoth amount of historical evidence to draw upon. However, my thoughts are more to do with anecdote and lived experience.

Number one is that our institutions are shaped by political decision-making. This is to varying degrees, from year to year, but international bodies, national ministries, administration, authorities, agencies, committees, learned bodies, all depend upon political support. If they do not muster and sustain this support, they will wither and die.

Number two, change is a constant, failures happen but safety achievement depends on a consistency, dependability, and stability. Maintaining public confidence. There lies a dissonance that must be reconciled. Governments and politicians instinctively insulate themselves in such cases and so the notion of “independent” regulation is promoted.

Number three, arguments for liberalisation or intervention do not stop. The perpetual seesaw of cutting “red tape” and tightening rules and regulation may settle for a while even if these are always in movement. This can be driven by events. The proximity of fatal accidents is always a significant political driver. Domestic fatalities, where consequences are borne locally, will have much more impact than similar events 1000 miles away.

Does any of this matter? Afterall it’s a context that exists, de-facto. It’s no good saying: stop the world I want to get off.

Yes, it does matter. Accepting that safety is political helps dispel some of the myths that persist.

A prerequisite to safety success is provision of adequate resources. Constantly cutting a budget has consequences. A blind drive for efficiency that doesn’t effectively measure performance invites failure. Much as lack of planning invites failure. Reality bites.

It’s reasonable to question of investigatory or regulatory “independence” from time-to-time. The reasons for safety decision-making can be purely objective and technical. Questioning that “purity” need not be impugning politicians, administrators, or managers in their motivations. Shedding light on contextual factors can help learning and avoidance of future failures.

Accepting the perpetual political seesaw of debate can help a great deal in meeting safety goals. What this means is the importance of timing. Making a proposal to tighten a rule concerning a known deficiency can meet a stone wall. Making the same proposal after an accident, involving that deficiency, can go much better. Evidence that is compelling can change minds. This is reality.

[1] https://www.southwest.com/about-southwest/#aboutUs

[2] https://simpleflying.com/laker-airways-brief-history/

digital probing

It’s the Japanese knotweed of the digital world.

Advertising, marketing, promotion, selling, I expect some of those cave paintings of ancient men and women were showing-off to the rest of their society. They’d be saying, extra tasty bison if you head on down to this big watering hole. Throw your spear this way for the best results. The communication medium, a rock face isn’t so different from billboards, hoardings and signage that line busy roads. Catching your eye is the aim. Doing it on a busy throughfare is a proven method.

Too much of this can be annoying, distracting and ultimately defeating. Wall-to-wall advertising that’s pushy, gaudy and litters the highway is a nightmare no one wants to see. It’s not just the urban planners that get riled-up when they see streets plastered with garish advertising.

What of the digital worlds we inhabit? It’s clear they’re no exception. A great deal of the money to be made digitally comes from advertising. My beef here is with the saturation questioning that this industry uses to accumulate data. The bombarding of people with questionnaire after questionnaire is as annoying as any gaudy poster. Survey after survey pops-up as soon as you give away your e-mail address in any purchase. “We’d love to know more about the experience you recently had……………”

It’s one reason why I always refuse any request made at a till in a shop. Occasionally, shop assistants will look offended. It’s as if you have slighted them, is some incomprehensible way. It’s no good them saying they can reassure you that your data will be “protected”. Such reassurances are meaningless.

There are so many examples of data held securely and in line with data protection rules being hacked[1][2][3][4] and spread around like confetti. Compensation after the event is not compensation for the aggravation.

Making purchases it’s inevitable that we will give away data. Few of us read the terms and conditions under which we give away our data. There’s an expectation of “protection”. The conveniences of digital transactions are traded against the risks of losing vital personal data.

When it comes to advertising there’s no necessity. Unless there’s some form of inducement. One came into my in-box saying, “win a £10,000 holiday”. I did what I normally do – deleted it. I find such hooks like “This survey will only take a few minutes to complete” as annoying as improbable competitions and insincere thanks.

I don’t suppose I’m eccentric in disliking all this unrelenting digital probing. It’s clutter. It’s invasive. It’s the Japanese knotweed of the digital world.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45446529

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52722626

[3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-57210118

[4] https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/american-airlines-says-data-breach-affected-small-number-customers-employees-2022-09-20/

Link Box

It’s the petite agricultural tractor commonly known as the Little Grey Fergie

The Mendip Hills in Somerset are known for quarrying. A variety of rock types end up in construction and road building. For farmers, not far under the soil that rock is both good and bad. When it comes to grazing land and the annual ritual of haymaking, hard rock is a menace to machinery.

I’m going back in time. I did this, this week. One or two memories flashed through my head as I walked around the vintage tractors at the South of England Show[1] in Ardingly, West Sussex. I’m glad I went on Friday. A large agricultural showground in the heat of this summer weekend must have been quite testing. It was dry, hot, and breezy on Friday. Every other stall was selling hats. It was a day for suncream and plenty of drinking water.

There was a good selection of livestock at the show but no poultry, for obvious reasons this year. Bird flu. The animal numbers were not large, as they might have been in former times, but the quality was clear to see. Sitting under the shade of a large oak tree watching the pigs being judged was more entertaining than it sounds. Pigs have a mind of their own, and go the way they want.

In the 1960s, farm machinery was miniature in comparison with the massive high-tech machines on display to serious buyers. It was basic. Much like the cars and vans of the time. An average village mechanic could fix just about anything. Everything was manual. Everything was raw metal. Everything wasn’t made for comfort, or safety for that matter.

Seeing the simple cast iron seat of a Fordson Major[2], the contrast with an environmentally controlled tractor cabs of today couldn’t be starker. That said, there’s something to love about these heritage farm machines. Often lovingly restored, cherished by their owners and worth more than you would imagine. It’s the petite agricultural tractor commonly known as the Little Grey Fergie that I’m remembering. My granddad had one. A Ferguson TE20 to be precise[3]. And it was grey, or was it red?

On the A371, south of Shepton Mallet, Somerset is a small hamlet called Prestleigh. It was a regular haunt of my early childhood. Yew Tree Farm consisted of an ancient farmhouse on the west side of the main road and buildings and a yard on the eastern side of the road. The farm gate was in a treacherous place. On a corner, on a steep hill. In my time, my grandparents sold the farmhouse and built a bungalow to the south of the farmyard.

As far as I recollect, it was a small business that ticked over keeping my granddad busy. He was an avid gardener too. Nothing is flat in that part of the Mendip countryside. The rolling slope of the land formed a shallow valley. You couldn’t avoid the local landmark. The Somerset & Dorset railway traversed the valley by an impressive viaduct. Granddad’s fields went up to the railway and to the other side of the viaduct.

Yes, some of my early childhood conjures up images of The Railway Children. The steam trains trundled along that line until 1965. After that it was a place for us to explore and have mini adventures. It’s more the stories of steam trains than the trains themselves. It’s difficult to believe that the trains acted as a time piece for the countryside. Daily trains signalled milking time or teatime.

Back to stones. Sharp limestones. They littered the field above the Prestleigh railway viaduct. When it came to mowing that field, the abundant stones would blunt the blades of a cutter bar mower[4]. They could do a lot of damage.

There was a job for the Little Grey Fergie, my granddad, my brother, and me. He had two energetic young boys in his service. He’d drive the tractor at a snail’s pace across the field. We’d jump in and out of the link box on the back. Strong summer sun turned the grass brown.

Arm outstretched granddad pointed out the bigger stones and, like a couple of retrievers we’d run off, pick them up and then stash them in the tractor link box. It was the task of Sisyphus[5]. There was no beginning and no end to the task. The sun backed ground brought stones to the surface every season. At the end of the day we measured our work by the weight of the link box.

That’s what the vintage tractors at the South of England show reminded me of, amongst other childhood farming memories of an era gone forever.

[1] https://www.seas.org.uk/south-of-england-show/

[2] https://heritagemachines.com/tractors/the-fordson-major-story/

[3] https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/massey-ferguson-coventry-manufacturing-giant-15739539

[4] https://www.pinterest.at/pin/121034308718777099/

[5] Sisyphus is punished in the underworld by the god Zeus, who forces him to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity.

Stomping off

Boris Johnson is going from the green benches but, like it or not, he will still be with us as a voice for Brexit

Middlesex is a place that isn’t a place. When I lived in the English town of Staines, the postal address would often have Middlesex as the county. In fact, Staines is in the county of Surrey. History, and former administrative boundaries still echo into the present. It’s not confusing for postmen and women but for anyone unfamiliar with that part of the world, it’s strange.

Uxbridge is in Middlesex, or it was in past times. In electoral terms, the UK Parliament constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip [1] is a marginal seat. It’s that far west boundary of London.

Uxbridge is a university town. Uxbridge has a London tube station.

During the 2016 UK referendum on European Union (EU) membership, I stood with local students at a table in the street outside Uxbridge’s tube station. We had lots of interesting encounters with residents talking about what would, or would not happen if the Leave campaign won the referendum. If I remember rightly, the disposition of people we met was about 50:50.

A conversation with one local businesses man turned out to be quite revealing. He put it like this – my head tells me to vote to stay in the EU, but my heart tells me to vote to leave the EU. On the day, for a majority it seems that the heart won out over the head. The consequences of that vote we all now know.

Uxbridge and South Ruislip is in the News. Projections focusing on the next General Election are confident that the Parliament constituency will flip from Conservative to Labour. The polls show a highly likly swing.

That would mean that Boris Johnson’s time as Member of Parliament (MP) would come to an end with electoral defeat next year. So, the current News that Boris Johnson has resigned as a Conservative MP is not such a surprise to me. Usually, an MP in such a position does what’s called the “chicken run”[2]. That is, they get selected as a candidate in a more winnable seat so that they can retain a career in Parliament. Boris Johnson has moved seat before.

Boris Johnson is all about drama. Boris Johnson is all about exceptions. Stomping off and ranting about the unfairness of his enemies is designed to get weekend newspaper columnists filling pages about him. He’s never going to go quietly. Even outside the House of Commons there’s always going to be a well-paid pulpit for this torrid man. The loud noises he makes appeals to a section of the country, much as Trump does the same in the US.

Middlesex has gone but it’s still with us. Boris Johnson is going from the green benches but, like it or not, he will still be with us as a voice for Brexit. The reality is that the Conservative Party is split. Broken apart by in-fighting. It’s in chaos. In a way, there is a parallel with the mid-1990s. Disputes over our place in the world, and Europe continue to fracture our politics.

POST: It has been noted that there’s no former UK Prime Minister in modern times who has so strongly attacked Parliament’s institutions and former colleagues as Boris Johnson. How British voters will respond to his victim narrative will play out next week.

[1] https://members.parliament.uk/constituency/3817/overview

[2] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/are-mps-doing-the-chicken-run/

People

You can apply this to health, transport, and a multitude of successful industries.

When the subject of staff shortages, and generally that’s qualified staff shortages, comes up, and a government minister is put in the spotlight the answer that comes back is no more than evasion. It’s a shrug of the shoulders and an irritated retort along the lines that Brexit has happened. They may go for the sympathy vote in emphasising how hard the last six years have been in Parliament. What follows is a vague illusion to the opportunities that are now available to the UK because of Brexit.

What’s sad, is they will then quote a small step that has benefited the UK but then neglect to say that such a step should have happened regardless of Brexit. The lack of intellectual rigour is growing. Conservatives are so deeply embedded in the Brexit mirage that they readily clutch at straws. This constant blindness hinders access to the real opportunities. The real opportunity is to move on.

If the UK is to be best positioned to exploit the new technologies that are advancing rapidly, we need to rediscover partnerships. We are well positioned, given the history of the post-war period, to be a significant player in the technology-based industries. UK academia has a lot to offer too.

It’s a global marketplace. That means there’s the need for people to move. Not always permanently, but to move to best use their specialise knowledge and skills. In that pattern of movement, we should not have unnecessary restrictions for British people to work in Europe, or the reverse.

There are lots of people and organisations that want to do trade with the UK. What they don’t want is the stone wall of British politicians who echo thin Brexit rhetoric at every opportunity. There’s also a mindless compulsion to be different for the sake of being different. British pragmatism has been submerged under a shadow of the last six years.

There’s some light over the horizon. Certainly, amongst most of the public there’s a dismissal of sloppy Brexit benefit agreements. There’s a groan. Our collective experience shows that sloppy political thinking falls into ruin when faced with reality. A General Election will be welcome. It needs to be a generational election. That should mean a sea change in the population of Members of Parliament. Let’s see a new generation stand and get elected.