Category: British

Change

It might be tempting for some politicians to thinks that the Conservatives have behaved so badly that the British public will not forgive their follies. In 2022, levels of incompetence and bad conduct have been astounding in the modern era.

The latest election polls for the next General Election (GE)[1] constructed with a uniform swing calculation of the polling averages (poor way to compute), shows a large winning Labour Party majority. That would be the political pendulum swinging hard from right to left, from blue to red.

There’s a problem with this analysis. Not least does it skate over the conditions that exist within the “swing seats”, that is those Parliamentary seats that are expected to change hands. It also takes for granted that the public mind will continue to be affected by the dreadful performance of the Conservatives in power. That famous political quote: a week is a long time in politics[2], surely needs to be read more than once.

It is often the cases that an incumbent party has an advantage in any political competition. Uprooting those clinging to power is never easy. Countering that, it is the case that a party is more likely to win by highlighting the deficiencies of their opponents. Eventually voters get fed up with a litany of failures and stupidities.

What’s missing is a positive construction of a vision for the future. Bringing about political transformation should not be a leap of faith brought on by sheer desperation. It’s understandable that voters may not wish to stomach more of the same. Wouldn’t it be so much better if they are drawn to a vision for a brighter future?

Today, I don’t see the articulation of that brighter future. What I do see is too much on specifics like how to fix this or that and how to pile more funds into this or that. A lot of what we hear is chasing the daily news cycle. The speed of news drives the political responses. Potential leaders are lagging the immediate cacophony.

My view is that a progressive political transformation can happen. What’s needed is that expression of, not so much how to change, but what will a changed country look like, and feel like. It is that vision of the promised land. Now, that sounds a bit grand. Maybe that’s what scares off opposition leaders from speaking of a better world.

Is it the case that modern-day British politicians fear raising the bar too high? Fear that raising expectation will result in ultimate disappointment. It could be so. What is needed is someone to cut through that fear. To frame words that communicate a vision.

[1] UK General Elections are scheduled to be held a max of 5-years from the first meeting of Parliament plus 25 working days, in accordance with the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022.

[2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/a_week_is_a_long_time_in_politics

What next?

When I returned from German, in early 2016, I had no idea there would be a national referendum. Let alone that the referendum on European Union (EU) membership would be lost by a tiny margin and then send the UK into political and economic turmoil for years and years. It was a strange period.

As of me writing these words, the UK has had its fifth Prime Minister (PM) since the Brexit referendum. We’ve had a pandemic, the invasion of the Ukraine and the now an energy and economic crisis, not to mention an on-going climate crisis.

I don’t say it was, but if Brexit was a politically inevitability there couldn’t have been a stupider time to do it in the history of the country. There we were, having all but recovered, remarkably quickly from the banking crisis of 2008 and then we voluntarily threw asunder the UK’s most important trading relationship. There even seemed a time of relative national contentment as London hosted the most spectacular Olympic games in 2012. That was washed away like a flood of foolishness.

As idioms go: “here’s nowt so queer as folk[1]” about sums it up. That could be a political maxim for our times. It may be a particularly English trait. I absent my Scottish, Welsh, and Irish friends from this classification. It goes like this, I’d say, when all’s well it’s a time to do something daft. That feeling should be resisted as much as possible.

The result of 2016’s fantasy is that the relationship between the UK and EU is torn by tension, disputes, and disappointments. Instead of everyone benefiting from the excellent innovations of the Single Market and freedom of movement in Europe, the UK continues to pedal backwards.

There’s coming a moment when change might be possible. I am a great believer in disproportionate relationships. It’s like the statistical curiosity of buses arriving in threes. There are periods of time when things seem to be stuck on a tramline and nothing interesting changes. Then a moment of transition occurs and suddenly new possibility crop-up.

Why do I say this? Well, polls, such as they are, are showing a significant public willingness to reconsider what happened in June 2016[2]. Not only that but because of the “Truss debacle” the advocates of Brexit are on the back-foot. They did trash the economy with little care or concern.

With a UK General Election (GE) looming there’s a strong likelihood that anyone shouting for more Brexit will suffer the same fate as Trump’s red wave (or lack of it) in the United States (US). This will upset hard core Brexiters, but in all fairness, they have had plenty of time to show the benefits of their beloved project. They have shown none. In fact, we continue to go backwards under the yoke of blind Brexit dogma.

The UK and the EU can greatly improve their current relationship if they both choose. We have common problems, common challenges, and common threats. It would be of great benefit to all Europeans if we worked more closely together.

POST: The evidence points to one conclusion Why is the UK struggling more than other countries? – BBC News

[1] This phrase is typically used to emphasise someone’s particularly behaviour. (“Nowt” is a Northern English variation on “naught.”)

[2] https://bylinetimes.com/2022/11/02/brexit-polls-uk-public-want-to-rejoin-eu/

Wrong

Where the Conservatives went wrong, and other mistakes. It’s OK, I’m just channelling HHGTTG[1].

Where God Went Wrong is the first book in a trilogy by Oolon Colluphid . The other two parts of the trilogy are Some More of God’s Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway?

By allowing the “swivel eyed loons[2]” to take over the Conservatives have sealed their fate. Those 3-words were banned around back in 2013. It’s amazing how prophetic they have turned out to be.

These are the politicians and minor celebrities driven by a pathological hatred of the Continent. In fact, it goes further than that mindset. As we have seen from the Party’s membership vote on a leadership candidate, the tendancy for self-destruction is imbedded.

Recent attempts by senior Conservatives to revive the bogyman of Mr Corbyn, the Labour Party’s former leader are quite pathetic. People in glass houses should not throw stones. It’s nearing the end of 2022, so the campaigning nonsense of 2016 and 2019 is not going to play with the public. That narrative is dead.

We are in a deep hole. It’s more than financial. In recognising the banking crisis, and the need to do something about it, there was a degree of consensus in 2010. However much there’s regret at the mistakes made by the Coalition Government they didn’t match the incompetence and shear madness of what we have experienced this year. Sheer madness.

In 2008, the greed of bankers drove the Country into troubled times. In 2022, the obsessions and warped ideology of a rotten worn-out political party drove the Country into a deep hole.

So damaged is the reputation of the Conservative Party that their poll rating, floating just above 20% is a fair place for them to be at this time. If 1 in 5 people are prepared to forgive them for a cavalcade of ineptitude they need to think again. Rewarding such folly and madness will only result in more of the same.

As we move towards a General Election there’s a need for a monumental shift away from the sirens who have lured the country onto the rocks. The Conservative Party must be sent into distant opposition to reflect on the damage that it has done.

[1] https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Where_God_Went_Wrong

[2] https://virtualstoa.net/2013/05/18/a-short-history-of-swivel-eyed-loons/

Accent

What’s in an accent? It certainly is a point of discussion. However much we pride ourselves in championing diversity there’s prejudices that have been centuries in the making.

I believe, we all want to see inclusive and welcoming environment in every profession and occupation. I’m opposed to all forms of unfair discrimination especially those of class-based prejudices. In this country, a persons accent can so easily be associated with a region or city. Then all the baggage of history associated with that place can form snap judgements about that person.

It was a while ago but a case in point sticks in my mind. A space project that didn’t go as planned resulted in a probe crash landing on planet Mars. The Beagle 2 project[1] was ambitious however ill fated. The bubbling enthusiasm of the project leader Professor Colin Pillinger from the Open University was infectious. At the same time, it was impossible to miss his West Country accent. It didn’t impede his inspirational promotion of space exploration, but I do remember remarks made about his accent. They were not always complementary.

Now, you might say that was more than a decade ago. We’ve moved on. I don’t think so. The glorious West Country accent, and I include the city of Bristol in that mix, is still associated with a rural Arcadian dream of country life. This much cherished mythology continues to be promoted in English lifestyle magazines and every part of the broadcast media.

It’s a fantasy where educated, philanthropic and sophisticated citizens move from London to enlighten impoverished country folk. Their hope being to soak in the innocence of country ways but, at the same time, offer erudite advice to the backward locals.

If I have an accent it has all but gone. That said, it does broaden when I return to the West Country. There’s a whole series of words which don’t seen quite right said anywhere but in the rolling hills of Somerset and Dorset. Ways of saying things that I grew up with that are meaningless out of context.

Although the association of a rural accent often goes with an unfair characterisation that someone is not too bright, on the plus side it’s linked with friendliness, kindness and warmth. That sounds a bit like a description of a Hobbit. There’s an accidental proof that these prejudices are deeply ingrained in English literature.

I remember early in my career that too much retained from childhood was a barrier to getting a message cross. Slowly but effectively my accent became generic. There’s no doubt this had an upside when it came to technical presentations in front of a mixed audience. Even more important in front of an international audience. It shouldn’t matter but it does.

In a conversation about helicopter safety, a French colleague once lent over to say to me that he knew our Texan partner was speaking English, but he had no idea what he was saying. Is that a case for a standardisation of English – maybe?

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-led-beagle-2-lander-found-on-mars

Bad Law

Jacob Rees-Mogg resigned on St Crispin’s Day. Shakespeare’s imagination of glory and immortality in Henry V no doubt on his strange mind. Well, let’s say we are not outnumbered by the French. We are outnumbered by the ideology of persistent right-wing Parliamentarians.

The bill in Mogg’s name got a reading in the UK Parliament last night. The so called Orwellian “Brexit Freedoms Bill” would make any authoritarian Government in the world simile.

This is a dreadful bill. To imagine British legislators are so superior that they can replace, fairly, effectively and honestly, so much complex law in so short a time is a simple con. Much of the legislative texts facing replacement took decades of research, investigation and proving to take shape. A great many of these laws of EU origin were driven by the UK.

Ministers attempting to claim to the UK Parliament that the EU retained law bill will allow ambitious standards to be maintained sounds like the worst sales pitch of a second-hand car salesman. Consumer, employment, and environmental regulation is not a burden. It’s an asset. Widespread outcry is justified[1]. #AttackOnNature

Duplications is a serious concern too. For organisations trading with the EU and beyond, having to met two sets of different laws will add considerable additional costs.

This bill would tie-up civil servants for a long-time and oversight of what happens wouldn’t be of the quality needed.

The former Business Secretaries were driven by Brexit dogma. The new Business Secretary needs to stop and think again. There’s no profit in trashing what works.

A serious debate about individual laws is the job of Parliament. Sweeping away swaths of good law because it’s a prejudice of the secretive European Research Group (ERG)[2] is sheer madness. Parliamentarians should work for the people, not against their interests.

POST 1: Financial Times: UK’s Rishi Sunak eases off on taking Brexit axe to EU laws. Plan for ‘delivery unit’ shelved in wake of warning EU legislation review would tie up hundreds of officials.

POST 2: Mogg continues to promote his “bonfire” of EU law retained after Brexit in The Express newspaper.

POST 3: Brexit supporters are coming out against this bad law Rees-Mogg’s plans to axe all EU laws will cripple Whitehall, says leading Brexiter | Law | The Guardian

[1] https://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/rspb-news/rspb-news-stories/attack-on-nature-the-story-so-far/?from=hp2

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Research_Group

Last Chance

Dining at the last chance saloon, Rishi Sunak calls for unity. The man who will become Conservative Prime Minister (PM) has his work cut out. It’s one thing to point towards the 2019 General Election as the basis of the legitimacy of this coming Government but we now know, beyond a doubt, that the manifesto of that time was no more than a con. A majority in Parliament has been shown to not be enough alone to get things done.

Marketing Richi Sunak[1] as a knight in shining armour in troubled times may sing with Members of Parliament (MPs). Boris Johnson’s former supporters will just sit on their hands and steam.

So, has his selection stopped the Conservative Party imploding? I think not. 

For one, how will it be possible to construct a credible cabinet when the choices are limited to the people who have been less than capable, loyal, or reliable?

Two, the country’s Conservative party members have been kicked in the teeth. Having spent the summer consulting them, their opinions and votes have now been put in the dustbin.

Three, if we are we on the way to austerity Mk2 the Government’s popularity will further sink like a stone. Yet, financial stability will only be achieved by reversing the errors of recent times.

Four, the intemperate language of the Brexiters continues as they interpret every set back as a Socialists/Remainer plot and call most Conservative MPs “wets”[2]. In other words; weak and ineffective and against their beloved project.

Five, the public have been bystanders in all this poltical nonsense. They are shrugging their shoulders in dismay watching the antics of their MPs. This cannot be erased by just shuffling the cards.

It may be time for a little calm. A moment of calm will be good for everyone. Behind the curtains in that last chance saloon the panic will take a week or so to get going. Unity is a mysterious beast. People can desire it all they like but if the basic conditions are not in place, it will be illusive.

[1] https://twitter.com/schrankartoons/status/1584658993838002177?s=20&t=Z053gFJk1s45cdwrg7KQJg

[2] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/n/nf-nj/nile-gardiner/

1982

In 40 years, much has changed but not everything. For me, a good part of 1982 was spent in Buckhorn Weston[1]. A small village on the edge of the 3 English countries, Somerset, Dorset, and Wiltshire.

It was the year, I graduated from Lanchester Polytechnic in Coventry (The Lanch). Having been a student apprentice, I returned to the employer who had sponsored my engineering education. That company and its name have disappeared from the lexicon of British manufactures. The Plessey company[2] was divided and swallowed up by others. The work that it did, at that time, continues but as part of a large European multinational organisation[3].

As a young design engineer, I found myself developing low noise preamplifiers. Yes, at that time analogue electronics played the major part in our lives. Digital systems were starting to break through as the recipe of choice for new designs. Each engineer had their own hardback orange catalogue of Texas transistor–transistor logic (TTL) chips[4]. It was the new frontier. Speculation was rife about growing miniaturisation.

It was a year of change. However, the pivotal moment of mine didn’t come until the end of the year. I was a fresh 22-year-old graduate with ambition and a rosy outlook as to what the world had to offer. Economically, the UK had been through some depressing years but in late 1982 the job market was good for a graduate of electronic engineering.

Living in the Dorset village of Buckhorn Weston had its eccentric moments. There were more than a few evenings spent at The Stapleton Arms[5]. On the opposite side of the road to the pub was a Post Office and a telephone box. When I moved to the village, I had little idea how that vivid red telephone box would shape my life for decades.

The daily routine started to have a rhythm to it, as there was a great deal to do at work. There wasn’t a moment when my diary wasn’t full. The summer had opened wonderful opportunities to cruise around the West Country lanes in my bright yellow MG Midget. My family being near by meant that family occasions didn’t go amiss either.

Then a Christmas party in Bristol had unexpected repercussions. It was early December. A good friend from The Lanch had got a job in Bristol working for a wine merchant. I had no hesitation in saying “yes” to an invitation to a party in the city. It wasn’t far to travel.

Now, 40-years on, Sue and I enjoy a life in the southeast. At that Bristol party we met for the first time. That’s when the cold nights standing in a village telephone box started. So, red Post Office telephone boxes will always have a special place in my heart.

In this mobile phone orientated era, a line from Monty Python comes to mind: “And you try and tell the young people of today that … they won’t believe you”[6]

[1] https://bwandkmpc.org/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessey

[3] https://www.thales.com/

[4] This remains with us in a different form https://www.ti.com/lit/ug/scyd013b/scyd013b.pdf

[5] https://www.stapletonarms.co.uk/

[6] https://genius.com/Monty-python-four-yorkshiremen-live-annotated

Break the cycle

It’s almost as if the UK is a private country club run by a desperate array of fundamentalist eccentrics. Interview after interview ponders on the machinations within this rotten privileged club. Manoeuvrings and diversions take on a soap opera quality where none of the characters are likable and all are fatally flawed. It’s a daily Machiavellian[1] mystery show.

Although I’ve concluded that our governance problems are systemic the case for letting the country’s people decide what to do next is now overwhelming. Political parties with a large majority in the House of Commons become warped after a long period of power.

The UK is a Parliamentary democracy or is struggling to remain one. The prospect of Boris Johnson returning as Prime Minister (PM) is truly astounding. If he strides back into No 10 Downing Street as the Conservative top dog, then we have flipped into an undemocratic presidential malaise. 

Today, No 10 staff are preparing to give evidence at the privileges committee inquiry. Tommorrow, imagine the subject of that inquiry returning to be their boss.

Commentators are saying that many Conservative MPs will resign the party whip if Boris Johnson[2] wins the party leadership race. Sadly, this may not concern party managers given that they will still retain a majority in the House of Commons. Numbers matter.

Please don’t ask why is Boris Johnson has been on holiday when the House of Commons is sitting?

There’re a few oddballs who are saying that the British political opposition is scared stiff of Boris Johnson returning as PM, because “they know he’s a winner”. This really is turning the whole show into a sale of the century where honesty and integrity play no part in the proceedings.

The call an immediate General Election, so that the people can decide who should lead us through the extraordinary times, is right and proper. The chances of it happening are extremely thin. Pressing the reset button is of paramount importance. Trouble is that Conservative MPs prioritise protecting their jobs rather than the greater good of the country.

Britain’s last Prime Minister ran as bad a show as can be done in a short time. Likelihood is that Britain’s next Prime Minister will come the same discredited stable. Catastrophic results last time. Catastrophic results in prospect next time. The cycle needs to be broken.

POST: However strange, the support for Boris Johnson isn’t hiding under the covers https://twitter.com/LeoDochertyUK/status/1583418690120212482?s=20&t=08UMtfqXbbHzNjgiSahPjw

[1] https://marketbusinessnews.com/financial-glossary/machiavellianism/

[2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-flight-liz-truss-sunak-prime-minister-b2208264.html

Reigate

You may well know that Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is the British politician that led the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He served as Prime Minister (PM) of the UK. This is history. His term of office was a disaster. It was peppered with gaffs, lavish holidays, “terminological inexactitudes[1]” and jobs for his chums. Conservative MPs could take no more, so they got rid of him.

Circulating in the rumour mill is the possibility that this gentleman will be doing the “chicken run.” Boris Johnson’s current parliamentary seat, Uxbridge and South Ruislip would be among the 125 seats the Labour Party would likely win to secure a majority at the next General Election[2].

The rumour is that this former leader of the Conservative Party has his eye on Reigate. It’s a county constituency that has been a Conservative parliamentary seat in modern times. The only exception to this was in 1906 when a Liberal MP was returned to Parliament.

Reigate is a prosperous Surrey town, south of the North Downs and north of London Gatwick Airport. It’s at the heart of a Westminster constituency that extends north to Banstead and encompasses the town of Redhill. Next door are seats that have a simillar history as being safe for Conservatives.

The term “chicken run” became popular in the mid-1990s. As General Election defeat loomed, leading Conservative politicians started abandoning their parliamentary seats and getting themselves what they thought to be safer ones. This move was seen as a clear sign that the Conservative Party was conceding defeat. In fact, it took a while but it did turn out that way.

With Reigate’s current MP promising to stand down at the next General Election. There’s a vacancy. Who will the local party members choose? Boris Johnson in Reigate would be a dreadful prospect. However, this might bring about 1906[3] all over again. In the General Election of January 1906, the Liberals swept to victory with a landslide result.

Yes, Reigate could go Liberal Democrat. Now, that would be a good day.

POST 1: A Bring Back Boris petition has toped 10,000 in two days. It’s seems the rock and the hard place is playing out as Conservatives up and down Britain panic.

POST 2: Now, Reigate’s MP has been doing the rounds of the national media sudios calling for the current PM to stand down. Asking for the British electorate to tollerate yet another switch of PM. Absolute bonkers are far too mild words to describe the Conservative Party.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminological_inexactitude

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/28/could-boris-johnson-lose-his-seat-in-the-next-election

[3] https://liberalhistory.org.uk/history/1906-election/

Our political class is sclerotic

It’s been pointed out time and time again. It’s not like it’s a new phenomenon. The education of our politicians is dominated by a small number of schools, universities, and courses. Having an Oxford PPE[1] puts someone in pole position. So, does attendance at Eton.

Yes, we are not the only society to exhibit such educational polarisation, but it’s deep rooted in the UK. Centuries of domination of select institutions are well documented. The UK is long in the tooth. One set of privileged people are often in the wings to replace another set of similar people.

Simple generalisations about this fact being bad are not so easy to sustain. On the list of those who were educated in this way have been some real reformers and progressive thinkers. Nevertheless, there are a significant number of dangers that come from such a narrow streaming.

Although the overarching heading of Philosophy, Politics and Economics contains a variety of options and differences, it’s been constructed as a machine in a factory for politicians. It’s a cooky cutter for a template Member of Parliament (MP). For a long, long time, local constituency party’s and a significant number of voters have taken it as read that this is the model for an MP.

An interesting question arises in the current chaotic political maelstrom. Is this phenomenon one of the roots of periodic failures and catastrophes in the UK?

Here’s several reasons why the suggestion can not be easily dismissed.

Narrow streaming is a great way to instil a “group think” in our governance. Thing is, I don’t think we (voters) need or want this to happen. The risks are self-evident. There’s a greater propensity to agreement on the wrong course of action. An example is the decision to go to war in Iraqi.

Linking “orthodoxy” and stability in the minds of the population may limit what can be done. This is a strange one in that politicians with a common background can be strongly motivated to be unconventional just for the sake of doing it. Maybe that’s what has just happened.

Diversity is not just a nice to have. Diversity brings strengths that are not available in a monoculture. It’s a good strategy to bring in new ideas. New thinking. Bring in people with a wide variety of different backgrounds and experiences.

Change is needed. The UK’s political class is sclerotic. It shouldn’t be a surprise that we just had a national heart attack.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/feb/23/ppe-oxford-university-degree-that-rules-britain