Category: Systems

Visual Cues and Decision Making

Back to visual perception. Initially, it may not seem right to focus on one human sense and not discuss the others. We are multifaceted humans. The brain takes advantage of all its senses, when they are available. We’ve evolved with amazing capabilities.

The interesting notion that certain wines taste better when accompanies by certain music is a wonderful example of how interactive our systems can be. That’s without us having any conscious control over their immediate intimate workings. Parts maybe hardwired and others soft wired and adaptable.

Vision plays a dominant part in enabling us to move around. We haven’t yet evolved echo sounding, like bats and dolphins. This is not to say that those who loose vision can’t compensate to some extent, but they don’t fly aircraft or drive fast cars or become astronauts.

My thoughts arise from exposure to several aspects of our dependency on seeing the world around us. To begin, at the early part of my career, it was indeed the process of taking sound imaging and making it usable for recognising objects. Converting the information that come back from sending sound pluses through water into an image must deal with a dynamic environment. Interpretation of such electronic images can be the difference between hitting an object at sea and avoiding it.

Later, my design work concentrated on information presented to a pilot and what happens next. That whole arena of the aircraft cockpit is one big interface. The link between the senses and the decision maker. I’m not straying into the interminable debates about human factors.

Let’s stay with the trend that’s in front of us in every walk of life. That’s the dependence on recognising and acting on information that is presented to us on a nearby screen. In so far as I know, humans didn’t evolve with this need to relate acutely to closely presented information as much as reacting to distant stimulus. Afterall if a hostile animal or dangerously armed person was heading towards me at speed, I wouldn’t sit around debating the subject.

Aeronautics has experience in this shift of attention. At the start of my career aircraft cockpits where mostly knobs and dials. Mechanical indicators and filament bulbs. Sometime unreliable. Still the idea of flying by the “seat of the paints” prevailed. That centred around situation awareness, predominantly guided by looking out of the window. At the outside world. Distant vison equally, if not more, important as looking two feet ahead at a panel. Over the last five decades the above has changed radically. Instruments are large flat screens dotted with an array of colourful symbols offering every aspect of “situation awareness”.

Now, this is happening to cars. Most new cars have electronic screens. The expectation is that we humble humans have transitioned from simple mechanical dials to a fascinating world of colourful animated markers and whizzy logos. Despite the glorious technology the basic function remains the same. That is the link between the senses and the decision maker.

Adequate levels of visual perception being the number one attribute a pilot or driver is expected to maintain. This continues to be true as automation does more and more. What maybe a long-term trend in human evolution is that shift between the importance of what’s a couple of feet away and what’s in our surroundings. Will we become less sensitive to a personal experience of what’s more that two feet away? I wonder.

Evolution of

Looking at the weird and wonderful picture of an unlikely lump of materials with wires hanging off, it’s easy to dismiss. A laboratory experiment that drew together theory and practice to produce a brand-new electrical device. Not something that occurred in nature. Even though its behaviour is of that of materials in nature.

Certainly, the implications of this experiment could not have been fully understood at the time. That said, progress to industrialise this new device was rapid. By the time of 1956, the “inventors” were awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1947, the transistor, was a fruitful combination of science and practical thinking in a laboratory where that was encouraged.

Bell Laboratories, given its history was a logical place for arguably the most important modern invention to be first put together. Arguing over “most important” there are several matters to consider. For one, how universal, how ubiquitous would this humble device become? Would it have a dramatic impact of everyday life for decades after its invention? Would it change every aspect of human organisation? Would its design, development and production become essential to the world? The simple answer – yes.

My first encounter with the germanium transistor was as a boy in the 1970s. Stripping them out of junked radios and record player amplifiers. Building simple circuits. PNP germanium junction transistors were tiny tin cans with three colour coded leads. With a soldering iron and a primitive breadboard there were plenty of designs in popular magazines to copy. Now, this is considered as vintage technology since germanium has long given way to silicon.

The clock, the radio, the bathroom scales, my shaver, my toothbrush, even in my bathroom every appliance contains circuits that are transistor based. It would be possible to live without some of these items, or at least substitute them with the mechanical versions, but that’s only for eccentrics, museums and heritage houses.

In 1947, the prototype transistor was on a bench being studied. It came along too late to play a part in the huge leap forward technology made during World War II. What became apparent is that the technology that had been developed using thermionic valves was convertible into a transistor-based versions. Size shrank and performance improved dramatically.

What’s my message? It’s another way of looking at so called artificial intelligence. Technology doesn’t come out of the blue. It doesn’t plot new pathways in the first years of its invention. It often takes things we already do and speeds them up or makes them cheaper or makes them more lethal.

We create another stepping stone upon which further developments can take place. So, maybe there is a South Sea Bubble about to burst. Much of the frantic investment that has taken place assumes that artificial intelligence is of itself a wonder. Let’s say it isn’t. The wonder is what it will allow us to do. Much of that side of the coin is a massive unknown. Much as the three who invented the solid-state transistor could not have envisaged tens of millions of them stuffed inside every computer chip on the planet.

Vintage germanium components are sough after by specialists. Apparently, audio amplifiers sound better to those who are sensitive to certain musical tones. Artificial intelligence has a proliferation of applications. A lot are gimmicks. Some are extremely serious.

POST: It’s often the boring stuff that can best be improved rapidly, note: One real reason AI isn’t delivering: Meatbags in manglement • The Register

Dynamics of Change

This theory of mine may have been voiced before. It’s a way of looking at the momentum behind progressiveness but with a reminder of the realities of the difficulties of change. Any progressive movement implies change. That change may not always be comfortable.

Ever looked at the teeth of a wood saw. There are a variety of geometries[1]. The overall purpose is the same regardless of the shape and size. Different materials too. A typical saw is unidirectional. Push in one direction to make a cut and withdraw to prepare for the next one.

Then look at our world of ever-increasing data. Piles of accumulated numbers. For the most part, as simple creatures, we plot “x” against “y” to get an image of how one parameter is related to another. In the real world, there’s a lot more axis and dimensions. More than a head full.

On one axis I could put that nebulous parameter “progress”. The horizontal axis, as it often is, that unidirectional human experience of time. So, “x” equals time, as the years clock by, and “y” equals a measure of human “progress”.

What do I plot on blank graph paper? Take the shadow of the saw tooth at an incline and arrange it so that it rises with time. Remember to get it the way round that suggest that the saw is being used. Depending upon the rate of the incline and the rake of the saw tooth, we go forward with time and then stop or reverse a small amount. However, the overall direction is always to climb. This is better drawn than written. 

How does this illustrate the mythical quality of human progress? Being a fan of both disproportionate relationships and pareto[2], I accept that things move at different rates subject to different stimulus. Sometimes fast with only a tiny push. Sometimes slow even with a massive amount of force applied.

Take, for example, the technical progress that was made, driven by the necessities of war, in the 1940s. Aeroplanes went from relatively crude flying machines and esoteric racers to incredibly capable craft that came to dominate the skies.

Now, take social progress at improving housing conditions in our country, over the last couple of decades, and the speed of improvement has been remarkably disappointing, to say the least. Pathetic would be a better description.

Progress, or lack of it, has a vast number of different characteristics. However, the main one that either delights us or troubles us is speed. The speed by which things change for the better. Swiftness of advance, or setback after setback and even moments of reversal. Just like a saw tooth. Great strides are made. Then difficult periods and reversals occur. It’s predicable what I’m going to write next. The western world is in one of those moments of ambition but backsliding and sluggish progress. Negativity abounds.

Is perspicacity the right word to use for my theory.? It’s crude. On the upside there’s an underlying positivity described in my simple model. Don’t look to the setbacks and stupidities of the day, look to the longer run “progress” that is in prospect. And help make it happen.

[1] https://www.blackburntools.com/articles/saw-tooth-geometry/index.html

[2] https://betterexplained.com/articles/understanding-the-pareto-principle-the-8020-rule/

Age Restrictions

Inevitably whenever there’s a decision as to what is age-appropriate one’s own experience comes to the fore. The experiment that is going on in Australia is one to watch. That country has taken a step towards the regulation of social media that provides defined limits. From zero to age 16 there’s to be a ban, or a restriction as the more diplomatic commentators say. One discussion could be about the whole necessity, and possible effectiveness of a ban on social media and another about the age limit that has been set.

This is one of those debates where there are good cases to be made on both sides. I could start by citing examples of harm caused, in particular cases, of social media use by children. That would reinforce a compelling argument for restrictions by law.

Alternatively, looking at the subject in the round, I could wonder at the position of young people first encountering an avalanche of social media on the day of their 16th birthday. Or the creativeness of young people in finding ways to evade a punitive law.

For me, my 16th birthday was a day of great liberation. Growing up in the countryside has lots of advantages. The downside is the effort needed to get anywhere beyond walking distance. No buses. No trains. Just a pushbike. Miles of country lanes, green fields and distant villages.

No demanding, distracting all-encompassing digital paraphernalia. Maybe a radio, cassette recorder and a pile of vinyl records. For me a couple of beaten-up cars and motorcycles too. As per the famous four Yorkshiremen sketch: try telling that to the kids of today.

Yes, my 16th birthday was a day of great liberation. That because of the law. I wasn’t alone. It was there for every schoolboy who could afford one. Shiny in the showrooms. Names like: Fantic, Gilera, Garelli, Yamaha, Suzuki and Puch, were all on our list of wants.

In December 1971, the British Government create legislation that restricted 16-year-olds to 50cc mopeds (motorcycles with pedal assistance). This was a worthy effort to improve road safety and reduce the carnage of motorcycle accidents. What was unexpected was the frenzy of innovation that this well-meaning law triggered. Motorcycle manufacturers set to their drawing boards and radically transformed the moped. I do mean radically.

I came in at the end of this era. By early 1976 manufactures had squeezed every drop of performance that was possible out of a mere 50cc engine. Designs had gone from uncomfortable, sluggish commuter bikes that would feel embarrassed to own, to sporty fast racing machines that were extremely desirable.

Ah, the unintended consequences of worthy legislation. For me this was wonderful. It opened a whole new vista and introduced me to one or two roadside hedges. Waiting for me on my 16th birthday was one of the best. A Puch Grand Prix Special. In black and gold, this really was a fast and refined two-stroke machine. Even with cast alloy wheels and a front disk brake, which was whizzy for the time. Racing along the main A30 the bikes gearing was such that I went fastest downhill, while my mates Garelli overtook me going up the hills.

What can I say? When it comes to age-appropriate the results may not be what is intended.

Note: Reference: Funky Mopeds! The 1970s sports moped phenomenon. Richard Skelton. Veloce Publishing. ISBN 13 978-1-84584-078-5  www.veloce.co.uk

Civilization’s Edge

Civilizations rise and fall. That’s not new in the human experience of the last couple of thousand years. One of the causes of failure is an encounter with an entirely unexpected threat. When I say “unexpected” I mean unprepared for threat. Then finding that the defences that have been constructed fall simply and quickly because they didn’t anticipate that threat.

Another reason for failure is a perpetual human characteristic. Arrogance. Everyday imagining that the pinnacle of achievement is – now. Look how smart we are in the 21st Century. Capable, Superman like, of leaping so far ahead of our forefathers.

I’m a child of the analogue age. I was born into the space age. What that brought us, by necessity, was the digital computer in all its myriads of forms. Yet, from day one, it’s no better that a mass of fast switches. Ones and noughts. Nothing more. Nothing less.

With miniaturisation and an understanding of how materials work a massive, global, interconnected digital system, called the INTERNET, has been constructed. It’s flexibility and utility are undeniable. Its extended human capabilities way beyond that of past generations.

Now, I can start a sentence with “however” or “but” or despite this fact. The whole enterprise is still an unfathomable, dynamic number of ones and noughts.

There’s a kind of vulnerability that is elemental. Whatever might be written about powerful Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems it’s fair to say that the “A” is entirely accurate but the “I” is a bit of a myth. Mimicking intelligence is more the order of the day. That does make people shudder because that mimicking is so fast and draws on a massive amount of information. Seemingly that surpasses human capabilities. It doesn’t.

I write not of the machines that we have today but of those to come. I’ll resist the mention of the number 42. What’s happening is an acceleration of developments. These highly versatile tools that are permeating every aspect of life are not frozen in time. They overhaul themselves on a regular basis. What comes next is indeed machines that make machines. Algorithms that write algorithms.

Humanity is unprepared for the emergence of an intelligence that genuinely fits that bill. The whole idea of sovereignty and human autonomy might go out of the window. The ability to exercise control over where we are going is lost.

There are a lot of wealthy folks who are of a libertarian frame of mind who don’t seem too concerned about this race to the point of loss of control. This could be an expression of arrogance or ignorance or both. It could be the ultimate expression of short-termism.

It’s going to require real effort to hang on to democratic systems where we all have a stake in the direction of travel of our society. Money buys influence. Now, that influence is adverse to the idea of trying to regulate or moderate the advance of technology.

Civilizations rise and fall. Are we racing towards a cliff edge? Put aside climate change for a moment. Stop me from any tendance to doom-monger. My thought is that a comfortable, stable, prosperous society needs regulator instruments that work to mitigate threats. Let’s not be persuaded to ignore that reality.

UK’s Digital Dependency

Under the title of “Culture” The Guardian newspaper offered an article that caught my eye this weekend. The author, Tim Wu was offering a point of view about the economic landscape that we inhabit in Britain. The theme was the drift that has taken place whereby we find that a huge dependency has grown-up over the last couple of decades. That is the unassailable dominance of a small number of US companies throughout the whole of our country.

What am I using to write this remark? It’s a computer program called “Word” sold to me by a multinational company called “Microsoft.” What’s strange is that this way of expressing my relationship with Microsoft isn’t commonplace. There’s a tendance to treat software, like Word as if it has always been with us and always will be. Like the public roads I drive my car on. Completely taken for granted. That is until a problem arises.

This Saturday article wasn’t about computer software per-se. Although the world of computing is riddled with intellectual property rights there remains a kind of openness to new ways of doing business. Digital ones and noughts are like the text on this page. They can be rearranged in all manner of diverse ways. The combinations and permutations are almost infinite.

Tim Wu argues that we should look to the way transport systems developed as an analogy to the electronic communications infrastructure we use.

Roads developed in the era of the horse. More than 200-years ago, before the time of the railroad. In fact, they go back a lot longer than a few hundred years ago. The Romans were particularly good road builders. However, that was a state enterprise aimed at getting armies around a sprawling empire.

The condition of roads in Britain took a leap forward when commercial enterprise found a way of getting an income from the primary land transport system of the day. Road tolls were a way of building and maintaining a network of highways. This network was physical. Fixed in place.

Digital infrastructure is more than cables, wireless systems, and databanks. Without the human interface all that extensive structure is unusable. That’s were a small number of US companies dominate the marketplace. This complete extra territorial dominance is, like my comment about Word above, taken for granted.

Tim Wu’s analogy doesn’t cut the mustard. It does illuminate an inconvenient truth. The reason the big US companies are driving the future of communication and technology is because they have captured a massive global income stream. However, much of that position depends on the laws that prevail in each nation. That prevail at a time when globalisation was seen as almost unquestionable. Now, the question arises has national sovereignty been sacrificed on the alter of progress? If so, what next?

There’s often been a hard kick-back against anticompetitive behaviour. Monopolies are not considered the best way to serve the public interest. Nevertheless, throughout history they have been pivotal in our story. Like it or not, that’s how the elegant country houses and castles of Britain were paid for and furnished. The same experience can be witnessed at the Newport Mansions[1] in the US.

How do we democratise rapidly advancing technology? There’s a mighty big question.

[1] https://www.newportmansions.org/

Navigating Aviation

Each profession has a way of speaking. This is not usual. Just try reading a long-winded contact on any subject. There are lots of references to a “third party” and more than one. Copious uses of the word “herein”. A good sprinkling of “hereby” and “foregoing”.

I don’t speak those words. If I used them in everyday conversation, I’d get locked-up. Nevertheless, these English words are universally applied to common legal documentation. The hundreds of End User License Agreement (EULA) that we all sign up to, whether we know it or not, apply legalese language liberally [love the alliteration].

Aeronautical people are no different. I could have said aviation people or professional flying people. There’s the rub. Even to say the same thing, there are a myriad ways of saying it.

One major problem that we all encounter, now and then, is having to work with a community that uses language in a different way from ourselves. I’m not talking about language as per dictionary definitions of words and standard English grammar. For good or ill, English opens the door to a numerous of ways of saying basically the same thing.

Professional English users, as I have alluded to above, choose their own pathway through the possibilities. English is not alone in facilitating this variability of expression.

I once worked in Bristol. A Filton. A large aircraft factory with an immense heritage. That included the Concorde project. Here both British and French engineers had to work closely together on a huge joint venture. It succeeded. Supersonic flight was commercialised.

One of the delightful little books I picked up from that time was a handy English/French dictionary of aeronautical terms. Those in common usage at an aircraft factory of the 1970s. To communicate effectively it was recognised that technical words needed to be explained.

What I’m noting now is this reality hasn’t gone away. For all the imaginative language Apps that might grace my mobile phone, there’s still a need to explain. This gets even more important when it’s a specific aviation community that is being discussed.

How do people from other communities get what regulatory people are saying when it’s perfectly obvious to them what they are saying? Take a banker or financier that wants to invest in electric aviation because they believe the future points that way. They come across bundles of jargon and precise terms that are not found in everyday conversations. Not to say that the world of money doesn’t have its own langauage.

In aviation there’s not only particular words with detailed meanings but a raft of acronyms. Combinations of words that are easily expressed as a package of letters. Then the short, sweet acronym surpasses the original text.

SMS, POA, DOA, ODA, OEM, TSO, TC, ICA, CofA, SUP, FDM, FAR, CS, NPRM, NPA, AC, AMJ, ACJ, GM and I can go on and on.

Maybe we need a Sub Part – better understanding.

Safety Differences

Are the safety standards for all large aeroplanes the same? No, they are not. I’m never sure if the public naively expect this to be the case. I’m sure it’s not something that goes through the mind of every air traveller. Looking up at an aeroplane, flying overhead, this is not a thought that instantly comes to mind. Even watching them take-off and land at a busy airport.

A large aeroplane is a large aeroplane – surely. Well, not exactly. Several issue come into play when addressing the safety standards for large civil transport aeroplanes. For example, when did the type of aeroplane first go into service? What is it being used for? Where is it flying to? How many people are on-board?

One place to start with any discussion on this subject is with the basics. For a start an aeroplane is heavier than air and its power driven. Immediately, two important factors pop out of that definition. One: weight counts. Two: operating engine(s) are needed.

Almost lost in the mists of time are the reasons for dividing the world of transport aeroplanes into two categories. Simply called – large and small.

Underlying this basic categorisation is an historic assumption. This is an assumption upon which civil aviation safety regulation has been built. Namely, that efforts need to be made to ensure large aeroplanes are safer than small aeroplanes. One way of looking at this is to consider a spectrum of risk, and several parameters of concern.

Let’s start with the question above – what is it being used for? A transport aeroplane can be used to carry cargo or passengers, often both. The number of crew and passengers carried can range from 1 to 850[1]. In fact, for large aeroplanes, there’s no upper limit written into international standards. However, the term “very large aeroplane” is coined for the upper end of weight or passenger numbers carried. Sadly, the very largest of these very large aeroplanes (cargo), the Antonov An-225 Mriya, was destroyed by war.

Although, a matter of primary concern is the number of passengers carried, and therefore at risk in the event of an incident or accident, the main dividing line in the regulatory landscape between large and small aeroplanes is weight.

To some extent this has a foundation. It could be viewed that in the event of an incident or accident any resulting impact will be more severe the greater the weight of the aeroplane. This is where a parameter called the MTOW, or Maximum Take-off Weight, comes in. This number includes the total weight of an aeroplane, crew, fuel, passengers, and cargo.

Today, we divide the world of large and small aeroplanes based on MTOW. Yes, the maximum number of passengers that can be carried comes into the equation too. The question I have is, should that be the number one consideration?

[1] https://www.airwaysmag.com/legacy-posts/top-10-largest-passenger-aircraft

Exploring Airworthiness Knowledge

How many good books are there on aircraft airworthiness? I don’t suppose a lot of people are going to ask that question. General introductions to airworthiness are not necessarily bedtime reading. This thought came to my mind, this week, because I had some time to kill in a library. A particularly technical library in London[1]. It’s at the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET).

Sited in a grand building on the banks of the River Thames. Savoy Place, as the name suggests, is next door to the famous hotel of the same name. What marks it out is a large statue, not of some long-forgotten stage actor or army general, but that of Michael Faraday[2]. His contribution to the modern world is enduring and undeniable.

I’ve been a member of this august engineering institute since my student days in the early 1980s. Then it was known as the IEE. One “E” being for Electrical. Our lectures encouraged us students to join and once done so they have us for life. Members worldwide have access to their books, databases and standards.

I could draw a thread between Faraday’s work and 21st century aviation. It’s a mighty wide thread and one that’s growing all the time. There are so many aspects of electromagnetism embedded in aviation. For example, without electric motors and servos, we’d still be controlling aircraft with strings and wires. Fine, hydraulics play their part too.

Technology has moved on. It continues to move. Electrification is displacing hydromechanical systems. The age of electric propulsion is getting closer as developers experiment with a myriad of different configurations of motors for different new aircraft types. More and more electrical power is needed to make modern aircraft tick.

In the IET’s library there are a few books with the word “airworthiness” on the cover. It’s a distinct niche. More often technical references contain huge amounts of material that concern or impact airworthiness, but the word itself is reserved for the more discerning.

One I picked off the shelf was “Airworthiness: An Introduction to Aircraft Certification and Operations” by Filippo De Florio[3]”. For me it’s full of familiar material. I was surprised at the level of detail and range of coverage. In its latest version, it’s reasonably up-to-date too.

One book that was not on the IET’s shelf is “Initial Airworthiness: Determining the Acceptability of New Airborne Systems” by Professor Guy Gratton. I believe he’s updating this book now.

There was a copy of “Aircraft System Safety: Assessments for Initial Airworthiness Certification” by Duane Kritzinger. Again, for me it’s full of familiar material.

Another book that was not on the IET’s shelf is “Aircraft Continuing Airworthiness Management: A Practical Guide for Continuing Airworthiness Engineers” by Daniel Olufisan.

What I’m wondering now is how many other contemporary books are there on this subject. That is up-to-date references. Yes, I know I could do a quick search to turn up an easy answer but that tells me nothing of the quality of the publications. All four above are worth a read.

Help me out with some suggestions – please.

[1] https://www.theiet.org/membership/library-and-archives

[2] https://www.faraday.cam.ac.uk/about/michael-faraday/

[3] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Airworthiness-Introduction-Aircraft-Certification-Operations/dp/0081008880

The Future of Our Shared Values

That’s done. Reflecting on the last nine years. Time to look to the future. There’s no shortage of articles about the past and the present. Huge numbers of column inches crunch every detail of the current twists and turns of public life. Social media vibrates with repeated daily stories.

I watch a rebroadcast of HIGNFY[1] to quickly get the message that a headline is no basis for figuring out where we are going. Moments pass. Yes, there are reoccurring themes. What’s fascinating is that prominent personalities have their moments in the sun, and that they last a fraction of a second (metaphorically). The world moves on.

Yesterday’s scribblings concerned a degree of nostalgia. If only we could go back to some mythical age where current affairs seemed to make sense. Where people cooperated towards a common good. Where conflict was the exception not the rule.

Don’t look back. Don’t look back, too much. It’s a habit of the British to romanticise the past. Having such a colourful past to draw upon there’s always a story to tell. This inclination is at the root of our difficulties. It would be better to set a shared history as a foundation stone rather than always trying to build the same house.

Here in 2025, the world is being reshaped. There’s only so much that can be extrapolated from experience. Like a tsunami there’re changes happening that are unlike anything that has gone before. Early predictions of the benefits of digital technology imagined a borderless world. Information and learning spreading freely to enlighten and educate. So much for that.

It becomes clear that there are steps needed to protect and preserve our values. Enduring values underpinning our culture. They are not immutable. Forces acting at a global scale can, and do, shape how we think about our nation and what binds us together.

Whether we like it or not, many of the forces that shaped the colours on the world map are being played out in the digital sphere. Boundaries, barriers, conflicts, possessions, passions and powerplay are all there. Maybe they are not so visible to the man and woman on the Clapham omnibus, but they are there in abundance. As if we needed any indication, the experience of Jaguar Land Rover[2] and the cyber-attack they are dealing with, is there as a siren light.

I my mind these are not forces to confront in isolation. They do not respect lines on a map. Back to where I started. It’s by working with others, on an international level, that the harmful elements can be addressed.

The European Union (EU) envisions a Digital Single Market. That’s a project to be on-board. It’s essential to have standards that safeguard privacy and data security. Government Ministers who promote a hands-free laissez-faire approach are naive in the extreme. This is a practical field where Britian urgently needs to rebuild relations with its neighbours.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mkw3

[2] https://www.ft.com/content/6f2923b3-2a4b-4c9b-9cde-eb5f0d5b9ce3