Long Way Cock-Up?

I binge-watched the first three episodes of Long Way Up last night as they premiered. The first episode is free, by the way, just to hook you in.

Spoilers…

Clearly Harley Davidson and Rivian were keen to help out McGregor and Boorman. We don’t get to hear their reasoning for choosing an unfinished prototype adapted Harley Davidson Livewire over a proven Zero DSR, although we see both ride DSRs in episode 1, which they appear to like.

But not hearing the logic around the choice of bike — something which was an intrinsic part of the original Long Way Round story — leaves me feeling short-changed.

We hear Ewan’s EV mate, Michael Bream of EV West, assure them that the range of any electric motorcycle is 70 miles maximum, only for Charley and Ewan to disprove that in episode 1. But that’s something that any one of hundreds of owners could tell them was blatantly untrue anyway. That it comes from someone of Bream’s EV expertise is bewildering.

Did the guys speak to ANY seasoned electric motorcycle riders?

The Zero DSRs they rode in the first episode were perfectly suited and Zero have had level 1 charging (the ability to charge from ordinary, domestic power supplies) sorted for years.

Last year, German Thomas Jakel and Kenyan Dulcie Mativo rode a Zero DSR Black Forest edition almost 10,000 miles across Africa.

Meanwhile, Harley Davidson delayed the start of the journey in Ushuaia by three days, with the team stuck at the start point, because they didn’t have level 1 charging working!

Charley and Ewan were clearly both unfamiliar with EVs at the start of the journey, although it was seemingly Ewan who quite rightly insisted in Ushuaia on having the ability to be able to charge from any standard, domestic socket. But why, given all the otherwise meticulous planning, had that not been clarified until they reached Argentina?! Cue three days while Harley Davidson try to figure out something that Zero bikes have done for years.

You don’t ordinarily choose to take vehicles which haven’t even been finished, let alone proven, on that kind of journey unless there’s more than pragmatism at work.

It doesn’t do the reputation of EVs much good with the wider viewing public when we have them calling on generators and running out of power on the first day of the journey!

170 miles a day is easily achievable on a Zero with a single stop and AC charging. Even I managed that on my own, three years ago, with a stock Zero DSR and two external charge units I took with me. I can’t help being constantly bewildered as I watch as to why they didn’t take Zero DSR Black Forest editions, which would have given them three AC charging possibilities: on board stock charger (1.3 kW), Charge Tank (6.5 kW), and accessory socket charging (additional 1kW charging per 1, 2 or 4 external charge units).

Charging my Zero DSR in 2017

To be fair, we don’t know what they’re contending with in terms of domestic or commercial AC supplies in South America and they don’t go into the tech details, because that’s not interesting to the wider viewing public.

12 volt battery problems cause issues at some point, with Charley stating that all EVs have standard 12 volt batteries. That’s not strictly true. Many EVs do have second, standard 12V batteries for the kind of things ICE vehicles have them (lights, and other auxiliary equipment), but they also have them to engage the relays which switch on the high voltage battery. Zero bikes didn’t have a 12 volt battery until the latest generation. The DSR doesn’t have one. Instead, it has a DC-DC 12V solid state step-down converter fed from the bike’s main battery.

Many will be watching and not unreasonably expecting things to just work. I mean, you just get on or in an ICE vehicle and ride or drive, right?

Well, yes, but we’re dealing with a couple of blokes unfamiliar with EVs, riding prototype bikes, adapted from bikes which at the time of filming hadn’t been released to market, and worked on by Harley Davidson employees in their own time; and a team driving prototype Rivian support vehicles (and an ICE support vehicle, which runs out of fuel, by the way) in an area which apparently can’t reliably support charging the bikes from domestic power supplies.

Wrong tools for the job? There are clearly better, more suitable tools (as far as the bikes go).

Does it make for entertaining viewing?

Absolutely! 😊

Misleading Headlines

An article has appeared on the Auto Express website with the title

“Traffic is not a key contributor to air pollution, study finds”

And the summary…

Researchers reveal a 65 per cent reduction in traffic on Scottish roads during lockdown had no significant impact on air pollution.

Like many articles in the press on any number of topics, this should lead calm, rational people ask some obvious questions.

Media outlets don’t tend to lie. They merely tend to quote selective data to support a narrative.

The article doesn’t provide a link to the research. It’s common practice in journalism not to cite primary sources, which instantly arouses suspicion.

However, a Google search for some key words brought me to the page https://www.stir.ac.uk/news/2020/09/lockdown-did-not-reduce-most-harmful-type-of-air-pollution-in-scotland/

This in turn links to the research itself on the British Medical Journal website at https://oem.bmj.com/content/early/2020/09/06/oemed-2020-106659

We now how the same source material to reference, assuming the writer of the Auto Express article made it back that far. Why not just reference the source?

So, these are my thoughts, reading through the text.

Firstly, framing the extent of research is important. Is it localised? Can the conclusions be extrapolated to the wider world?

The abstract in any academic paper is helpful, as it gives us the key takeaway information from the research without delving further in.

So, from the stated objective, this study is confined to Scotland and is framed to nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter (FPM) in the months of March and April 2020.

That’s our starting point. Off the top of my head, I know that population density in Scotland is considerably lower than in England, so it’s likely that vehicle usage is considerably lower.

That’s not necessarily important, so long as we’re comparing like for like and not drawing conclusions based on one to the other. Let’s just check population densities.

statista.com reports a population density in 2019 in Scotland of 70 people per square kilometre (the lowest of the UK). England, in comparison, is 432 per square kilometre.

Population density is light in Scotland, ergo traffic density is logically lighter, although I can’t find definitive figures on that, and we can’t consider car ownership alone.

Methodology was to use reference points during the same 31 day period in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020, with mean values used and weather normalisation applied. Here’s the graph. Not convinced by the choice of colours.

My thoughts instantly turn to wondering where these reference points are. I wouldn’t expect a reference point in Skaw, Shetland to show a great variation between 2017 and 2020, whereas a point in central Glasgow might.

The study doesn’t reference the source data for these reference points directly, but does indicate that the data are publicly available on the internet.

So, a bit of Googling brings us to http://www.scottishairquality.scot, which in turn gives us a handy map of reference locations. Interestingly, most are in the more densely populated Scottish Lowlands.

Now, the results do point to “significantly lower” NO2 levels and the Auto Express article does report this too. The results also show that FPM was much lower in 2020 than 2019, but comments on the period in 2019 being an outlier, due to Saharan sand.

And indeed, the data do show little difference in FPM between 2017, 2018, and 2020, when we look at the graph referenced above.

Now, some of my fellow EV advocates may not like that, but they do indeed seem to suggest that outdoor FPM at the sample points in Scotland has declined minimally due to lockdown.

However, we’re not done. The study is careful and responsible in making certain disclaimers and framing the study with regard to Scotland. Except in one important respect:

It references a decline in motor vehicle use across the UK, not Scotland. What was the decline in motor vehicle use in Scotland? Do we know? Remember my earlier comment about comparing like for like?

The study also makes a rather odd jump to include a speculative notion that lockdown may have caused increased exposure to FPM in the domestic environment, on the basis that people spent more time indoors.

I’m not disputing for one moment the risks of exposure to FPM in an indoor environment from, for example, cooking and smoking (where those pollutants exist) and the study references other research in this regard.

But do we know that people confined themselves to the indoor environment any more than they normally would? Lockdown didn’t necessarily confine people to their four walls.

Anecdotally, I know of many who spent time outdoors for their own mental well-being, either alone or with close family. I myself observed a higher number of cyclists on the roads.

But, to cut to the chase, the study concludes that “the impact of reductions in motor vehicle journeys during COVID-19 lockdown restrictions may not have reduced ambient PM2.5 concentrations in some countries.”

PM2.5 = FPM

That word “may” is important. The study is referencing a sparsely populated country in a northern European country. It can not be extrapolated or generalised to the world at large.

So any generalisation by Auto Express or anyone else that “traffic is not a key contributor to air pollution” in the context of the wider world is invalid.

Eggs and Baskets

There has been much talk over the last couple of months as to how certain countries or political subdivisions (states, regions, etc.) have taken a better approach to dealing with the current pandemic.

I can’t help noticing that many voices expressing admiration for varied approaches are people who favoured increased political centralisation through continued membership of the EU.

It’s true that EU members still have the right to act using approaches which they think work best for their citizens. That’s a good thing, but only the wilfully blind fails to understand the direction of travel, based on the journey to date, the openly expressed desire for “ever closer union” embedded in the heart of the treaties, and the utterances of key EU figures.

The great strength of decentralisation and localisation of powers (at both national and local levels) is not only the very important matter of improved accountability of decision-makers and more appropriate and timely decision-making, but the opportunity it affords the world to learn from multiple, varied approaches.

You think that the Swedish approach has worked? Think that Wales is doing the right thing? Hear people praising the Finnish education system or the Swedish welfare state, or the Swiss railway system?

You can only praise the merits of a better system or approach because they exist in the first place.

Those who favour increasingly centralised governance never seem to grasp that rather obvious truth. And if your supranational organisation makes a decision which affects us all and takes the wrong decision, everyone is screwed.

Remainer Mythbusting: Brexit: So In The End We Found Out

Another list of Remainer bullshit to tackle. This time from a post by erstwhile star of The Word, Terry Christian, who advocated that employers should fire people who voted for Brexit: not that he’s advocating anything illegal there, of course.

Let’s get straight on to the points listed.

“We could always have Blue Passports”

Not sure why blue passports qualify as a proper noun, but there you go. The blue passports thing seems to have preoccupied more Remainers than any Brexiters I’ve heard from. Probably something they read in the Sun/Daily Mail (why do Remainers insist on reading these publications? – I don’t) and in their usual way assumed that these publications speak for all Brexiters.

The colour of passports is wholly irrelevant to the important matters around EU membership, Irrespective of the colour of a passport, an old style blue cover without the words European Union or an EU flag cover can be picked up online for a fiver.

“We can already deport EU criminals”

This presumably relates to the statement by then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice, Dominic Raab, in June 2016, concerning the difficulty involved in deporting 50 criminals who were EU citizens. A dossier was drawn up detailing these cases, involving everything from murder to drug crimes. Raab’s assertion was not, as implied by the above, that we can’t deport EU criminals, but that the threshold for deportation was higher for EU than non-EU nationals.

The flip-side to this is, of course, that the UK has had to deport UK citizens to other EU member states under the European Arrest Warrant under the flimsiest of conditions, with rights in many cases below those they would enjoy under the British legal system. Those unfamiliar with the issues around the EAW may like to read up on the case of Andrew Symeou.

“Unelected Eurocrats, are actually elected”

What does this mean? Which Eurocrats? Members of the Commission College aren’t elected: they are appointed. And as the executive, they have sole legislative initiative in the European Union. There’s a simple response to this one:

How does the European Union electorate remove from office members of the Commission College? In other words, if EU citizens are unhappy with the EU government, how do they change it?

The answer… they can’t.

I’m guessing that Remainers might have the tiniest objection to a government in the UK which was not directly answerable to the electorate in a general election. But when it’s at a supranational level, hey no problem!

“The £350m never existed”

Another favourite of Remainers, this one. Both sides of the debate have become hung up on this one and both sides have been guilty of obsession and misinformation over the matter. The final figures for 2016, according to the Treasury, were UK gross contribution of £327m per week, minus the UK rebate of £75m, meaning a net contribution of £252m per week.

However, three facts remain:

1. The UK is the second largest net contributor to the EU budget (after Germany). We have, since 1975, paid more into the EU budget every year than we’ve received back, and this trend is upward.
2. How the totality of the gross figure is to be spent (including the component returned to the UK) is decided by the EU, not the UK.
3. Leaving the EU would return that figure (and subsequently more) to the full control of the UK, to spend how it pleased. It would be entirely at the discretion of a government, not a referendum campaign, to decide how to spend that money. And yes, a government could decide to spend the full gross amount on the NHS if it chose to, as it would have full control over the totality of the money.

“Apparently, Weatherspoon sells Champagne”

This is based on Tim Martin’s (chairman of Wetherspoon, not Weatherspoon) comments about stopping buying Champagne and instead sourcing cheaper alternatives from outside the EU.

From my perspective, I don’t buy into the boycott of products made in countries which are members of the EU, but it’s wholly within the right of Martin to source his products from whichever market he likes. It actually seems that his decision was based on cost, but even if it were a boycott, it’s his choice as a business owner and likewise, a consumer’s right to prefer to spend six times the amount on a bottle of Moët than they would spend on an Australian alternative.

“We are already not liable for future Eurozone bailouts”

This one is true – in theory at least. The fact is that the EU has and will bend its rules when it needs to, and especially in times of crisis. For evidence of this, I recommend watching the surprisingly objective and frank BBC documentary Inside Europe: Ten Years of Turmoil – especially episode 2, Going for Broke, which deals with the height of the euro crisis. At the time of writing, this is still available on the BBC iPlayer for a week or so. The programme tackles how the EU dealt with the euro crisis, and had to call in favours from non-euro countries to prop up the foolhardy euro project.

You can also do worse than listen to Yanis Varoufakis, who is an idealistic proponent of a united Europe, but a critic of the European Union, having experienced it up close and personal.

But the UK did provide money to bail out the Eurozone already: €3bn for Ireland in November 2010 and €3.5bn for Portugal in May 2011.

You can bet that the next time the euro hits a crisis, and if the UK is still a member of the EU, we will be compelled in one way or another to contribute: and, shackled into the wider EU project, it would probably be in our best interests to do so.

“Vote was not legally binding”

This is also true, but largely irrelevant in the light of events.

The UK government and the parliament voted in favour of a referendum: a device used in the UK to turn decisions over to the public when an issue is too divisive within parliament, or a matter of conscience, or of constitutional significance.

Having determined to hold the referendum with the support of parliament, the UK government from the Prime Minister down gave concrete assurances that the outcome of the referendum would be respected and moreover that a decision to leave the EU would mean leaving both the Single Market and Customs Union – a comment which they thought would scare the electorate into line, but has subsequently backfired spectacularly.

Due to the UK’s unwritten constitution, and because the European Union Referendum Act 2015 did not make the referendum legally binding, the outcome of the referendum was in any case endorsed by parliament (both houses) in the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017, following the verdict of the case brought by Gina Miller, and HMG formally triggered Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union on 29 March, 2017.

During 2017, the two largest parties in parliament explicitly committed in their election manifestos to honour the outcome of the referendum.

So, as can be seen, the matter of whether or not the vote was legally binding became a moot point.

Something we have learnt from this, however, is that future referendums will need to be explicitly legally binding to have any kind of significance in persuading voters.

“Irish border will be affected”

Bit vague, this one. Of course the Irish border will be affected. The Irish border is already affected. There are separate sovereign nations on either side of it.

The reason the border exists in the first place is due to the decision of Irish separatists 100 years ago to Irexit from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and to leave the world’s economic superpower of the time to ‘take back control’.

Presumably, Irish Unionists at the time called the Republicans racists, xenophobes, and nutters for leaving such a powerful empire for the apparently vague notions of sovereignty and self-determination.

It’s worth remembering that in modern terms, the Irish decision to leave the British Empire must have been far more economically illiterate (according to Remainers) than the UK decision to leave the EU. And yet the Irish, despite a subsequent civil war, somehow managed to survive.

On the matter of the border itself though, the following have given categorical assurances that there is no need for a physical border between Northern Ireland and the Republic:

• The UK government
• The Irish government
• The European Union
• The World Trade Organisation

Additionally, Lars Karlsson was commissioned by the EU in his capacity as a world customs expert to find a solution to the Irish border issue in the event of a real Brexit. He came up with one which he said could be cheaper than current arrangements, based on existing technology.

Critics say such a solution hasn’t been implemented anywhere yet, even though the tech used is in use between Norway and Sweden. But, in any case, even if it hasn’t been rolled out in precisely the manner required on the NI/IE border, that doesn’t make it unfeasible any more than any other historical ‘first’.

“Loss to the UK has been 600m a week since Brexit”

Presumably, this means since the vote to leave, rather than Brexit, since Brexit hasn’t happened.

Trying to find an objective source for this is proving difficult (the New European, Goldman Sachs, and the Standard are hardly objective sources), but we’ll take it as a given for the sake of argument.

The biggest issue affecting business is uncertainty. It’s patently the case that businesses and countries can and do operate outside the European Union. 15 (soon to be 16) of the G20 countries are outside the European Union. Only 17 (soon to be 16) of the world’s top 50 largest economies are EU countries.

The Brexit process has been ongoing for almost three years and during this time, businesses have been clueless as to the future status of the UK. Uncertainty is not good for business. It is this uncertainty which will have had negative implications. Sadly, when we have a Brexit process dragged out by a Remainer Prime Minister heading up a Remainer government in a Remainer parliament, this is what happens.

However, against this we can set the ongoing positive economic news from the UK, with record employment levels and healthy growth, while the EU and even powerhouse Germany teeter on the precipice of recession.

“Easiest deal in history is actually the hardest”

Slight hyperbole there. The hardest? Really?

A sensible Prime Minister would have begun plans for a WTO Brexit from day 1, but made a unilateral offer to continue free trade with the EU (without the associated four freedoms of movement), along the lines of free trade deals the EU has concluded with third nations.

Given the UK’s position as net importer from the EU, with a suitably large trade deficit, the cost to any friction in trade would be borne predominantly by the EU.

But we’re not blessed with a sensible Prime Minister. We’re lumbered with a PM doing all she can to keep us in the EU by concocting a deal worse than remaining in the EU, with a view to forcing a decision between such a deal and remaining in the EU: the kind of choice ‘People’s Voters’ would also like to see in a second referendum. She (and they) think we can’t see the plan, but we see it.

It’s obscene to imagine that the EU wouldn’t be prepared to offer its largest export market a free trade arrangement when it has concluded similar with far less significant economies. And the UK starts from a position of complete alignment of standards with the EU.

It’s absolutely the case that a trade deal between the UK and EU should be the easiest in history to conclude, given this existing alignment, but that does of course rely on both parties acting rationally and from the UK’s perspective, it is absolutely reliant on the UK operating from a position of strength, outside the EU, and not from a position of craven pleading for some kind of, nay, ANY kind of deal from a position of weakness inside the EU.

Apparently, contrary to May’s earlier assertions, any deal is better than no deal.

“Turkey had no chance of ever joining EU and we could veto it”

Fine, so why is Turkey an official candidate country (above a potential candidate country) and why are we funding Turkish accession programmes, if Turkey isn’t set to join the EU?

Anyone with a smattering of knowledge of the EU knows that Turkey is on a convergence programme to join the EU.

We (our government) could indeed veto it (at the moment), but given that our government and many other governments would favour it for economic reasons (supply of cheap labour), and given that the UK has traditionally either favoured or been ambivalent about Turkish entry, why would our government veto it?

This is again where anyone with a hint of understanding how the EU operates would grasp how potentially difficult decisions for one member can be eased with a bit of horse-trading or pressure in other matters. Cyprus and Turkey have a bit of history, to put it mildly, but Cyprus would easily be brought into line under pressure from other member states.

Turkey has also had the EU over a barrel over the migrant crisis, where it leveraged its refugee resettlement programme in 2016 to its own advantage in negotiations with the EU – or precisely, in negotiations with Merkel and Dutch PM Rutte, who acted unilaterally without informing other EU leaders.

In any case, we are funding Turkey’s accession, so this is a moot point.

“Migration from outside EU is higher than from within”

This is true, but irrelevant. In the case of the former, the number of migrants could be controlled, but in the case of the latter, it can’t.

The merits or otherwise of each type of migration is also largely irrelevant. This is a matter of who controls the nation’s borders and to whom these decision-makers are accountable.

The electorate could decide that the number of non-EU immigrants is a pressing issue of paramount importance and vote accordingly for a party which expressly undertook to stop non-EU migration. Since no party is advocating stopping migration, this is irrelevant.

Controlling immigration is not stopping immigration.

But it is actually the case that EEA (not just EU) migrants are net contributors to the UK economy on balance, whereas non-EEA migrants are a net cost. This is a rather simplistic metric, since in every case, one needs to drill down to countries and occupations to have a meaningful debate.

And it’s precisely this latter point which is why many rational people advocate a meritocratic immigration system which is colour-blind and doesn’t give precedence to predominantly white EU citizens with no skills over non-white non-EU citizens with key skills.

“We can already send non-contributing EU migrants home”

Current rules allow a period of six months of unemployment before an EU migrant can be deported, but there are no Home Office figures on how often people have been returned and it is thought these figures are low in any case.

David Cameron’s negotiations with the EU on the ’emergency brake’ on access to the UK welfare system, which could have only been triggered once and would be valid for a single period of seven years, did not come into power, because they were dependant on the UK voting to remain in the EU. These would have prevented an EU citizen from claiming unemployment benefit during this six month period.

This is largely immaterial. We’ve already established that EEA migrants are net contributors.

What hasn’t been touched on, and what we won’t dwell on, is the pressure on housing, schooling, transport, medical services, environment, and other services, of a net 300,000 immigrants every year, at a time when we need to be building the same number of houses merely to stand still.

“We always had sovereignty”

Blatantly false and only asserted by low-information Remainers. This is one of those clear giveaways of someone who knows bugger-all about the EU.

EU law is supreme over UK law. The European Court of Justice is supreme over our highest courts.

These are irrefutable facts.

Remainers use terms such as “pooling sovereignty”. The words “surrendering sovereignty” clearly aren’t quite comfortable enough, so let’s humour them.

In “pooling sovereignty” we have 3.5% influence in the European Council and the Council of the European Union (i.e. the ‘Council of Ministers’ or just ‘Council’) and 9.7% influence in the European Parliament, the latter being based on population.

Since the Treaty of Lisbon came into effect, multiple competences within the Council of Ministers moved from unanimity to QMV (qualified majority voting), where decisions required majorities rather than unanimity to obtain consent. In the case of QMV, this means that countries can have laws imposed on them against their will and to their detriment, if the Council and the European Parliament endorse such decisions.

In fairness, the likelihood is that, as with any decision within the EU, as much is determined by consensus as possible to prevent obvious hostilities. Individual members concede on some matters and gain on others. With the expansion of the EU, this was a pragmatic necessity, but it is clearly to the detriment of individual member states, with decisions being made slowly and behind closed doors, often as compromises which are neither wholly satisfactory nor detrimental to member states.

It’s a fudge, but a necessary fudge to keep such a large, unwieldy ship on course.

But sovereignty, by definition, is “the power of a country to control its own government”.

According to the BBC’s own fact check, which is backed up by the independent Fact Check website,

If you count all EU regulations, EU-related Acts of Parliament, and EU-related Statutory Instruments, about 62% of laws introduced between 1993 and 2014 that apply in the UK implemented EU obligations.

But, as the BBC rightly points out, this includes regulations over industries which don’t exist in the UK.

In any event, it’s clear from the above that the UK is in no way ‘sovereign’ whilst within the EU.

“Rees-Mogg made £7m since Brexit and is desperate to avoid 2019 EU tax avoidance clampdown”

Politics of envy. Wholly irrelevant to Brexit. It’s clear to anyone that Rees-Mogg has more constitutional concerns than he has around money. If he were solely motivated by money, he wouldn’t be an MP.

In any case, there’s a rather good thread on Twitter dealing with the ‘Brexit was about tax avoidance’ conspiracy.

“Loads of rich campaigners and donors have since relocated their wealth offshore”

Good for them. Presumably, they’ve gone to join the likes of arch-Remainer, Richard Branson, then. ‘Twas ever thus. If you’re in favour of rich people remaining in the UK, you’ll want to attract them here with low corporate taxes and low personal taxes.

Most Remainers I’ve heard from don’t usually appear to be in favour of such things, but they could of course campaign more easily for such things if the UK had full control of legislation.

“Unicorns don’t exist”

But apparently, Utopian, supranational European empires where rainbows abound and the people rejoice without any resurgence of localised and national tensions do exist and with very little bloodshed…

Apart from every attempt at European union to date, of course, from the Holy Roman Empire via Napoleon’s efforts, to the Habsburg Empire, the Third Reich, the Soviet Union, and all those other astounding, less ambitious attempts at supranational union.

If you’re lucky, when unions dissolve, they dissolve peacefully, as with the division of Czechia and Slovakia in the Velvet Revolution. If they go a little less well, however, you get Yugoslavia, which was a far less ambitious project than the EU.

Yes, history tells us that supranational unions go just swimmingly well.

Guilt by Association

Jeremy Corbyn has appointed Andrew Murray his Chief of Communications. The far-left Murray only left the Communist Party of Britain in December 2016.

It’s a standard tactic of many on the Left to attempt to shut down debate by accusing others of being far-right, if not directly, then through ‘guilt by association’, irrespective of the actually openly and plainly-stated values of the target of these accusations.

Perhaps those on the mainstream right should take a leaf out of this book and use the same tactics in kind, and they’d have every justification in doing so.

Consider the record of the extreme left and extreme right during the 20th century.

Fascism killed 28 million people.
Communism killed 94 million people.

Communism killed 335% as many people as fascism.

Can you imagine the outcry if someone who had only recently left the BNP were given a senior position in the Conservative Party? The party which is widely considered to be on the extreme right of British politics (UKIP) has an explicit exclusion clause for members of the BNP – something which can not be said of either of the two main parties.

Communism is not a cuddly and fluffy ideology. The above facts should put any such bizarre notions out of people’s minds. There are complex reasons why it is not seen by a British or a wider European audience in as negative terms as fascism, mainly to do with the inconvenient fact that the western Allies were forced to align themselves with Stalin in order to fight off the more immediate threat of Nazism.

So, I want to emphasise this again. A man who, less than six months ago, belonged to a party which holds an ideology which killed more humans than any other ideology in the 20th century is now a senior member of the Labour Party’s electoral campaign.

This is where any rational mind of the mainstream right would turn to a leftist and use the same ‘guilt by association’ tactics right back at them.

We rightly condemn those on the far right. By those on the far right, I mean those who actually are on the far right, and not those who are commonly accused of being on the far right by anyone who considers anyone to the right of centre as ‘scum’.

By any objective consideration, and unless those on the left are prepared to debate issues without resorting to ad hominem or guilt by association arguments, it’s time that those on the mainstream right simply responded in kind and dismissed their opponents as far-leftists in the same sneering and disgusted tones.

 

Vigenonilateral Negotiations and Stockholm Syndrome

As Lawrence Tomlinson explains in the above excerpt, the reason negotiations between the EU and other nations take so long is because they are not in fact bilateral, but have been vigenonilateral – i.e. not between two parties, but between 29!

This is a long-standing problem in the EU. How do you reconcile the balance between nation states’ sovereign decisions and being able to work efficiently, speedily, and decisively?

The simple answer is that you can’t.

You can have prolonged and tedious discussions to try to elicit a compromise solution between the 28 (soon to be 27) members of the EU, which will inevitably please a minority of member states, probably annoy others, and invariably require some agreements on give and take compromises over other matters, which mean that nobody gets the best of anything and everyone settles for less-than-ideal outcomes.

The obvious (and preferred solution in the EU institutions) is to create a United States of Europe and increasingly erode national sovereignty. This happened in the Council of Ministers following the Treaty of Lisbon, but will be required increasingly across the institutions if the EU hopes to deal with crises and changes in geopolitics in any kind of realistic and sensible timescales.

In the meantime, the UK can get on making plans with the other 168 countries of the world, who somehow manage to survive outside the EU, or at least those which have progressed beyond the Bronze Age.

Regarding any future EU/UK agreement, if it truly takes a decade to hammer out an agreement when we start from a position where our standards are aligned and we incorporate all existing EU law into UK law, that says more about the EU than it does about the UK, and merely demonstrates all too perfectly why we are better off out of the EU.

If the EU prioritises dissuading other potential exiters over the interests of the people and businesses of its member states, is that really a club which appeals? The EU can have a free trade deal with the UK on perfectly decent terms, but says that the four freedoms of movement of goods, capital, services, and people are indivisible. But it is only since January of 1993 that this has been the case.

The more fundamental question is why should the EU need to threaten any member state which wishes to exit? Is that the sign of a healthy relationship? A more confident and self-assured EU would stand by its own positives and appeal to prospective accession countries – in essence, more carrot than stick.

A party which has to lock the doors and demand that its guests enjoy themselves is no party which any sane person would attend willingly, unless they get off on that sort of thing, of course.

A chacun son goût, and all that.

 

Arrogance in Academia

This piece was originally written earlier this year, but I didn’t get around to posting it. However, a talking head piece by Richard Dawkins, someone I admire for his other work in evolutionary biology and promoting atheism, once more reminded me of its relevance in the debate around the EU.

People are getting hot under the collar about this article, but they shouldn’t really. It’s utterly revealing about the bigotry and sweeping generalisations of a certain mindset. In short, it is a clear demonstration of how a free press allows people to show their true colours, and out of anger, to reveal their innermost prejudices.

His caricature of Brexit voters, steeped in stereotypes that could only be possessed by someone wholly out of touch with ordinary people, is one which, had it been applied to any other national, racial, or religious group, would have been countered by howls of revulsion from the brigades of PC virtue-signallers.

So, this is a very useful and revealing piece. It not only betrays the author’s true prejudices, but undermines his own credibility.

In the same way that giving BNP an open platform to discuss its ideas was the best means of defeating it (who could forget Nick Griffin’s car-crash appearance on BBC Question Time?), the best means to expose this kind of bigotry is to give its purveyors a platform—or perhaps a scaffold and enough rope would be more apt.

That last paragraph itself would probably leave Boyle confused.

“Wait, this is a Brexiter who says bad things about the BNP? But if he’s a Brexiter, he’s bound to be a UKIPer, pro BNP and have an instant dislike for anyone vaguely foreign or with a strange accent.”

Rather depressingly, this simpleton’s narrative is one I encounter quite often. It speaks volumes as to the lack of nuanced thinking in some people.

It would perhaps astound Boyle that someone like me could be anti-EU; someone who has something in common with himself; namely an academic, university background in Germanistik; and what is more, someone who shares his clear love of European culture; someone who has been “groomed” by the EU’s Erasmus programme, and under the wings of recipients of Monnet money, to be a helpful promoter of the EU agenda.

Unlike Boyle, however, I make a clear distinction between a supranational organisation and a continent.

But of course, whereas I left the halls of academia to seek my fortune in the heady world of employment in business, he remained in academia, studying the fine works of Goethe, Schiller, Böll, Grass, inter alia, surrounded by his fellow soixante-huitards and successive generations of idealistic youngsters, poised at any moment to throw off the old order and usher in a new utopia.

Given the time, I could explain to Boyle that I love Europe, its people, history, heritage, diversity, and geography. But I particularly love its languages. I especially appreciate being one of the all-too-few (and decreasing number of) Brits who learn foreign languages and treasure the fact that I can travel anywhere in the German-speaking or French-speaking countries and communicate fluently in the local language. My Russian is extremely ropey, but I did learn that as a third foreign language from scratch too.

I treasure this linguistic ability. Not only does it allow me to converse with people in other nations in their native tongue, but it allows me to strike up friendships with people with whom I can only communicate through a mutual foreign language—an especially satisfying experience of bridging the gap in communication between peoples, which has allowed me to share great conversations and laughs with people from Spain, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Romania, Croatia, Bulgaria, and many other nationals, none of whom spoke English, and whose languages I couldn’t speak. It has even enabled me to assist fellow Brits when dealing with foreign companies.

But I could also explain to Boyle that, routed in history and politics as my German, French, and Russian studies were, they also taught me of the histories, but most significantly of political developments in those nations, including the background to the foundation of the EU, and, in politics lectures and seminars in Germany, the development of the EU.

I would tell him that one of the key skills I learnt during the course of my studies was that of arguing a point dispassionately, and therefore of the ability to look at things rationally and objectively, and the ability to change views through rational discourse; but perhaps most importantly, the value of primary sources of information, the ability to think things through from first principles, and most importantly, to think for oneself, rather than to rely on anyone else’s narrative, be it that of a political party or media outlet.

I would tell him that one of the aspects I enjoyed in essay writing was being a little contradictory, almost for fun, when situations allowed for it, by making points and backing them up with references. I had a good appreciation of certain lecturers’ own particular biases and quite enjoyed ‘prodding them’ in essays occasionally. To their credit, they would generally take this the right way and give credit for supporting arguments, perhaps going so far as to reward contrary views.

In one German essay I wrote, critiquing the book Der Aufmacher by German undercover journalist and writer, Günter Wallraff, I delighted in pointing out Wallraff’s hypocrisy and actions he carried out for which he condemned others. I still have the essay. My lecturer’s notes at the end:

“A sophisticated study. Well expressed. Complex sentence structure and choice of words. Perhaps more pro-BILD than the facts warrant.”

Having read it again, it was actually a fairly balanced essay, broadly supportive of Wallraff, but I don’t think that he was used to arguments which were in the least bit supportive of BILD, or more accurately, the journalists who worked at BILD and only maintained their positions, and therefore their livelihoods, by following editorial requirements.

Boyle would be a prime target for such ‘prodding’, but based on what he has written here, I fear he would not have the same patience so clearly exhibited by my great lecturers, or a sufficiently open enough mind to read contrary views.

I remain a passionate advocate of foreign language learning and have done as much ‘selling’ of it to my children as I can.

Not only has foreign language learning been shown to be extremely beneficial for our mental faculties and to improve our grasp of our own language, but it opens up a world of new experiences and understanding, of travel and employment opportunities, and of music and literature, although I suspect that Boyle and I diverge on literature as a subject of study.

Foreign literature study has been forever poisoned by my experiences dissecting Camus’ La Peste for A level French—sad, because reading the book for pleasure some years later was an altogether more enjoyable experience—to the extent that a fictional book about the outbreak of plague in 20th century Algeria with allegorical references to the Nazi occupation of France could be described as a subject for enjoyment.

I’ve dwelled on the above personal references merely to point out the weakness of Boyle’s arguments. Supposedly, as an Englishman, I fall nicely into his category of “lager louts of Europe.” Hopefully, the above points illustrate the vacuous nature of his assertions.

We’ll gloss over the fact that I’m not keen on lager and not really all that louty. In fact, I’m pretty rubbish at the whole being a lout business—middle class vicar’s son and all that.

But I have gone through the conditioning of middle class academia and I know what that entails. I indulged in it myself at the time—even buying the whole notion of cultural relativism at one point. But then I continued to read, observe events, discuss, and use that pesky, learned ability to think for myself.

Boyle’s portrayal of fellow English people who voted Brexit is not one I recognise at all.

No, it really isn’t.

There is not a single person I know who voted Brexit whom I would describe as the slightest bit xenophobic. And, I suspect my social circles are a little more varied than those of a Cambridge professor—just a hunch. His attitude is one he’s gained from spending too long in an intellectual echo-chamber where the prevailing attitude is that only people who diverge from its group-think are knuckle-dragging bigots.

But make no mistake; as much as I wholly support his right to make an arse of himself publicly, his article is vile and prejudiced and that is perhaps why, in a superb case of people being hoisted on their own petard, it was quite rightly reported by the head of the English Democrats as a hate crime: reference 42/17384/17.

Ultimately though, what makes a small elite think that it should defy the wishes of the people? We all share the same nation—the difference being that ordinary people, away from the “ivory towers” of high acadmia, are rather more exposed to everyday politcial decisions. Even if the public were wrong in its decisions when consulted, it has just as much right to make bad decisions as those in privileged positions do.

There is no politcal consensus and politicians do not always make good decisions. The current state of the world should be a big indicator of this.

And once again, I can’t help noticing that the country which has the highest citizen engagement in regular referenda and through the direct democracy measures of initiative and recall—a country which is the very politcial antithesis of the EU: namely Switzerland—consistently tops the worldwide rankings on a number of measures.

Use the Ex-Force

American journalist, Tim Pool, has been sending back some excellent reports from his visit to Sweden.

Pool decided to visit Sweden for himself, following Trump’s rather clumsy comments about “last night in Sweden”. His trip was partly funded by Paul-Joseph Watson, a vlogger who offered to pay to send any journalist to Malmo.

Any journalist claiming Sweden is safe; I will pay for travel costs & accommodation for you to stay in crime ridden migrant suburbs of Malmo

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) February 20, 2017

Thanks to @PrisonPlanet for following through on his offer to fund journalism in Sweden. We will be there very soon. https://t.co/cm5SzQ45cA

— Tim Pool (@Timcast) February 20, 2017

Pool’s approach from the start seems to be a refreshing change in its objectivity. We have grown so used to media spin on stories and selective reporting to conform to an editorial position that we have forgotten what decent journalism is. You don’t get opinions from Pool, but straightforward reporting on what he encounters (good and bad) and some great interviews where he poses open questions. It’s nice that he leaves the opinion-forming in the hands of the reader/viewer again. So many outlets now are built on conjecture pieces—and the BBC has become especially guilty of this form of journalism—that it’s a very refreshing change.

Many people who follow current affairs are aware that things are not well in Sweden. And despite Trump’s clumsy attempt to confine Sweden’s problems to one night, only the most unobservant or willfully ignorant person could claim that Sweden remains the bastion of peaceful, harmonious, socially liberal democracy it was recognised as being for decades.

Yesterday, Pool uploaded his interview with Mustafa Panshiri: a refugee from Afghanistan who became a Swedish policeman, but recently resigned from his position to concentrate on educating newly-arrived refugees about Sweden’s and the West’s cultural norms, because, unlike the open-borders fanatics, Panshiri has personal knowledge and experience of these matters from both perspectives and understands that cultural values which are perfectly normal in Afghanistan are not normal (or in some cases even legal) in Sweden.

Why does it take a recently-resigned Swedish policeman, who happens to be an Afghan immigrant and nominal Muslim to point out the bleedin’ obvious? This guy is just full of common sense, and it’s so frustrating that what he says is not mainstream opinion.

It’s frustrating, but obvious why this is the case.

Panshiri can say these things because he himself is an Afghan Muslim immigrant to Sweden, and so can be accused neither of Islamophobia nor racism. It’s a very sad state of affairs when only a member of a perceived oppressed group can speak on these issues to make people listen.

Some things apologists for uncontrolled immigration need to understand:

1. As Panshiri states, different cultures have different values. His own background is from one where women just don’t have rights. For the elimination of doubt, he tells you this himself. Perhaps doubters will finally grasp this rather self-evident fact.
2. People’s values don’t magically change when they cross borders. They need to be properly integrated and told that that their own religious views are trumped by western values of secularism and tolerance. Yes, we can criticise your religion, and no, you don’t get to react violently in response. In some cases, immigrants need to be taught how to use toilets.
3. There is a reason Sweden stopped releasing data on the national origins of criminals in 2005 and has actively blocked the subsequent release of these, even though they are recorded. Why do you think that was? If the ‘far-right’ crowd is wrong in its assertions, these could be swiftly dismissed by releasing these figures. Not releasing the figures not only fuels speculation on this issue, but such reticence merely leads to conjecture that things are far worse than anyone thinks! Release the figures and set the record straight by showing that there is no link between mass immigration and crime.
4. The first victims of dogmatic identity politics are the victims of the crimes themselves.
5. The second victims of dogmatic identity politics are the fellow migrants who accept the secular rules of western societies and are happy to integrate, but who are the victims of indiscriminate reprisals.
6. The third victim of dogmatic identity politics is wider liberal democracy.

Members of society, faced with the daily onslaught of the crimes of backward savages (yes, I’ll happily call them that), and the media and mainstream political apologism for these actions, have increasingly come to the conclusion that the mainstream does all it can to not feed into any racist narrative by taking the opposite approach of denying that there are any problems with large, indiscriminate immigration from backward societies. But ordinary people aren’t stupid. They, unlike the media and political leaders, don’t have the luxury of isolating themselves from what is actually happening on the street.

A further video, again by another immigrant to Sweden (this time a Bosnian immigrant who goes under the moniker the Angry foreigner), takes the Swedish government to task over its rebuttal to widespread assertions over the ongoing issues in Sweden, including the standard response to Sweden’s high rape figures being down to Sweden’s different methodology of recording sex crimes.

It’s well worth a watch.

So, if mainstream politics and media do all they can to cover up these problems, even going so far as to stop gathering inconvenient data, exactly whom do you think the people turn to and elect? If nuance is no longer possible and you either choose to excuse the actions of backward cultures unleashed on western societies or to side with the only people opposing this from the so-called “far right” of politics (which roughly translated, means anyone to the right of centre in SJW-speak), where do you think the direction of travel is likely to be?

Has the penny dropped yet?

Behind the Veil of Respectability

A thought came into my head earlier. It took me back to my student days, studying the German ‘constitution’ (quotes explained below) in Potsdam in 1992, when the burning issue at the time was how to elaborate on the asylum clause in the document.

A few days ago, the German Bundesverfassungsgericht, or Federal Constitutional Court blocked a ban on the NPD—the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands or National Democratic Party of Germany, which is a far-right party, and has existed since the early 1960s.

It has sailed close to being banned in the past (I can recall that it faced such a threat during my student days, and it came close to a ban again in the early 2000s), but just managed to keep on the right side of constitutional law. There is no doubt though, that it is a party which attracts the more extreme elements of the German far right. It has never managed to cross the 5% hurdle required to gain representation in the German Bundestag, or Federal Assembly, but has managed to gain seats in state parliaments.

The German Grundgesetz, or Basic Law, is the German ‘constitution’. It was not officially called a constitution when it was draughted, post World War 2, because that term was reserved for the then hoped-for constitution of a future reunified Germany.

Since this goal of reunification was achieved (and far more quickly than anyone expected), the term Grundgesetz is still used to refer to the document which sets the legal framework of the Federal Republic of Germany, evidently because reunification was effectively (with few exceptions) a takeover of the German Democratic Republic by the Federal Republic of Germany and the merger of the newly-created six states of the former GDR into the Federal Republic rather than a mutual union of two nation states; a state of affairs which caused (and continues to cause) much consternation for years on the part of those Ossis, or GDR citizens, who believed that not every aspect of the GDR was bad, and that an opportunity to incorporate positive aspects of GDR society into the newly-unified Germany were squandered.

The first nineteen articles of the Basic Law relate to core human rights and cannot be revoked. They are the ‘eternal clauses’ and were written, post World War 2, very much with recent German history in mind. They can be expanded upon or clarified, but they are, to all intents and purposes, permanent and irrevocable.

Article 4, Paragraph 1 states:

“Die Freiheit des Glaubens, des Gewissens und die Freiheit des religiösen und weltanschaulichen Bekenntnisses sind unverletzlich.”

“Freedom of faith and of conscience, and freedom to profess a religious or philosophical creed, shall be inviolable.”

So, at the start of the Basic Law, freedom of religion is set out as a core right.

In Article 21 of the Basic Law, Germany has a controversial article which some believe borders on the curtailment of freedom of conscience, but was designed to prevent the rise of a successor to that funny mustachioed Austrian bloke.

Article 21, Paragraph 2 states:

“Parteien, die nach ihren Zielen oder nach dem Verhalten ihrer Anhänger darauf ausgehen, die freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung zu beeinträchtigen oder zu beseitigen oder den Bestand der Bundesrepublik Deutschland zu gefährden, sind verfassungswidrig. Über die Frage der Verfassungswidrigkeit entscheidet das Bundesverfassungsgericht.”

“Parties that, by reason of their aims or the behaviour of their adherents, seek to undermine or abolish the free democratic basic order or to endanger the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany shall be unconstitutional. The Federal Constitutional Court shall rule on the question of unconstitutionality.”

The article was used a couple of times in the 1950s as the legal framework for the German Constitutional Court to ban the extreme right SRP, the Sozialistische Reichspartei (the Socialist Reich/Empire Party) and the extreme left KPD, the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (the Communist Party of Germany).

Some are appalled that political parties can be banned, but I have some sympathy with the notion that a constitution should not allow for the existence of parties or organisations which seek to undermine its fundamental principles.

But this is where things get interesting…

Whilst political parties can be banned for being anti-constitutional, there is no such provision in the Basic Law which would cover religions, so presumably adherents to a religion which didn’t believe in the fundamental principles espoused by the German Basic Law would be free to preach the downfall of the German Republic and the repeal of its laws in a way that would see secular promoters of such ideals prosecuted. Not only that, but followers of an anti-constitutional religious doctrine would be protected by their inviolable right to freedom of religion or philosophical creed, as set out under Article 4, which, if you recall, is a right which cannot be revoked.

This presents a couple of interesting potential scenarios.

On the one hand, there is clearly nothing to stop religious adherents preaching the downfall of the German state in line with their own holy books and scriptures, in a way which a political party could not do in its own core principles without finding itself banned.

On the other hand, it does make me wonder why any determined extremist party doesn’t simply hide under the veil of a religion.

There are adherents to certain religions who have equally backward and anti-constitutional beliefs to extreme political parties. In fact, many religious adherents often go even beyond revoking the German Basic Law, rejecting the notion of any man-made law and demanding the imposition of religious law.

So, without wishing to give any ideas to extremist parties, what would happen if a new Führer arose and dressed his political ambitions up as religious beliefs? The Nazis were halfway there as it was, founded on the back of the Thule Society, and with a mixed bag of occultism, astrology, and Nordic mythology playing a big part in the highest ranks of the Nazi party.

In other words, what if an extremist party were simply to assume the trappings of a religion?

Sure, such a party wouldn’t be recognised as an official religion, which seems to rely on numbers of adherents and offers tax breaks and special status under German law, but could well potentially enjoy the officially-recognised status of a ‘sect’.

How would the German Constitutional Court address such a problem? What is it that gives otherwise abhorrent ideologies the veneer of respectability if they invoke the supernatural?

Answers on a prayer card to the Bundesverfassungsgericht, c/o Frau Kanzlerin Angela Merkel.

 

Playing the Dead

Back in 2004, I was playing in a band I was with for many years, called BAiT. At the time, we were writing material for a new album under a new line-up. Our keyboard player, Nick, shared a love of Prog rock, and we were making efforts to write generally concise and melodic songs using a pallette of Prog instrumentation, with Andy using a Rickenbacker 4001 bass and Moog Taurus bass pedal sounds, and Nick making extensive use of his genuine vintage 1973 ARP Pro Soloist keyboard, virtual analogue synths, and, perhaps notably for the guts of the underlying keyboard texture, Mellotron samples.

For those unaware, the Mellotron was a kind of proto-sampler, developed by Streetly Electronics in Birmingham, England, comprising a keyboard which played individual tape recordings of recorded instruments (or voices, or musical segments) for up to eight seconds. They were a mainstay of Prog and are easily recognisable for their distinct sound.

During the course of writing one track for the album, at the time untitled, which we were working on as a group, Nick said something quite profound.

“Of course, you do realise that the people who played the actual instruments sampled on these tapes are probably dead now.”

His comment was latched on to and we instantly titled the song Playing The Dead, which gave us a concept around which to hang the song, and the lyrics for Andy, to whom the task of writing lyrics in group compositions generally fell.

The latest Star Wars film has seen a bit of a reaction in certain media about the use of the likeness of Peter Cushing, who played in the original Star Wars (A New Hope), but died in 1994. The assertion in the Guardian and Huffington Post is that the use of a CGI manipulation of Cushing is disrespectful. How exactly is this disrespectful, if Cushing’s family gave its blessing? And why do such objections not apply to listening to the vocal performances of now deceased singers?

Should we stop listening to dead singers out of respect? I imagine there were similar thoughts about capturing recorded human voices in the first place. Indeed, hearing Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinvil’s sound recordings from 1860 is a little eerie.

I’ve had a conversation a couple of times with people along the lines of how in the not-too-distant future, deceased artists will be able to be “resurrected”, thanks to technological developments.

In my head, I can conceive that we will be able to extract individual phonemes from an existing, isolated vocal performance of a now deceased singer and use these as part of a wholly original vocal performance in a new song. As technology improves, we will be able to refine this technique, synthesising missing phonemes and accurately altering pitch with ever-improving technology until the end result sounds authentic. Artists like Mike Oldfield have already made use of full voice synthesis, such as Vocaloid, but this still suffers from the “robotic” effect and remains unconvincing to the human ear, but this technology will inevitably improve dramatically.

Some may see this as weird, others will see it as disrespectful, but others still will see it as a yardstick against which we can see how these technologies are progressing.

And as uncomfortable as it may be to some, perhaps the idea of being able to interact with a level of AI in the guise of a deceased love one may actually provide a great deal of comfort for a lonely, old person in future.

Perhaps today’s great singers could oblige by providing recordings of themselves singing a range of words in different pitches to lay the groundwork for such a legacy. And if that seems odd, consider that as Freddie Mercury faced his own mortality, he was selflessly, and despite great suffering, busily recording vocal parts for his Queen bandmates, for songs he knew he would not hear completed.

For my part, I kind of look forward to a development which allows for a natural sounding synthesis of classic voices from the past and to hear these resurrected in new contexts. I see the recreation of a vocal part of a deceased person no more or less disrespectful than using a sound sample of them passing a bow across a string or blowing into a flute and I’m quite looking forward to future releases of long-deceased artists.

What finer tribute to their voices than making them alive and relevant again to future generations?