bespectacledbellman

[bespectacledbellman]

Abiden With Me - Why I Care About the US Elections

People may be wondering, why does a poor Barnsley lad care about who wins the U.S. presidential election? I've seen the question posed to others - it's not our country, why do you care? The honest answer is that I've got an obsessive interest in American history and politics. That makes me a) interesting company, and b) boring company. But the reason I care is the same reason behind Metternich's adapted maxim: when America sneezes, the world catches cold. Although this may be more appropriate now (literally and metaphorically) for China, history shows that events in the United States have an impact on the globe, especially as international trade and finance have intertwined nations more than ever. Take the Great Depression. When the Wall Street Crash happened in 1929, this precipitated a global economic collapse. Few nations were hit harder than the Weimar Republic. Hyperinflation meant that a wheelbarrow full of Deutschmarks was less valuable than the wheelbarrow itself. This depression, mixed with antagonism towards the Treaty of Versailles, led to a radical swing to the right and, ultimately, Hitler. Of course, America wasn't directly responsible for the rise of Hitler and Fascism. But it acknowledged its part. In the aftermath of the Second World War, America devised the Marshall Plan, pumping economic support into Western Europe to prevent the rise of radicalism and allow a strong Europe to fend off any potential Soviet strike. Even in the 21st century, America's troubles have echoed throughout the world. In 2008, the "Great Recession" led to economic downturn in the UK, with millions losing their jobs and bringing about a decade of austerity from 2010 (although, judging from multiple sources, we should give credit to Gordon Brown - his actions and advice to world leaders in 2009 prevented a historic worsening of the situation). Even this year, we see echoes. The refreshed Black Lives Matter movement that brings Premier League footballers to their knee before the whistle of each game was ignited by the death of a Black man in America. Trump's heartlessness and inaction made the situation worse, and every Black death after that poured fuel on the fire. Leading from this we cannot forget the importance of visuals. When people across the world look to America and see the shining city on a hill, a country of democracy and respect, it reinforces the ideals of freedom and liberty. The débâcle of the 2020 election gives a free pass for corrupt leaders worldwide to continue their iron-fisted ways and quash liberty. When American legislators sign Draconian laws restricting a woman's right to choose, what message does this send to radically misogynistic societies in the Middle East and Africa? Leadership by example isn't a uniquely American responsibility, but it is more important now than ever, with such leadership diminishing in the post-Imperial European powers. There's a reason the U.S. president is called the leader of the free world. And although it's hard to discuss alternate history, I feel rather confident that had Al Gore won the U.S. election in 2000, America wouldn't have invaded Iraq. I'll never be sad that a genocidal tyrant like Saddam Hussein was eliminated, but the vacuum left by his demise led to the rise of Islamic State, Iranian braggadocio and the Syrian Civil War. If Bashir al-Assad's Ba'athist ally Saddam had remained in power, millions of Syrian refugees wouldn't be pouring into Europe. Had Saddam remained, the Arab Spring may never have ousted Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi, with refugees from North Africa making the deadly trip across the Mediterranean. How many families would have their soldier sons and fathers alive today? How many UK terror attacks might not have happened? How many displaced refugees would have a home? We will never know, and maybe things would have been worse if the Iraq War hadn't happened. But it's not hard to identify clear examples of American action (or inaction) that has a direct effect on our lives here in the UK. That's why it's so important for me to keep abrea

[bespectacledbellman]

Food, Inglorious Food

The fire and furore of free food - an opinion

This week I have seen a lot of posts about free school meals and why the government has refused to continue provision during the school holidays. What I haven’t seen is any ‘defence’ of this decision, or any kind of explanation as to why the motion was refused. I find this bizarre as usually there’s always decent coverage of reasons. The best I can find is that ‘it’s not the government role to provide food during school holidays’. 

So I’m going to try and provide a general analysis of the furore.

What are free school meals?

Free school meals are provided to children whose parents/guardians claim a select number of benefits. All infants in reception, Year 1 and Year 2 are entitled to free school meals.

Why do free school meals exist?

Although most people might think it’s government altruism that provides free school meals to disadvantaged children, it would appear that there’s an enlightened self-interest at stake. School meals are provided so that children are not hungry at school, allowing them to concentrate better and not disrupt other pupils in the classroom. Free school meals have also been shown by studies to help lower obesity and increase academic achievement. Therefore if there were no free school meals, pupils would be disruptive, reducing the chance of other children to succeed - feed the poor kids so that the better-off ones can get on with it? 

Possibly. However, feeding the child allows them to focus on their studies too, and if they do lower childhood obesity, this helps the child develop an understanding of healthy, nutritious food. We know that obesity leads to higher risk of heart disease, diabetes and, appropriately for the time, coronavirus complications. Does the cost of free school meals outweigh the later costs to the health service?

So what are the reasons against free school meals?

There are actually quite a few reasons. Firstly, is it government’s role to feed children? Parents/guardians already receive financial support for their children. There are also other benefits available to struggling parents/guardians. If these benefits aren’t enough to feed children on the fewer weeks they’re at home this poses two scenarios: the money is being spent correctly, or the money isn’t enough.

If we go with the former, that parents/guardians are spending on other things rather than food for their children: why then should government spend more money on them? It’s a good question. On the other hand, if benefits aren’t enough, the solution needs to be about providing more support for parents and guardians all year round, not just giving them little support for a few weeks in the year. Before we can debate the solution, we need to figure out what the actual problem is.

The other issue is that subsidising children is becoming an increasingly contentious issue in society with the increase of childless adults. Many, including this author, believe that having a child is, in the vast majority of scenarios, a choice, in the same way that having a pet is a choice. Why then should childless taxpayers pay to feed other people’s children - especially if those parents and guardians aren’t being responsible with the support they already receive? Why should people who choose to have a pet (receiving no financial support) pay for those who instead choose to have a child?

Again, there is an element of enlightened self-interest here. Taxpayers pay for children to go to school, receive medical treatment, etc., so that they will, as adults, help the taxpayer in their advanced age, as doctors and nurses, working as tradesmen and in utilities, and generally keeping society going. These adults will similarly pay for the next generation and so on. Meanwhile a pet, even an intelligent one, will likely not grow up to become a surgeon. Does that mean, however, that the choice is not a valid one?

A third argument is that central government doesn’t have to do this when there are other parties that can step in. We’ve seen this recently, with businesses, charities and local authorities offering to provide free school meals. This seems to vindicate the government’s decision - they don’t have to do anything and the problem is still solved. Society blinked first. There are lots of fields where government doesn’t get involved and the gap is filled by others. It’s an ideology that sets limits on government intervention. It should come as little surprised that the party of privatisation doesn’t want to get involved.

The politics

Labour has cashed in politically on the notion that a million children will go hungry over the holidays. I mean, if this is true, it’s is a systemic failing in society where parents and guardians are not feeding their children. In fact, it simply means that a million children are eligible for free school meals. Three of these year groups are automatically entitled regardless of income, so that lowers the real number of disadvantaged children somewhat. Indeed, I would happily stake my reputation (what’s left of it) that most of these children won’t go hungry, and that they will be fed appropriately by loving, caring parents and guardians.

And those that don’t? That’s where other agencies need to be involved to ensure that the child’s welfare is taken care of. This, perhaps, is the government’s view: most children will be fed, and those that don’t are already receiving support for children and not using it appropriately (returning to the point above). There are already laws and frameworks to be used against parents and guardians neglecting their children - such as not feeding them.

What is strange, however, from a political viewpoint, is why the government would choose to vote against this. Even if you make the ideological point that it’s not the role of government to pay for children’s food during the holidays, it’s a political winner. When you’re spending £12billion on a shoddy test and trace system, and countless more billions on furlough and job support schemes during various lockdowns (a socialist utopia hardly in keeping with Conservative ideology in itself!), the amount of money spent to support children during the holidays is relatively minimal by comparison, especially when you consider that this money is also buying political capital for the next election: “The Conservatives kept your children fed” is a much better sounding lie than “The Conservatives starved your children”.

What is the solution?

This author doesn’t feel that free school meals should be continued through the holidays - simply because it doesn’t solve the problem it claims to. Let’s consider:

If the benefits of school meals are correct, that they help lower obesity, increase academic achievement and help children concentrate at school, I believe that every child should have free school meals and nutritious food vouchers all year round, regardless of their parents’/guardians’ income.

If parents and guardians are not receiving enough support for their families, the welfare system should be revolutionised so that they are.

If parents and guardians are not spending their current child support appropriately, this should be replaced with non-financial vouchers (like the free school meals during the summer holidays) to ensure that children are fed and parents and guardians cannot use it on themselves.

However, I believe in abolishing the welfare state and replacing it with a universal basic income. Give every adult a set amount each month independent of the income they receive from work. No strings attached; no signing on; spend it on what you want. I can get a dog, you can have a child - but it’s the only money you’ll get from government. A guaranteed income that isn’t affected by how much or how little someone may work from one week to the next ensures the essentials are covered whilst still encouraging (in fact, requiring) income from work. With the current welfare budget you could pay every adult £400 a month and still have plenty left over.

Frankly, I believe that the free school meals furore has been a cheap political manoeuvre by Labour, when what is really required is a whole new way of thinking about welfare. I’m more than happy for my taxes to be spent on ensuring that all children are nutritiously fed at school and at home all year round. Yet society also needs to enforce responsibilities: if you decide to have a child, it’s your responsibility to take care of them. It’s nobody else’s. And as much as society has a general interest in the welfare of your child so that they grow up to be a useful, independent and law-abiding citizen, the responsibility is on the parent and guardian first and foremost.

I would love to be part of a society where the greater good was the priority, but we don’t. Our society is about individualism - about individual rights, individual freedoms, individual opportunity. Fair enough. But with those rights come responsibilities. And too often this means that we focus on the wrong things. Instead of padding the seats in the lifeboats, we should be ensuring that the hull is watertight.

We’ve been dragged into yet another left-right political storm that has fundamentally missed the point again. Until we come together to find what the real problems are and devise real solutions that will actually fix the issues, we’ll just keep shouting at each other whilst the iceberg approaches.

[bespectacledbellman]

Goodbye Greens: Why I Have Left The Green Party

I haven’t always believed in progressive politics. When I was in my early teens I was a little Communist short and stout, here’s my hammer here’s my sickle, comrade. I believed everyone should be paid the same for their work and everyone can have a decent quality of life. That was great until I realised that no matter how hard I did at school I’d end up with the same fate as those who put no effort in. That wasn’t going to work.

So, I deviated further and further right until I was embracing something close to Fascism. Yes, some people are superior, I thought. After all, someone who spends their time learning and bettering themselves deserves to earn more, deserves to have more rights, deserves to have a greater say in how the country works. Again, this logic was fine until I realised that modern society can only exist if people aren’t superior to one another. We need non-academic people happy to work in our shops, farm our land, fix our cars to keep the doctors and teachers and writers and philosophers and artists going. Academia doesn’t equate with capability.

I therefore managed to find my political worldview crushed between these two illogical tenets. What this resulted in was a pragmatic left-liberalism with a few traces of quasi-Fascism. Wondering how to square this circle I endeavoured to approach each political party at my own pace. I found that Labour and the Liberal Democrats could cater to the heart, but their sometimes pie-in-the-sky thinking coupled with the anti-Blairite counterrevolution concludd with senseless policy – if, indeed, policy was ever forthcoming. On the other hand, the Conservatives seemed to be fighting for the centre ground I called home: an economic policy that was, sometimes, unfair and unflinching, but otherwise their policies fostered progressive social reforms. Cameron’s mob would neither give to the poor nor steal from the rich, but what Robin Hood’s merry men did in their own time was no concern of theirs.

I’m not saying that their approach was successful, but four years on I wonder what the UK would look like if Cameron’s planned decade-long ministry would have culminated in.

Politically homeless, therefore, I started to judge the fringes. The Official Monster Raving Loony Party was always a laugh, but unelectable. Independents were fine too, but only at constituency level. But when I read the Green Party manifesto a couple of years ago I was enraptured. The manifesto spoke to me. Save the planet. Tick. Social reforms for equality. Tick. Universal basic income. Tick.

Nuclear disarmament? Once upon a time I was opposed to this. Who throws away their shield, I mused, when someone was pointing an arrow at your head? Of course, this metaphor is completely wrong. It should be why am I standing here holding a Molotov cocktail on the off-chance that someone throws their Molotov cocktail at me? I will still be on fire no matter whether I have one of my own or not. It’s basically revenge, wrapped in the camouflaged garb of national security. Pointless. The Greens want to abolish nuclear weapons. Tick.

Sticking to my personal policy that whenever I found a party that suited me down to the core I would support them, I became a member of the Green Party. Through financial and moral support, I argued their case to friends and family and did what I could do highlight key social and economic issues that the Greens could work to resolve. I even wore t-shirts and buttons to advocate their cause in public.

And it was sunshine and roses, pretty much, until this year they started to be, well, silly, with a few minor incidents and one big one: capitalising on the chaos in America, the Greens came out for slavery reparations.

I just think this is the wrong answer. I also believe it’s insulting to simply pay people off for the suffering caused to slaves. I also felt that the logic behind compensation for past immorality was a slippery slope: where is the line drawn? What about Ireland during the Potato Famine? India? Africa? Look at the chaos caused in China by imperialism. Drawn to its inevitable conclusion, historical compensation would bankrupt the Earth.

It was also not going to do anything to solve modern racism. Say a Green government gives a stipend to people who can prove their ancestors were slaves. I can’t say for certain, but I’d guess that large category would include at least one white millionaire. Eight generations of breeding will diversify the ultimate, current generation – as it should. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel it’s right for a government to pay someone compensation for hardships that they may never have suffered. And for those many people who have suffered hardships, a payout isn’t justice.

As I bleat on about like a noisy sheep from dawn til dusk, education is the way we move forward. Educate our children on race and the importance of loving and respecting one another. Obviously, this is a dream, because we all know people whom we neither love nor respect – but at least teach that there are so many genuine reasons for hating people that race needn’t be a contender. Hate someone for being a bully, a snob, cruel, violent, criminal. Each of those adjectives has been attached to people of every different creed and colour through history. Why compound these valid reasons?

Take all of the money earmarked for reparations and pump it into schools. Give the UK a world-class (or world-beating, which appears to be the term in vogue nowadays) education system that teaches moral and social values, and not just the order of Henry VIII’s unfortunate spouses.

It is, in my view, a cheap ploy to capitalise on what was going on around the world in support of Black communities, to make the Green Party look like the progressive party, when in fact it looks more like throwing money at the problem and hoping it goes away. This isn’t the medieval Church, we can’t buy indulgences from our national sins. Only through repentance – education – can we be absolved.

Add to that the other cringe-worthy events that I saw manifest over the Green Party’s own social media page: notably, heralding a local councillor as a champion of his community for standing up for residents, even though he actually hadn’t any idea what he was doing and jeopardised their appeals by ignoring due process. The recent election, where as a member you vote on important roles, including roles for each individual group, but you can only vote for representatives of groups you belong to. Sounds a lot like segregation to me. As a member I should be allowed to vote for the person responsible for LGBTQ+ rights, BAME rights, migrant rights. You do not segregate policy based on membership. A white straight cis man should have the same rights as a Black lesbian trans woman. (If you disagree, read the sentence the other way around and then you will.) As a taxpayer, any decision made on, for instance, women’s rights, will affect me. If the Green Party advocated sanitary products on the NHS, I am fine with that, but as I pay money for the NHS, I should be allowed to choose who comes up with that policy. It’s short-sighted to segregate policy in this way – not that I was surprised, I’d learned that short-sighted policy was our forte.

Instead of focusing on key policies that would help the country: economic policy, ecological policy, foreign policy – all grounded in a realistic view of the world – I instead was swept up in a vortex of one-dimensional thought. Yes, if you’re unhappy with the UK selling weapons to Saudi Arabia that’s fine, but don’t start a discussion about it without mentioning the consequences of the UK not doing that. Do you think China or Russia will wield the same moral pressure on the Saudi government when they inevitably fill the gap left by the UK? A more sensible, multi-faceted policy would be to use all profits from arms sales to fund refugees and migrants from conflicts. Russia would spend its profits on ivory backscratchers.

With all this, I felt forced to leave these daydreamers and return to my pursuit of a party of pragmatic progressivism. The Green Party will never become a government or have influence with policies like these. The best policies come from heart and mind. No party really provides this, and perhaps that’s what’s wrong with modern politics. There is no haven for those in the middle who want equal rights for all but a partial repeal of human rights agreements. There is no base for those who want an enlightened justice system based on forgiveness and rehabilitation, but also desire the return of the death penalty. It may seem that these things are contradictory, but they’re not: they are practical when delivered appropriately. And if you were to sit down with someone and delve into one topic for long enough, you’d find this cognitive dissonance lies within probably all of us at some level. We all sit in the middle of the political spectrum and although we’d always like to do the right thing for the right reasons, most of us acknowledge that we sometimes have to do the wrong thing for the right reasons. We must be pragmatic in our daily lives and we must be pragmatic in our politics.

The Green Party has the progressivism, but not the pragmatism; the ideals, but not the logic; it has my heart, but not my mind. It has my sympathy, but not my vote.

[bespectacledbellman]

Why I’m Numb to the Numbers

Every day I tune into the government’s daily Covid conference and listen to what the politicians and the experts have to say on the subject. They present graphs and numbers, gushing in equal amounts of intelligent technobabble and upbeat propaganda. I like it, it’s reassuring, even if it’s mostly unhelpful from a numbers point of view.

There is, for me, one massive problem with the way the government is presenting their statistics. Simply, it is not providing context.

Context is king. It is the plot and landscape of a novel that helps the main character flow from one page to another. Without it, we just have a person wandering around. We’ve all been part of a conversation that we’ve entered halfway through and struggle to understand what’s going on, and try to piece it together from what’s being said, until eventually we ask “What are you on about?”

This is the situation that I feel we’re in now. We’re part of a conversation where we’re missing the metaphorical in-jokes, double-entendres and euphemisms. We’re hearing the words, but not fully grasping their meaning.

I believe this is important to understand because it helps put into perspective what’s going on. Right now the country is in a state of emergency, because we’re combating a disease that kills. Okay, I get that, I’m on board. I’m washing my hands regularly, self-isolating, working from home, keeping away from family and friends - it’s not much different to my normal life, to be honest, but I appreciate the value of these measures to keep vulnerable people safe.

But the number of fatalities keeps rising. The number of cases keeps rising. I see all kinds of mathematical marvels: graphs and charts and maps and matrices. They tell us how many are dying and where. They tell us cases and deaths per 100,000. They tell us many things. All of which are, frankly, useless.

The problem with analysing numbers is that someone has to be there to tell you what they mean. Just look at these interpretations in this piece!

It’s now April 2nd and 2,921 people have died of coronavirus, with 569 people dying in a day. On the face of it, that’s rather terrifying. We hear a little bit of context from the media, with the BBC stating that most of the victims had “underlying health conditions”, yet over 40 victims did not. That’s even more worrying - perfectly healthy people dying? That’s not good at all.

Um, well, there’s other factors not considered, or at least not mentioned. Those 40+ victims who did not have underlying health conditions should probably be read as “had not been diagnosed with a condition”. How many times has a seemingly perfectly-healthy footballer dropped dead because of a heart condition that had never been diagnosed? Keep that in mind.

I’m not pooh-poohing the fact that healthy people are dying from coronavirus, but I also remain sceptical when the media (and the BBC to their credit were quite careful in attaching “apparently” and “according to...” in their analysis) report these deaths without access to coroner’s reports and the like. It’s unhelpful because it just spreads fear. We don’t know the medical conditions of those victims, and making assumptions one way or another is unfair, as there are perfectly good - and perfectly bad - reasons as to why the family may want the victim to be considered perfectly healthy. Indeed, a perfectly healthy person in hospital without friends and family to visit could have a huge impact on mood and mental health as well, which could contribute to a worsening condition.

The other issue is that the government and media are not putting those deaths in context with deaths in general. I took a quick look at some grim stats the other day: in 2016, for instance,  525,048 people died in the UK. “Influenza and pneumonia” was the fifth biggest killer of women, taking more than 15,000 lives in that year. That’s a normal, average year, with access to vaccines. And that’s just women. If coronavirus had struck in 2016, how many of those 15,000 would have died of Covid-19, resulting in the deaths to “normal” flu and pneumonia dropping?

Yes I’m speculating, but that’s the point of this piece - everyone is speculating about what the numbers mean right now. It’s all interpretation.

More interpretation: Every death is sad and heartbreaking for the families. But anyone over 80 is basically on borrowed time - the average life expectancy for me, a 27-year-old male, according to the Office of National Statistics, is 85. So even with future advancements in medicine, I’m expected to die in less than 60 years. Even without coronavirus, many people in their eighties or over are statistically likely to die. The government just told me that. It’s a miserable, wretched truth. Does that mean everyone in their eighties should be allowed to succumb to their fate? Of course not. But without knowing exactly how many people who had met the average life expectancy have died of coronavirus, and whether they had a chance of surviving the year anyway, the total number is a strange thing to analyse.

And that’s why any analysis of the numbers right now is rather pointless. From 17th January until 20th March 2020, the number of weekly deaths in the UK was lower than the average for the past five years. Why? I don’t know. Washing hands could be a reason. People having a sudden raison d’etre to take care of family and friends could be another - I’m a big believer that a positive outlook is a great medical boon, especially as fear and anxiety have been consistently linked to causing poor health. Yet another reason not to worry about numbers.

But as I say, I don’t know.

And I won’t know until the entire year’s statistics on death and disease have been released. There could be a sharp drop in seasonal flu deaths later in the year as the most at-risk have already passed away, averaging out the numbers. So although coronavirus has been vicious, the overall picture could remain relatively unchanged.

We just don’t know. We don’t have the context. Not yet.

So until we get a few years down the line and have the benefit of hindsight, don’t look at the numbers, don’t worry about them and certainly don’t read into them. They are useful for statisticians and professional boffins who can interpret - I say interpret, because numbers have no particular meaning until you attach one.

Look at regular malaria and tuberculosis stats worldwide, for instance. According to an article by M.D. in Private Eye, TB kills 4,000 people a day, with 1,200 dying from malaria every day too. Why are we not reporting and worrying about those numbers? Possibly because a boffin interpreted them and decided it’s not something for the UK, with jabs aplenty, to worry about. How can 4,000 deaths a day go unreported, whilst 500 deaths gets coverage on BBC One every day at 5pm?

Interpretation.

If you’ve found a flaw or problem in my analysis, that’s wonderful: you’ve helped to prove my point. I don’t think my analysis is right or wrong, I don’t think my interpretations are anything to go by either: they’re just examples of how the numbers can be interpreted and that it’s dangerous and pointless to try (although try I did).

All I can say with confidence is this: instead of looking at numbers, look after yourself. Keep washing your hands, self-isolating and take care. The only number that really matters is 1 - if just one of your loved ones dies, does it really matter if six or six million others die as well?

[bespectacledbellman]

Grab Your Vote, Love, You’ve Polled!

Apparently, Napoleon once described Britain as a ‘nation of shopkeepers’. But surely we’re a nation of voters? From Eurovision and Strictly to I’m a Celeb and Big Brother, the British people are seemingly obsessed with voting… apart from when it matters.

The turnout at elections is pitifully small. At a time when the suffrage is greater than ever before, with options such as postal and proxy voting, a huge number of people abscond from their right - and some would say duty - to cast their vote for their favourite (or least disliked) candidate.

I get why people don’t want to vote. It’s easy to like celebrities dancing, or people’s singing voices - it’s not very easy to like the political process. I believe it was Germany’s Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, who said that ‘laws are like sausages - it’s best not to see them being made’. And that was over a century ago. In the modern era, with cameras filming the goings-on of Parliament, we’re able to witness the political process with relative ease. Even if you don’t tune into BBC Parliament, it’s pretty much unavoidable to hear about politics - and the dread B-word. 

The more we hear about Brexit the more frustrated everyone gets - Leavers and Remainers alike - who look at Parliament and wonder why nothing has been done. It adds to the general belief that politicians are useless. But let’s be fair, we’ve shoved a referendum (direct democracy) into a parliament (representative democracy), and it’s like fixing a grandfather clock with bits from your iWatch. Yes, they both tell the time, but they operate completely differently and aren’t compatible. Hell, I can’t even get a 90’s PC game to work on Windows 10!

Nevertheless, I believe Parliament is doing its job. As much as yes, they haven’t yet ‘delivered’ Brexit, they’ve also prevented no-deal, kept an open border on the island of Ireland and scrutinised Withdrawal Bills to ensure that the environment, migrants and workers’ rights (and more) are protected. Because yes, although MPs represent the 52% who voted to leave (only 37.5% of the overall electorate) they also represent the other 48% or, to be more precise, the 62.5% of the country who didn’t vote to leave.

And because Parliament has been doing its duty in protecting its constituents, it’s more important than ever that we vote. Because the people we vote for will be checking Withdrawal Bills, will be deciding what happens when Britain leaves the EU, and - most importantly - will actually be doing everything non-Brexit related when all’s said and done.

They’ll be deciding taxes, foreign affairs, health and social care, education, farming, welfare, pensions, the environment, workers’ rights, migration quotas and rules, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, food standards, armed forces funding, foreign aid, local government funding, early years funding, housing, police, probation, the courts, prisons - the list goes on. If any of those even flicker vague self-interest, you need to vote. 

I’m a member of the Green Party, and I will be voting Green. I could now have a little tirade of why you should vote Green because I believe the Green Party have the best policies, from my standpoint. But from your standpoint, they won’t. That’s fine. You might want to vote for the Conservatives, Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, Independent, Monster Raving Loony or even for the Brexit Party. Although I will likely disagree with your non-Green choice, I will respect it, because we’re a democracy. You vote for the candidate/party that you feel will benefit you and your future. If you think Labour, the Lib Dems or the Brexit Party will do that, go vote for them.

Just bloody vote!!!

Even if - in fact, especially if - you think Parliament is failing, you need to vote. If you think Johnson or Corbyn are fools, go vote for someone else. Use your vote against the candidate you dislike the most if you don’t like any of them. And once you’ve voted, you’ve registered your right to moan about it all for the next five years/months until the next general election. Oh yes, there’ll be another one before you know it.

I’m not even going to mention women chucking themselves in front of horses to get the right to vote.

 So please vote.

 And once you’ve got that in your head, start reading. Spend a bit of time to look at manifestos and websites and see which party suits you the most. The Labour of the 1990’s is not the Labour of today. Similarly the Conservatives of the 1980’s are not the Conservatives of today. The Lib Dems have regrouped since Nick “I’m Sorry” Clegg’s student loan volte-face. UKIP are more fruitcake-esque than ever and the Brexit Party are (clue in the name) a single-issue party. The Greens want to stop climate change, introduce a universal basic income and get rid of nukes (the latter of which I thought was a bloody insane idea a few years ago, until I realised how much we spend on them and how little we spend on rare diseases that thousands of children suffer from). 

Not that I’m trying to persuade you, of course…

But we’re all attracted to different things. Just like the X Factor, someone’s singing voice, stage presence and charisma might grip you to vote for them. Others acts will just not cut the mustard. Unlike the X Factor, who you vote for might determine whether you can afford a new home, get a pension when you retire, or get the medicine and treatment you or your loved ones need if, Gods-forbid, illness should strike.

So please consider carefully the party and candidate that suits you, and then go vote for them!

Because here’s the shocking thing: if you actually look at election turnouts across constituencies, more often than not the winning candidate could have been outvoted by all the people who didn’t vote. So literally if everyone who didn’t vote in Barnsley Central decided to cast their vote for me in, I’d probably beat Labour, who have held the seat since, well, forever. Just think about that before you decided not to bother voting (please don’t vote for me, politics is a spectator sport).

And if you don’t want the trouble of going to a polling station, register for postal voting. You get it through the post, and send your completed ballot paper through the post weeks before the election date, meaning you’ve got nothing to worry about come Election Day.

So, in conclusion, vote for whoever you believe will represent you and the Britain you want, but just please, please, please, please, please, please vote!

You can register to vote here: https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote 

[bespectacledbellman]

An Inconvenient Truth: Britain Doesn’t Want Brexit

Surprise, surprise! An arch-Remoaner writing a piece about Britain not wanting to leave the EU. How bloody typical!

Well, yes. I don’t change my mind based on what the majority of people want. How many times do I see 67% of women would recommend Nivea blah-blah-blah. I don’t go out and buy it. (If anyone from Nivea is reading this and wants to throw some advertising money my way, please get in touch.)

Anyway, so yes, Brexit. Eurgh. I think I’m amongst the few people who enjoy seeing this spectacle, watching parliamentary democracy work its magic - you know, that parliament that doesn’t have any power because it’s all in Brussels? Yes, that one!

So a few years ago less than 40% of the electorate voted for Brexit for a multitude of reasons. Some people felt it would reduce immigration; some felt it would give power back to parliament (which they have subsequently harangued for, er, using their power); some felt it would make the economy better; some felt it’s because the EU is a corrupt octopus of doom. And let’s be honest, some (and I do mean only a few) are just genuinely racist and/or xenophobic.

Ignoring the latter, because they would be immune to any rational argument, all of the above could be resolved not by LEAVING the EU, but by renegotiating the terms of the UK’s membership. And here’s why.

Firstly, immigration. Yes, you could sit down and read the statistics that show that immigrants are net contributors to the economy (i.e. they don’t “come over here and take our benefits”, rather the opposite, they cancel out those on welfare and then some) and you could point out that immigration is higher from OUTSIDE the EU than from within it. One could also point out that the EU has higher levels of education than many places in the world and that most EU countries teach their children English. But there is a genuine, visceral reaction to seeing towns and cities that are 99% white gradually witnessing the demographics change in favour of ethnic minorities. Now why people can’t just live their own life and leave well enough alone baffles me, but some people think it’s offensive (for reasons I cannot fathom) to hear people speaking Polish or Romanian or Bulgarian. As if British migrants to the Costa del Sol always speak fluent Spanish to their fellow countrymen.

But if there is a problem with immigration upsetting towns and cities, a simple negotiation could be made with the EU to limit the number of migrants or redefine free movement of people to free movement of labour - in other words, if you have a job or can prove you won’t be dependent on the state, you can move to the UK. This would be a bilateral agreement imposed on UK migrants to the EU. I’m not saying that it would be a simple negotiation, but it’s a possibility.

Secondly, giving powers back to parliament. Well, David Cameron (remember him?) negotiated out of the “ever closer union” clause before the referendum, so that’s already been done. One should note that many of the EU directives, such as how olives should be grown, would never affect the UK. When directives are introduced, parliament wrings its hands as long as it can. The EU Working Time directive took five years to become law. There’s also a process through the ECJ and ECHR to object to anything that doesn’t seem right in the UK, such as giving prisoners the vote. Again, further negotiation could give Britain some akin to a domestic veto. But do we really want Conservative governments to be able to veto laws on tenants’ rights, workers’ rights, environmental and food standards - considering many of our politicians have personal, financial interests in many of these matters? I think not.

Thirdly: successive experts have been banging the drum that crashing out of the EU would be devastating to the UK economy. We’ll hardly go back to rationing, but we didn’t do that in 2008 either, and I remember lots of people losing their jobs. The ripple effects of the credit crunch can still be felt today across local authorities and government departments. With experts telling us that leaving the EU would be extremely unlikely to help our economy, and with us being one of the most powerful economies in one of the most powerful trading blocs on the planet, it does seem rather odd to go our own way, leaving us behind the EU, USA, and China - parties who will likely use their massive size and influence to force top-heavy and negative deals on the UK. Maybe remaining in the trading bloc, as even many Brexiteers want, should be a pivotal reason for remaining in the EU with a changed style of membership?

Let’s also consider the money we provide to the EU. If we give money to the EU that funds Polish and Romanian things, which keeps Polish and Romanian people in their country, doesn’t this solve the immigration issue as well? Think about it.

As to the corruption of the European Union. I’m with you. I can’t argue against that. But what was it that LBJ said about J. Edgar Hoover? “I’d rather him inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in.”

There we have it: three of the main reasons for leaving the EU that could be resolved through a negotiated membership. Think of Netflix: you’ve got different options for membership depending on what quality of video you want, how many screens you want active at once and how much you’re willing to pay. Why the UK can’t negotiate a EU-lite membership is beyond me - with the threat of leaving the EU completely never far away. It is the only resolution I can think of that would unite parliament and most parts of the country: remaining a member, but actually solving the problems that provoked the Leave argument.

And yes there will be people who would not be happy being in the EU even if they paid us lots of money, sent everyone a bar of chocolate every day and made us Kings of Europe. There’s no satisfying some people. But for those who voted to Leave for the rather salient reasons mentioned above, surely a renegotiated membership that resolves those problems will be solution enough without taking the potentially suicidal leap of faith into the unknown murkiness of life alone in the increasingly globalised world of the 21st Century?

[bespectacledbellman]

The Great British Shake-Off

Why the Brexit Betrayal was Inevitable 

Politically, this week has been, depending on who you are, wonderful, blunderful or the latest episode of the comedy-drama Get the Bloody Hell on With It! What it hasn’t been is boring, and anyone who tells you so probably shouldn’t be entering political discussions very often. And from what I can see and hear, vast numbers of so-called Brexiteers are raging about what they term the Brexit Betrayal. But this doesn’t come as a shock to me, and I believed, almost from the start, that it was inevitable that MPs would vote against the result of the referendum. 

Here’s why: Brexit is based on one lie, that 52% of the people voted to leave the European Union. I mean, it’s not a total lie. It just depends on what you mean by “the people”. I’m not a lawyer so I couldn’t provide a legal definition in any sense, but essentially most of us would assume “the people” to include everyone in the country. This simply isn’t true. Only 52% of those who voted actually voted to leave. If we dig deeper, we find another truth. 

It’s an undeniable fact that only 37.5% of the electorate voted to leave the European Union. It is equally true, however, that this is more than the number that voted to remain, 34.7%. Yet what this means is that only 37.5% of all adults eligible to vote, given the choice, decided to change things. On the other hand, 62.5% thought that either remaining in the European Union was actively worth voting for, or wasn’t so bad to bother voting at all. They favoured the status quo. And this is important. 

In many constitutions there’s such a concept as “supermajority”, which specifies that a simple 51+% of voters is simply not enough to effect change. In the U.S., if an amendment is made to their Constitution, two-thirds of votes in Congress or two-thirds of states must propose it, and then be ratified by three quarters of states. This is an in-built mechanism designed, one presumes, to prevent a simple majority from making earth-shattering changes to the status quo. Nearer to home, the only supermajority I can find is that two-thirds of MPs must vote to dissolve the House of Commons and call for a general election before the end of its fixed term – again, favouring the status quo. In a constitutionally baffling move, there was no provision for such a supermajority in the referendum, even for a simple 51+% of all eligible voters. And that is why the situation is as it is. 

Therefore, although the Brexiteers may harp on about the death of democracy and the people’s will, MPs must be mindful of the 62.5% of people in the UK who did not vote to leave. Just because someone didn’t vote does not mean they no longer deserve rightful representation in parliament. 

And it’s this representation that makes the referendum an overblown opinion poll. The United Kingdom is not a direct democracy – we don’t go and vote weekly on things. We simply do not have the time to read through every piece of legislation, suggest amendments, liaise with each other and then vote. We instead vote for MPs once every now and then, who do all of that for us, and do so in our best interest. What that means, to give an example, is that although very few of us would vote to increase our own income tax, MPs do so as they know that the increase would help pay for vital services that we need, and is therefore in our best interest. In many ways, MPs are seemingly (and weirdly) in loco parentis, guardians of our wellbeing whether we agree with them or not.  

Of course, “best interest” is highly subjective, which is why parties create manifestoes to present what they believe is in our best interest. If we agree, they get our vote. If we don’t, they don’t. Although this doesn’t satisfy everyone, the system has been adopted by nations across the world and tends to work. 

Until now. The reason why the House of Commons seems to be tearing itself up like a sadomasochistic cannibal is because of the effrontery of the referendum – “direct democracy” thrust into the mechanism of “representative democracy”. It’s like putting a microchip to replace a cog of a grandfather clock: it’s not going to work. Not because one is better than the other, but because they are completely different forms of the same function. 

And for this reason, the Brexit Betrayal was bound to happen. How can MPs, elected to represent the best interests of the people, vote in favour of something that 62.5% of “the people” didn’t actually choose, but a simple majority did choose in a referendum. 

Don’t get me wrong, I voted to remain, but I’m no massive fan of the EU. It has loads of issues and there are legitimate reasons to want to leave. But there are lots of things that have problems – but walking away isn’t always the answer. The United Nations has corruption, but I’ve not heard anyone saying we should leave the UN. People complain about the amount of money that footballers receive, whilst fanning themselves with a season ticket. This is also why many people didn’t want to make the effort of going out to vote to remain. The EU doesn’t stoke passions in the same nationalistic way that being “an independent country that makes its own laws” does (as if the EU enforces hateful laws: I always point out the EU’s Working Time Directive that forced onto all British people 5.6 weeks of annual leave. Those bastards!). 

And the irony is that after all is said and done the issues that Brexiteers voted for: regulation, immigration, political independence, will still be there: regulation will have to be as tight to ensure that British goods can compete to the same high standards as those from other countries; immigration was higher in 2016 from outside the EU than from within, so leaving the EU cannot change that, and any political independence gained from leaving the EU will fade away as the UK bends to the economic might of the U.S. and China. True, they won’t be able to legislatively introduce laws, but lobbying from their governments to reduce, for instance, food standards to allow trade, could be a cold reality. 

In conclusion, I can understand why those 17-odd million who voted to leave feel that they are being betrayed, but it was probably inevitable. Referenda don’t work with parliamentary democracies all that well, and the numbers themselves just don’t add up. The fact that Parliament has proceeded with the result of the referendum for so long has surprised me, as it seems that none of the parties have the political strength, will or courage to stand against the result – not on the grounds of democracy (though an argument in favour of the 62.5% could easily be made), but on the grounds that people don’t always know or do what’s best for their own wellbeing. 

Go to any A&E department on a Saturday night and you’ll see what I mean. 

This doesn’t mean that the people who voted to leave don’t have legitimacy and legitimate issues that must be addressed. But as leaving the EU wouldn’t resolve most of them, surely it’s time that Parliament concentrates its efforts on those key, underlying problems, rather than crafting them into a European bogeyman.

I hope I’m wrong and that leaving the EU proves a panacea for the British. Something tells me that it won’t. 

[bespectacledbellman]

Hung Out to Dry - A Short Response to the 2017 Election

I’ll make this short and sweet: Theresa May has made a massive misjudgement. Whether she was influenced by the polls or the snake from Eden made a return, the Steamy Hare failed in her quest to seek a strong mandate. Why, then, are the Conservatives keeping her as prime minister?

In my humble opinion, May has not only failed to receive a mandate to seek a “hard” Brexit, but also failed to receive a mandate to lead a Conservative government. The sublime response of Labour voters to an unnecessary election surely proves that her “strong and stable foundation” is nothing more than a trampoline with an ominous rip. Another election, if held, would do the Tories no good: tactical voters would simply abandon the Liberal Democrats and Greens – and, in Scotland, the SNP – to cast their vote for Labour to oust the Tory candidate. Even if all 2017 UKIP voters turned out for the Tories it couldn’t hope to win.

That’s why I don’t foresee another election. In fact, at time of writing, May has announced her intention to go to Buckingham Palace and ask The Queen to form a government. No doubt May has already made a deal with the Northern Irish DUP to give her the numbers required to meet a 326 seat majority government.

Constitutionally, I have no problem with this. The Conservatives, for better or worse, have the largest party in Westminster and have the right to form a government, majority or minority. I’m fine with that, even if politically speaking my flag is nailed to another – more socialist – mast. However, I have no idea how the Conservative Party can accept May as their leader. The woman who is about to prepare to negotiate a “strong deal” for Britain has proven in this election that her judgement is poor, that she gambles unnecessarily and, with regards to the debates, that she is cowardly. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with accepting that you lack talent in one field or another (that Theresa runs through to the chagrin of farmers, apparently), but then again you are the leader of the party seeking election. If you don’t like doing debates, you’re in the wrong job, love.

May has shown a failure of leadership and political nuance: important aspects for any lead negotiator for a constitutional separation, such as Brexit. Everything she touches will be tainted with stains of weakness, and the overwhelming sense that she shouldn’t be there. Whereas, alternatively, the Conservative Party could oust May and hold a leadership election, choosing a new prime minister with a relatively untarnished profile: an old-timer like Kenneth Clarke would be somewhat ideal for this, as Father of the House and a veteran of politics with expertise in many departments of government. Clarke will likely not be willing, so choosing a Brexiteer would be somewhat sensible. I would plead that Boris Johnson is not considered for the position, but he is the sort of political heavyweight who could actually achieve something – this in spite of his facade of buffoonery.

If May manages to survive and form a government, she will have absolutely zero support from the “progressive” opposition. She might not need it, but she didn’t need it when she called the election and yet did so to get the support. So, in theory, if she is truthful about her reasons for calling an election, May should do so again. She won’t, because she most probably gambled based on the polls.

On the other side of the despatch box, Corbyn insists that Labour is ready to lead. That’s good, but they have a problem with seats, which itself questions the legitimacy of a potential minority progressive coalition. There’s simply not enough of them to ensure smooth legislative ability. The Conservatives, with the DUP, have that. Unless Her Majesty decides to elbow her way into an election result and refuse May permission to form a government, we’re definitely looking at a May-led Conservative/DUP government. But her legitimacy is shattered, and European leaders will be smacking their lips that they’ll be dealing with a weak May, rather than a buoyant, principled Corbyn.

There’s no reason for a Labour voter to feel sore, as the result is better than most pundits expected. Conservatives should feel relief that their Scottish voters and the Irish have saved them – in stark contrast to the European Referendum results. Meanwhile Lib Dems, whilst celebrating more seats and the return of Sir Vince Cable, will be in mourning that Nick Clegg, a leader who risked the short-term benefits of the party (going against a manifesto pledge*) for the long-term benefit of the nation (electoral reform in the form of the Alternative Vote). The fact that he is still vilified shows how few people actually understand politics – or doubt the sagacity and actual goodness of politicians. The SNP probably knew they wouldn’t match their 2015 results. The DUP and Sinn Fein successes in Northern Ireland finalised a great day for both, but an extremely polarising situation across the country.

I would be very surprised if Theresa May remains as prime minister if she forms a government with the DUP. However, who fills her boots is considerably difficult to figure out. Her defiance to standing down is a blind, stubborn action by somewhat who cannot see their own failure. I’ll give her a year.

[bespectacledbellman]

Manchester – Why Doubt, Not Fear, Is the Terrorist’s Best Weapon

And why they’ll never succeed as long as they exist...

I’ve saved writing an article until more facts have become clear about the tragic events that unfolded two nights ago. We’ve all seen the news; I see no point in repeating a timeline we’re already familiar with. Instead I’ll leap into the crux of this article: that doubt is now unsettling terror as the weapon of the terrorists – or doubtists, as they could be called. Simply, this is because every act of “terror” that now occurs in this country does not inspire fear of the attacker, but doubt in the systems, governments and way of life that is designed to keep the British people safe. Yet, on a positive note, this is a temporary doubt that rarely succeeds in making any changes. More positively, terrorism never succeeds – but in a frightening irony, only in the absence of terrorism will their aims to destabilise Western states stand a chance.

I was alerted to this change in emotion not from myself – as I’m admittedly (and scarily) becoming increasingly desensitised to these horrors – but from a post on social media. It happened last night: when it became known that the attacker – whose name I shall not honour on here – “had been known” to security services. The person who made the post suggested that the UK amend its laws so that the would-be attacker would be prevented from carrying out his attack. What they spoke about flies in the face of almost a thousand years of English Common Law.

I can guarantee that they do not wish to suspend habeas corpus, nor give the government the right to arrest people without sufficient evidence. Yes, sufficient evidence may seem a ridiculous concept to those feeling the pain of loss right now, but it is an idea that is universal. As soon as a government is given the power to arrest anyone without sufficient evidence, literally anyone could be arrested if they’re deemed to be a nuisance. Suspend habeas corpus, the legal belief that an arrested person be brought before a judge or court, and a frightening prospect – on par with some of the most totalitarian governments in history – soon faces the British people.

The main issue with changing the law thus is that although the government could, in theory, amend the law only under terror charges, it becomes a slippery slope. Say that a bloke called Dave is sat at home watching ISIS videos, not because he is radicalised but because he has an interest in the history of terrorism, or wants to have an uncensored view of ISIS not distorted by the news media. The police could swoop down and arrest him, purely because he is choosing to watch something considered dangerous. True, he could explain to the police his reasons, and as a white British male with a degree and a cushty job the police will likely believe him and release him without charge. But how long would he be under arrest – and how would he explain to his children, friends and co-workers that he was arrested? Substitute Dave’s name with Abdul, substitute white with Arabian-origin, and are the police likely to be more or less inclined to release him if they don’t have to?

That is why the law exists as it does: to remove as many subjective factors as possible. Without sufficient evidence, the police could keep neither Dave nor Abdul any longer than necessary without charging them for a crime and placing them before a judge. Britain is a society that would rather have a guilty man walk free than an innocent man in prison. Personal liberty, in the UK, is vastly more important than the security of the whole. Take China, on the other hand, which believes in the general wellbeing of the majority: this is why we see “political prisoners” and innocent people locked away in prison. As someone who doesn’t commit crimes, but does pass judgement on the government, I very much prefer living in the UK.

So why is it that this person on social media is now in doubt over the criminal justice system of the UK? It’s not perfect; I can’t even begin to explain how many foibles it has. Yet the principles surrounding it – justice, consistency, logic – are resolute and fair for all. Indeed, we can work towards improving it always, but never should a measure be performed in reaction to an attack. During the U.S. Civil War, Lincoln, the Great Emancipator who freed millions, suspended habeas corpus to keep anyone in prison indefinitely. This was in reaction to Civil War. Surely we aren’t there yet?

Another good reason not to react instantly to these events? Jean Charles de Menezes.

Instead of these knee-jerk reactions, the UK government has always had a considered response. The threat level has been increased to critical, deploying military personnel to important places, and an increased police presence in transport hubs. This is a technique for reassurance to the general public, so as to relieve the worry of going to public places, that has occurred twice before. If an increased presence wasn’t there, the British public would probably turn up nonetheless. It’s what the British people do. We’re annoyingly resilient.

But we’re also very cynical. And every attack adds to the cynicism and doubt. A friend told me that their friend had tickets to a Take That concert in Liverpool, but was doubtful of going. A part of them wanted to go; another wanted the band to cancel the concert. Were they terrified of going to the concert? A little, yes. But doubt was the overbearing emotion. It was caused ultimately by fear, but the manifestation of the emotion wasn’t weeping or despair: it was doubt.

Doubt is a powerful weapon, because, like the individual who wants to amend the justice system, it makes one suspect that “the system” does not work. Loyal readers of the Private Eye will tell us that Ian Hislop’s publication has been pointing that out for years. Doubt isn’t hugely dangerous when it develops over time; it is only dangerous when it is sudden. If you suddenly suspect your partner of cheating, that doubt pains you much quicker and much deeper than a suspicion developed over several months or years – most likely because one doesn’t notice slow-moving cynicism as it evolves. By tapping in to this sudden doubt, a terrorist can make people feel unsure of the world around them; cornered, they react in unsettling ways. What would ultimately bring down the British state and the British way of life isn’t any number of guns, bombs or cars. It’s doubt. One could make a very strong argument that it was doubt in the form of cynicism that is taking Britain out of the European Union. Voters doubted that the EU was any good and doubted they were getting any benefits. When faced with facts, voters doubted their legitimacy. They voiced their doubts with a Leave vote.

What this proves, in my view, is that terrorism fails twice over. Firstly, as has been written for many years, it fails because it achieves the opposite of its intention to instil so much fear in a society that they acquiesce to the demands of the group. What the demands of ISIS are, I’m not sure. But taking the example of the IRA, the bombings only strengthened the resolve of the government and British people. Likewise with Manchester, the bombing of a pop concert has scared many, hurt many, and completely ruined the lives of many. Yet it has strengthened “us”. We have seen the best of people, with taxi drivers giving free rides, religious organisations giving free food and care, hotels and locals taking in those with nowhere else to go, and even a homeless man who tried to help people where he could. Mancunians of all faiths and cultures united against a common attack. President Trump, meanwhile, called the attacker a “loser”, refusing to label him as anything else. Many Brits agreed with his sentiments. Well done, terrorists, you’ve brought together Trump and the British public – the latter of which signed a petition to ban the former from the country.

The second point is that the vacuum of terrorism would cause more damage to Britain and the West than terrorism itself. Wars have always united nations – Britain and the U.S. fought two wars against one another in the 18th and 19th Centuries, but in the twentieth fought at least five wars together against common foes and now enjoy a “special relationship”. The absence of enemies – the absence of “them” – divides whoever “us” are. It’s basic sociology. By existing, ISIS unites many Western nations who could very well be at each other’s throats. Is there any wonder Europe and the West is enjoying the first high peace since the Roman Empire – replacing a Pax Romana with a Pax Occidentis – at the same time as terrorism has risen? Ironically, the suggestion is that if terrorism did not exist, the West would be at a higher risk of collapse from within. It has sound logic: the aforementioned American Civil War had very few external factors. The war was an internal conflict led by internal factors. If external terrorism had existed through the 1840’s, 50’s and 60’s, would the American states have descended into civil war?

It may seem a biased view, that a citizen of a nation victim to terrorism is advising terrorists that the best way to achieve their aims is by not performing terrorism. Funny how that works out, eh?

However, I believe history and the present informs us that it’s true. The time where I feel most national pride and most faith in humanity is whenever some awful event like this happens. Because I live in a society where every victim is named, honoured and remembered; I live in a society where a 98% survival rate is considered too low; I live in a society where the death of one child is considered a horror. I feel most British in the aftermath of these attacks; meanwhile I felt least British after the European Referendum.

So take my advice, if you’re a terrorist or considering that career path. Why blow yourself up when you know you’ll never succeed? Find somewhere that best fits your way of life and live there, and watch the news and wait until the British are having riots in Brixton or Tottenham; watch as the U.S. collapses under a disastrous president and race riots. Terrorism no longer frightens me – what frightens me is the knowledge that the biggest threats to Britain and the West come from within, and that I’m more likely to be killed by an air conditioning unit than a terrorist. And despite being one of the most cynical people on Earth, I have no doubts when these terror incidents occur that I want to remain living in a free and fair way, in the UK.

I thumb my nose at you fearmongers and carry on living the life I want: free from the fear and doubt imposed upon me by evil. I’ll be afraid of spiders and doubt the Tory manifesto – but nobody will make me fear living in Britain and nobody will make me doubt that liberty, democracy and freedom belong to this nation and to everyone who belongs to it.

[bespectacledbellman]

Who to Vote For – Episode III

For the third time in as many years, the British public – that’s me and you, in most probability – are again heading to the ballot box. I won’t be. I’m a postal voter. I’m not tromping off to some church or primary school.

If you’re reading this, the likelihood is that you don’t really know who to vote for. Or you’ve read some of my previous rants and think this one might be equally amusing. I’ll try my best, but I promise nothing but a strong and stable article... Sorry.

This year seems one of the strangest elections in modern times, because much like a soap opera there is an underlying storyline arc that affects everything: Brexit. True, most elections tend to be dominated by one matter or another, often the economy and immigration. Brexit bundles both of these and more into one glorious package of foggy doom whose very mystery frightens the pants off of most rational people.

However, I will refrain from talking about Brexit – the deal has been done, Article 50 has been triggered. We’re going. It’s now we look at who wishes to lead us and who amongst the political class has the ability to successfully govern an “independent” Britain over the next five years. Those leaders are our current Prime Minister Theresa May, the Marxist renegade Jeremy Corbyn, and the sinner Tim Farron.

All the polls indicate that Theresa May and the Conservatives are heading towards a landslide victory that will rival that of any other Tory Prime Minister. Whilst the polls have been wrong before, it does seem likely that a Conservative victory is in the stars: most who favour Brexit will likely vote for the Tories, especially now that UKIP is a de facto dead duck. Incorporate the usual Conservative base and that’s a strong and stable foundation. (Sorry, again. That’s the last one.) This is before we wonder about Labour voters or floating voters who usually vote for Labour.

The workers’ party has changed immensely since the victory in 1997 of a young visionary named Tony Blair and the candid camera comedy of Gordon Brown, whilst an unfortunate Ed Miliband failed in 2015 in a bacon butty battering. Following Mr Miliband on Twitter, I genuinely fail to understand how his humour, charisma and personality failed to get across. Now Labour is led by Corbyn, who has won two leadership battles in as many years and completely polarises the left. To some he is the Obi-Wan Kenobi of the political world; to others he is a fossil of bygone times that leaves him looking more like the reincarnation of Michael Foot than a successor to the fresh face of a ’97 Blair. His views obfuscate official Labour policy and his flip-flop with the European Union leaves even his strongest supporters sometimes baffled.

Therefore for many floating voters and traditional reds, Labour doesn’t seem to be an option. Yet many will be loathe to vote for the Conservatives, especially as modern day Toryism seems imbued with cruel tax-cuts for the wealthy and public sector-cuts for everyone else. This is slightly unfair as there is sound economic theory for doing both; plus the record of David Cameron, now overshadowed immensely by the gloom of a failed referendum, isn’t actually a “typically Tory” CV: legalisation of gay marriage, increase of the minimum wage and increasing the lower tax threshold to name a few. Yes, there are worries about privatisation of hospitals and healthcare, but as a patient of a private dental clinic, I can tell you it’s not bad. The apparent demise of the NHS is, however, deeply troubling.

We are left then with floating voters who cannot stomach Corbyn, yet are conscientious about public spending and public healthcare (and foxes, as May is rumoured to reintroduce their hunting) to enough of a degree that Conservatism isn’t for them. Who are they left with?

The Liberal Democrats, apparently.

The yellow bird hasn’t quite flown the vicious nest left behind by the tuition fees debacle in the coalition government between 2010 and 2015. People I have spoken to still feel that the Liberal Democrats either lied to or betrayed their voters – this is a fundamental misunderstanding of politics that is either ignorant or naive. The Liberal Democrats may have entered into government, but they did not win their election. This means that their manifesto – a modus operandi for if they win the election – is practically null and void. Nick Clegg was smart to barter the tuition fees increase – which was essentially a certainty anyway – in order to gain a much-needed referendum on electoral reform. For those unaware, electoral reform very rarely happens, simply because the party in power has directly benefitted from the current electoral system, therefore has no need to change it. Unfortunately, Clegg and his centrist posse bartered weakly for the Alternative Vote, a system so evilly convoluted it may as well had been written in Klingon, instead of pressing for Proportional Representation or a partially-elected House of Lords. If electoral reform had succeeded, it would have meant a weakening of Tory and Labour strongholds and a welcome embrace to third, fourth and even fifth parties to the House of Commons. Nick Clegg held the long-term view that electoral reform would strengthen his party to implement the policies they stand for, sacrificing a short-term policy that failed to win them an election.

Now our head is around that, why not vote for the Liberal Democrats? They have championed the rights of practically everyone in the country from native Brits to immigrants, women, the LGBTQ+ community, students (ummm...), low- and middle-income earners, and animals. They’re almost like the Avengers if they were activists. Yet they are amateurish – this is an election where they can push the fact that they support integration with Europe, whilst respecting the Brexit vote. This is an election where they can unconditionally guarantee the rights of EU migrants in the UK right now. Instead, Farron has been drawn into some debate beyond satire that he thinks gay sex is a sin (how Farron’s personal opinion on the bedroom antics of others is important, I’ll never know), distracting voters from Lib Dem policies. Meanwhile their post-EU statements of another referendum, another referendum for when we leave, blah blah blah, has just confused people. A clear message must come out of the Lib Dem camp to combat the opaque and random policies found on the back of fag-packets in Labour Party HQ and the seemingly heartless ones from Millbank Tower. Only then will voters understand that the Liberal Democrats are a genuine third option.

Independents are always a good option. If you really care who your representative is in Parliament, explore the Independents and small-party candidates standing in your constituency. A vote for them is a vote against the Estbalishment (which everyone apparently hates but always seems to vote for) and allows them to reclaim their £500 deposit if they receive 5% of all votes in their constituency. There are currently four Independent MPs sitting in Parliament – evidence that it can be done. Because they have no party loyalty, they are unequivocally representing their constituents, which is how parliamentary democracy is meant to be – at least in theory.

Those are essentially your options. Staunch supporters will vote for their party regardless. Traditional Labour voters anxious over a Corbyn premiership have three choices: support the man who has won the leadership twice, support your local Labour candidate if you like them and hope Corbyn will resign after a bad election, or vote for another candidate entirely. It makes sense for Labour supporters to turn their vote to the Liberal Democrats, whose policies are closest to pre-Corbyn Labour, or an Independent that they identify with. Though the latter won’t make a huge impact on the national scale, they will serve their constituents well; the Lib Dems as a strong third party would be capable of ensuring legislation passed by government is fairer, or block any that isn’t in tandem with other opposition parties. They’re a safe option – not exciting, but reliable, with the long-term interests of the British people at heart.

If you live in any of the devolved areas of the UK, I must confess I lack sufficient knowledge of your needs and issues to provide specific advice. In Scotland it seems that a strong SNP would push for a second independence referendum, which I believe the Scottish people have every right to. In the face of a Conservative government that refuses to comprehend such a matter, even after the constitutional maelstrom of Brexit, it’s in the interest of the Scottish electorate to vote against the Conservatives. Wales and Northern Ireland seem to me unpredictable – I couldn’t even hazard a guess what colour they will go come June 8th.

No matter who you vote for, my message as always is make sure you do vote. Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Independent or any party, make sure you voice your opinion via the ballot box. If you don’t, you lose the right to voice your opinion for five years, as those who did vote shouldn’t have any respect for your political views. Personally I would advocate for the Liberal Democrats, as only a centrist approach will help to unify a nation becoming increasingly fractured.

If you disagree, great! That’s a strong and stable (that’s definitely the last one, I promise) parliamentary democracy! Just make sure you vote.

If you aren’t registered, you can do so at https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote.

[bespectacledbellman]

Snap! - May Gambling in June

It has been discussed in political articles for months, and now it is finally coming to fruition: this June, Britain is heading to the polls for the third time in as many years. It has become an annual tradition, apparently, much like dancing around the Maypole. It may indeed be a May poll that has provoked Theresa to holding this election. One thing for certain is that Theresa May has chosen this election not out of a sense of civic duty, but for her own personal and political gain.

In her announcement, the Prime Minister states that this snap election is to end division in Westminster, where opposition parties are – shock horror – opposing her policies, namely with regards to the European Union. Now one could easily argue that the Opposition has a case of sour grapes that they are distributing around the hallowed halls of democracy; on the other hand, an equally sound argument can be made that the Opposition are worried that given carte blanche with negotiations, there may be no safeguards against an agreement with Europe drowning in Conservative ideology. Many fear the uncertainty of Brexit and those of a socialist bent further fear that gains made as a member of the EU – statutory holidays, for instance – may be lost in a negotiation favouring economics of the upper echelons than the working people. The danger for many is only too real.

Why May has stopped prevaricating and held a general election is simple: she needs the casus belli to negotiate with Europe as she sees fit. Losing in the Supreme Court and being defeated in the House of Lords has no doubt made her wary, realising that as an unelected Prime Minister (technically  a Prime Minister who did not win an election, as in theory every PM is elected only by their party) her arguments for leading the leaving process are weakened. Winning an election and receiving a mandate from the British people to leave Europe along the lines that the government wishes, would grant her political invulnerability against her many foes.

This also serves as a perfect way to weaken the other parties. Labour, led by the controversial Jeremy Corbyn, is currently in one of the worst positions of its existence. They are a long, long way away from the heights of Tony Blair in the late 1990’s. A defeat for Corbyn must be the death knell for his leadership, allowing Labour to build to the next election – but by that time, presumably 2022, Britain will have left the European Union. Who replaces Corbyn won’t matter with regards to Brexit because May will have the full force of democratic government on her side.

Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats... well, I suppose they have nothing to lose. Their current seats seem safe, and if former voters will get over the whole tuition fees fiasco (a reminder, they didn’t win the election so had no obligation to their manifesto promises) and return to the fold, they will find the one party that has backed membership of the European Union from the start, with pride and bluster. Tim Farron’s motley crew stand to gain seats – and if disillusioned Labour Remainers decide Corbyn isn’t leadership material, they may plump for the Lib Dems. In this case, the third party of Britain could make a substantial impact, perhaps replicating their 2010 successes. A second coalition along blue and yellow lines would definitely soothe some of those most terrified about Brexit, as the Liberal Democrats would champion the rights of workers, women and the most vulnerable, and could scupper any Conservative plans by voting with a reformed Opposition under a new Labour leader. The question is: would Tim Farron’s party sacrifice their anti-Brexit views for another chance to be a party of government?

And then there’s The Other Woman, the sometimes inspiring leader of the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon. A clean sweep across Scotland would definitively grant her the right to hold the PM to account on Europe and a second Scottish Independence Referendum. In all likelihood, the SNP will succeed in Scottish elections. Therefore I foresee a simple agreement made between Sturgeon and May: if the SNPs won’t block Brexit, May’s newly-elected government will promise IndyRef2 after Britain has left the European Union. This will almost guarantee Scottish independence for Sturgeon, whilst allowing May the free hand she requires for Brexit. Once she has dealt with the EU, she can turn her full attention to Scotland. If the Scottish people vote to leave the UK, this won’t have any effect until at least 2022 – at which point May might decide to retire at that year’s election and leave it for the next PM to deal with.

So who are the winners and losers? In Scotland I foresee a status quo. Labour will hold onto its strongholds, but may lose a few risky seats to the Liberal Democrats or even Conservatives, who will undoubtedly receive former UKIP voters with open arms. I doubt Labour will make many – if any – gains. The Liberal Democrats I believe will be the big winners, benefitting from Remainers voting against their traditional party – whether this manifests itself in Westminster under the First Past the Post system is another matter entirely. The Conservatives may lose some seats, but probably will gain the same amount it loses.

The real winners and losers will be revealed only after: there is no doubt that by the end of June there will be a new leader of either the Labour Party or the Conservatives. Sturgeon will have to be placated in some way from using the refusal of IndyRef2 to block the government on everything else – as stated, I believe only a promise of IndyRef2 will do it. The Lib Dems are generally immune from leadership issues unless a political disaster strikes them, as it did two years ago, and will only become a factor if they gain a huge number of seats – multiplying their current numbers by six or seven. Unlikely, yes, but in these politically unlikely times when Donald Trump can become President of the United States, anything is possible.

There is nothing to stop a resurgent liberal left from hitting the ballot boxes in force, yet for every university student eager to remain in the EU, there’s a pensioner desperate to get out. It’s possible that the Lib Dems become the biggest party and form a government; it’s possible that the government is led by Jeremy Corbyn. Yet I see both of these as hugely unlikely. Most probably, we’ll see essentially the same make-up as it is now, and May knows this. This isn’t an election to gain seats, but to gain a mandate, which at this time is the best ally she could have right now. But it is a gamble: much as her predecessor used Brexit to silence his backbenchers, only to be ideologically defeated by the posse comitatus known as the British public, May’s own election could possibly sweep her out of office, replaced by a rainbow coalition of Labour, SNP and the Lib Dems. Or if she holds on, but loses seats and voters from 2015, it gives the opposition parties the ammunition to say that fewer people support her – and therefore her government, her policies and her leadership over the Brexit negotiations.

My prediction: May will survive as PM, with fewer seats, Corbyn will be gone, with fewer seats, the Lib Dems will be the Lib Dems, with between fifteen and twenty MPs, whilst the Scots will receive a promise of IndyRef2 in 2020. Let’s see, shall we?

[bespectacledbellman]

Limbo London

It is a landmark decision for the relatively new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom: the government cannot unilaterally trigger Brexit. Both Houses must be consulted and both Houses must vote to allow Article 50 to be triggered. However, the devolved governments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland do not have any stake in voting. So what does this mean?

My interpretation is fairly simple. The government will now have to introduce legislation of some kind into parliament that will involve actualising Article 50. A simple majority will pass the legislation in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and Article 50 will be done. Then the negotiation period with the European Union begins for two years from the day Article 50 is triggered. On that day, Britain leaves the EU.

The likelihood of such a smooth passing is, to me, minuscule. The government can bypass the current raft of legislation being debated in the Commons to put the bill out as a priority. It could be an extremely easy, one-line piece of legislation. It will likely be debated. When time comes for a vote, nearly all the Conservative MPs will vote in favour. Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs have been told to vote in favour too, respecting the outcome of the referendum. However, with Corbyn’s control over MPs at a nadir, and the tiny number of Lib Dems in the Commons, a rebellion against the whips could lead to a majority of Opposition MPs voting against, as could the small number of Lib Dems. In tandem with the Scottish Nationalists, who are more than likely to oppose the government in Westminster as they can’t from Holyrood, it will be a tight vote. Including the members from Wales and Northern Ireland and the bill may not even get past the Commons.

If such a deadlock is averted, however, the legislation finds itself in the House of Lords, which can block legislation for up to two years. Here, the whips of each party have less control over their representatives, and peers of all parties may band together to oppose the bill for the full two years. If we assume the legislation gets passed this year in the Commons, the Lords could delay it until 2019, with Article 50 activated in that year. Brexit would officially occur in 2021. Of most interest is the fact that a general election looms in 2020. This sets cats amongst pigeons.

If I was the Opposition, I would delay the legislation for as long as possible. There are a huge number of people in the country who wish to remain in the EU (I’m one of them), whilst some of those who voted to leave are now considering their actions. If Labour or the Lib Dems were to stand in 2020 on a pro-Europe platform, stating that if they win the election they will not leave the European Union, those parties could make huge gains across the country, perhaps even enough to form a Lab-Lib or Lab-Lib-SNP coalition government to oust the Conservatives. Still, there are millions who wish to leave Europe, and they would reject these parties – but many would still not back the Conservatives. It’s a tactic that might just work and see political gains across the country.

In any event, we’re getting nowhere fast. The earliest the UK can leave Europe is sometime in 2019, assuming Article 50 is triggered this year. That’s two years of political, social and economic limbo for the people of Britain – all at the time when President Trump is crafting an isolationist state over the pond. Those who believe Trump will easily permit a free trade agreement whilst trying to protect jobs in America aren’t really paying attention. The concept of a Commonwealth Free Trade Agreement is all very well and good, but as we seem to export mainly to first-world countries (our goods are high manufacturing and/or luxuries) this would only benefit us with regards to Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with maybe South Africa, India and the elite few in other nations. Overall, it will be difficult to replicate the export values achieved within the European Union.

Similarly, claims that Britain will manage to negotiate a free trade agreement with European nations is bizarre. Firstly, the EU works as a bloc – if one country vetoes, nothing occurs. It’s one of the bugbears of the EU’s framework that is both an asset and a drawback. Whilst France and Germany may want our goods, others won’t, seeing it as a gap in the market that can be filled with their exports. Imagine if Britain exported 50% of Europe’s bacon and Denmark exported 30%. Why would Denmark allow Britain to return when they can now fill the 50% of the market hole left by the UK’s absence without tax or tariff? The UK needs to be less insular with its judgement of the world, and consider what each nation has to gain from our actions. That’s geopolitics – and it’s an art form.

All in all, we don’t really know what will happen. The longer Brexit is delayed the more it favours the opposition parties and makes the Conservatives look like blundering fools; on the other hand, the limbo until then will not be good for British people. As so much of the economy depends on membership of the European Union, how does the government create a formative economic policy to ensure the stable funding of public services and ensure the job security of British workers?

What is needed now more than ever is for the UK government to provide enough reasons for businesses to invest in Britain. Despite whatever political machinations are occurring, British workers need to be seen as productive and hard-working; that businesses in Britain benefit from a workforce that enjoys civil liberties, freedoms, good wages and a quality of life that they should wish to invest in. The best thing the British government could do, in my opinion, is invest in a Roosevelt-like “New Deal” with public works, green energy and future industries. This display of faith from the government in Britain will resound in private sector confidence as well.

The chances of this happening are slim to nil, sadly. And the people who will bear the brunt of this limbo, and all its negative consequences, will be the working man and woman. For that reason more than ever, it is important for us all to watch what happens in this saga, and watch what happens in London.

[bespectacledbellman]

Death Becomes Us: The Curse of 2016?

I have a challenge for you. Wikipedia has a somewhat depressing page entitled "recent deaths" where you can scroll through each month to find out who died on which day. If you have the time and resources, your challenge is to find a day in which nobody of note died. I had a quick, random look and found that on every day someone notable had passed away.

2016 has been lauded as a terrible year for the deaths of noteworthy people, as well as some (depending on your viewpoint) disastrous occurrences in politics, notably Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. But has 2016 been a strange beast, or is it just falling into a natural pattern that we, the living, are going to have to contend with in the future?

I must accept that many influential and notable people have died this year: David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Terry Wogan, Boutros-Boutros Ghali, Umberto Eco, Harper Lee, Nancy Reagan, George Martin, Rob Ford, Johan Cruyff, Merle Haggard, Prince, Muhammad Ali, Anton Yelchin, Kenny Baker, Gene Wilder, Arnold Palmer, Shimon Peres, Pete Burns, Leonard Cohen, Janet Reno, Andrew Sachs, Fidel Castro, John Glenn, Henry Heimlich, Zsa Zsa Gabor and, since Christmas Eve, Richard Adams, Rick Parfitt, Liz Smith, George Michael, Vera Rubin, Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds.

And these are only people of whom I have heard.

In fact, if you look at the overall list of noteworthy people who have died, you'll see a lot of people that you probably don't know existed in the first place. I wager that there are names on the list above that you do not recognise. There's nothing bad about that, because we all have different spheres of interest. Yet this is why, in my view, 2016 has been nothing extraordinary, but in actuality, completely typical.

Here is a list of notable people (who were noteworthy to me) who died in 2015:

Leon Brittan, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Colleen McCullough, Geraldine McEwan, Leonard Nimoy, Terry Pratchett, Gunter Grass, B. B. King, Charles Kennedy, Christopher Lee, Dusty Rhodes, Roger Rees, Omar Sharif, Jules Bianchi, E. L. Doctorow, Roddy Piper, Cilla Black, Robert Conquest, Wes Craven, Oliver Sacks, Jackie Collins, Yogi Berra, Denis Healey, Henning Mankell, Geoffrey Howe, Howard Kendall, Maureen O'Hara, Fred Thompson, Helmut Schmidt, Jimmy Hill and Lemmy.

Again, there are many others on the list who I hadn't a clue about.

So what is my point?

Simply, that in all years there are a great number of notable people who die. Depending on your knowledge of various subjects, you'll acknowledge them or you won't. I'm also (as are many of us) looking through an Anglo-American lens, so famous Polish people or famous New Zealanders, who may be renowned and mourned in their country, won't even get a look-in.

Why has 2016 seemed so abysmal? It's quite simple mathematics, really. As we progress through history, the number of noteworthy people increases. Think that in the 1960's, the most famous people were film stars, musicians or politicians. Bearing in mind that film and music were much more limited in who were around, often tending to be younger stars, then politicians are the elderly bound to keel over at any moment. There weren't half as many notable people as there are now. As mass media picked up momentum and threw us into the present, we now have film stars who may have been around nearly seventy years (like Debbie Reynolds) and whose children have been around for nearly forty (Carrie Fisher). Back in the day before social media and reality television, it was likely that when someone had their fame they would vanish. There was no 1980's Twitter for seventies throwbacks to comment on Thatcherism. If you weren't currently famous, you were gone anyway.

And that is, for me, the big reason why famous deaths this year have seemed so pronounced. Celebrities and people of note don't vanish these days. They stay with us, often like a limpet, either through social media, appearances on television, writing novels or memoirs, or completely changing careers - look at how someone like The Rock has transitioned to Hollywood. Someone who was in the late nineties and early noughties a niche figure now has worldwide recognition. It's not necessarily like these things didn't happen before, but now they're much more pronounced in the echo chamber of social media, and the industrial quantitative production of mass media.

I don't wish in any way to seem disrespectful of the deaths of these noteworthy people by throwing away 2016 as "just another year",  nor to disregard the genuine feelings of grief from their fans. I'm still not over Robin Williams' death in 2014, and I am still sad that Theodore Roosevelt died seventy years before I was born. One of my friends adored Leonard Cohen and her grief over his death couldn't be anything but real. But for many of us, why do we take to social media to write our comments about someone's death, when we never actually knew them, what they were like, or had anything to do with them? Surely we should just shake our heads in sadness and take a moment to ponder their life, maybe listen to one of their songs, or watch one of their films; instead of trying to come up with some 140-character sound bite to express our, comparatively casual, grief.

I am guilty of this myself. It must be something to do with the Twitter generation.

What does irritate me, though, is when the collective deaths of these noteworthies over a 365 day period is labelled "the worst year ever". Well, I'm sure the years where Europe was ravaged by plague or the Spanish influenza might have been worse. Or the years when conquistadors decimated the Aztec civilisation? Or maybe, I don't know, the years of World War? 2016 has been a year of concurrent deaths, but how many of us have suffered that same grief in our families? I haven't, and I feel damn lucky for that. Think of Todd Fisher, who has lost his sister and his mother within days. One of my best friends lost her dad this year, a charming, lovely man, and nobody can tell me their grief, over David Bowie's death for instance, can compare to hers - unless that person is Duncan Jones.

If you can't deal with famous deaths, my advice is to give up the ghost now. Right now. Because famous deaths are going to become more frequent over time. Why? Because there are more famous people to die. As the universe of celebrity increases in population, so does its death rate - just like in any other population. And thanks to social media, reality television and a 24-hour news cycle, even the most niche of figures dying, such as, this year, David Gest, a producer famous for being married to Liza Minelli, becomes a headline story, whereas thirty years ago he may have been only an interesting obituary in the back of The LA Times.

In 2017 there will be even more deaths. Noteworthies will die, because their fame doesn't make them immune from death. 2016 won't end with the Grim Reaper going into semi-retirement. When David Attenborough and Bruce Forsyth are trending on Twitter purely on the grounds that they are both old and alive, you really start to wonder what people are doing with their time. But they may die in 2017, or 2018, or 2019. It's saddening that Carrie Fisher died at the age of sixty. Theodore Roosevelt was sixty when he died. But they live on. In a century, many people won't know the exact year of Carrie Fisher's death, as I'm assuming you don't know the year Theodore Roosevelt died, even though he was once considered the most famous man in the world. What they will remember is her legacy: a wonderful actress; a princess, drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra.

I am going to celebrate her life and that legacy with a Star Wars movie marathon this week, and I may even listen to a playlist compiled of Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Merle Haggard and George Michael. I might watch Singin' in the Rain, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I might read In the Name of the Rose, To Kill a Mockingbird or Watership Down. Although 2016 has been marked for us by the deaths of so many, there is no curse of 2016 killing off the noteworthy. We must remember that their legacy, their works, their masterpieces, and therefore they themselves - and all of those who died in years before, and all of those who will die in years to come - live on.

What will they remember about us?

[bespectacledbellman]

The Buck House Bill

I presume that I am among the many that have seen a petition rebounding through the Internet declaring that the Royal Family should foot the bill for much-needed refurbishments to Buckingham Palace. This isn’t an unfair request – after all, why should the taxpayer pay for someone else’s home? – but it is unfortunately, in my opinion, a request that is misguided.

For those of you unaware, Buckingham Palace requires a refit at the cost of around £369million. This is to repair decades’ of wear and tear and to make the palace a safe, habitable place. The expense of the maintenance increases due to the historical significance of the building, i.e. a builder cannot just knock down a wall and put a new one up with fresh wiring. It will be a difficult and exhausting job. Not only is it vital for the safety of Her Majesty and the Royal Family, but also to the many visitors who visit the palace. This is not to mention that Buckingham Palace hosts many state visits from foreign heads of state.

With this said, why do I support the increase in the Sovereign Grant to cover the repair work, and disagree with the petition that the Queen pays for everything?

Firstly, I turn to legal reasons. When the Sovereign Grant was introduced in 2012, it limited the funding of the Queen for the carrying out of her roles as Head of State and Head of the Commonwealth. It doesn’t support Her Majesty’s private activities, as she receives her own funding from her private estates. However, it explicitly states that:

“The Occupied Royal Palaces are held in trust for the nation by The Queen as Sovereign.  Their maintenance and upkeep is one of the expenses met by the Government in return for the surrender by the Sovereign of the Hereditary Revenues of the Crown (mainly the profit from The Crown Estate.”

This quote was taken from the National Archives website that details the Sovereign Grant Act. It also states that Buckingham Palace, St James’ Palace, Clarence House and various others fall under the category of “Occupied Royal Palaces”. Therefore the Government made the agreement with the Monarch to pay for their upkeep.

Many will be wondering, what are the “Hereditary Revenues of the Crown”? This includes a great many things, but mainly, as stated above, includes the profit from the Crown Estate.

This is my second argument against this petition: £369million over ten years is very little. Sure, we can protest that there are homeless people, austerity measures and all sorts of issues within the government that that sort of money could be spent on. But let’s consider the facts. The Sovereign Grant expenditures are covered by the Government in return for the profit of the Crown Estate. Last year, this was net profit of £304.1million. That money goes directly to the Treasury. Even considering the vast amount of money that the repairs to Buckingham Palace will need over ten years, the Treasury will make all that money back in two years’ income from the Crown Estate alone. Bearing in mind the money will be siphoned via the Sovereign Grant over the course of ten years; the Crown Estate will still be far more profitable over this time than if the Queen was returned the Crown Estate’s proceeds.

I fear that the flames stoked by republicans (not the American kind) and anti-monarchists infuriate the common man who may not have the time to investigate how the Crown’s funding works. It is fairly higgledy-piggledy. The upkeep of the Monarchy is far less than most people believe and is probably cost-effective if not profitable, considering the vast tourism that the monarchy attracts, and the relative political stability of the executive – look at Donald Trump in America, and how his victory sent shockwaves through the markets.

I implore everyone to thoroughly investigate the facts of a case before signing any pertinent petitions, but on this matter I believe that many are following the flow of emotions. One of the new words of this year is “post-fact”, in that we are living in a post-fact age. Perhaps this is true. Or perhaps people are all too willing to believe headlines and biased reporting designed to boil the blood than they are to take time to find information for themselves. This Buckingham Palace story is but the latest in a series of news events that are stirring emotions, but not giving a full picture.

I will not enter into a polemic about the magnificence of the monarchy and how it has helped to support the country for centuries – that is for another time. The purpose of this small piece is to help people understand how the funding of the Crown and palaces works. Of course, if you’ve looked at the facts and still believe that the Queen should finance the renovations herself, then that’s fair enough. Recent figures suggest the Queen’s private income is under £15million per annum, as most of her assets are now funding the Treasury. If Her Majesty is asked to foot the bill herself, I suggest that she take back into her possession the Crown Estate’s profits. I don’t think the Treasury would like that, mind.

[bespectacledbellman]

Who Will Run in 2020? - A Four-Year Prediction

In what is already being labelled as the biggest upset in U.S. political history, Donald J. Trump defeated Hillary Clinton to become the new President-elect of the United States. From January 20th 2017, for a period of four years, Trump will lead the United States of America, presiding over a federal government that is currently staunchly Republican. Both houses of Congress – the House of Representatives and Senate – are now in the hands of Republican majorities, paving the way for Trump’s right-wing policies to take full effect.

However, many are dissatisfied with Trump’s electoral victory and are already casting an eye upon 2020, when new candidates will prepare for to run for the U.S. election.

Here I suggest some potential candidates to run for the presidency in 2020.

Donald Trump

Years ago this would have been lower down the list amongst frivolous candidates, yet in all likelihood Trump will run for re-election. Whether he is victorious or not is a different matter.

Firstly, he will have to secure the Republican nomination. Though it is conventional that the party re-elects a sitting president, it isn’t a foregone conclusion. Should Trump instigate policies that are resolutely unpopular, damage the economy or fail to solve some of the most prevalent issues in the country at the moment, the Republicans may decide to bet on another horse.

Furthermore, Trump ran this campaign as the outsider candidate – a non-political, anti-Establishment candidate. It is inconceivable that Trump could run on this same platform after four years in the highest office of the land. The Republican Party may realise this and decide that he will not win again, so plump for another choice.

Even if the Republicans bowed down to the sitting president’s re-election bid, the popular vote may be completely different. If the wall hasn’t been built on the Mexican border, many of his supporters may choose not to vote; if the economy continues to struggle, many non-aligned voters may choose to stay at home. Meanwhile an alt-right Trump may alienate many orthodox or liberal-Republicans, who may decide not to cast their ballot either. All of these factors could play into a reduced popular vote for Trump – who lost that by a million votes to Clinton anyway – and impact the Electoral College.

There is also a chance that Trump, who will be 74 if he runs another campaign, may decide that four years is enough and bow out. Ill health could also be a factor, as could his death.

Not that I’d put it past President-elect Trump to run for the presidency as a corpse.

Mike Pence

The Donald’s Vice-President will be Mike Pence, a relatively unknown figure compared to the celebrity of many others involved in the race. However, this man from Indiana may, should anything happen to President Trump, assume the mantle himself. Like Lyndon B. Johnson or Harry Truman, they may become president unelected, and seek to run for a second term de jure.

Alternatively, Pence may bite the hand that feeds him and seek to oust Trump from the Republican ticket. It’s unlikely, but we live in unlikely times. Pence will be 61 come 2020 – not particularly young, but a veritable spring chicken compared to Trump. This will make him appealing to Republicans who always keep an eye on the next election. Winning in 2020, Pence would have scope to run for 2024, assuming he doesn’t become president via the vice-presidency until after Trump has served two years.

Pence is a definite right-wing, conservative politician with strong Christian beliefs, making him the ideal Republican candidate. He is also an Establishment figure: serving as the Congressman for Indiana and, from 2012, Governor of the state, actualising tax cuts and funding for education initiatives. Pence would certainly be a candidate most Republicans could consider a figurehead, especially should a Trump term alienate many orthodox party members.

Bernie Sanders

Sanders was defeated in the Democratic primaries by Hillary Clinton and may not let sleeping dogs lie. An elder statesman who would be 79 on Election Day 2020, there may be nothing but potential ill-health that may stop the Bern from running as Democratic nominee.

Many Democrats feel that their candidate was unfairly beaten by Clinton and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and are blazing for another battle. Should Sanders wish to run as a Democratic candidate, there’s a good chance that he will win the primaries, as he is now a familiar figure and may continue his battles against President Trump over the next four years. We have all seen how doing battle against a sitting president can do wonders for your chances winning the White House...

Sanders is one of the most left-wing members of the Senate and has served for Vermont since 2007. He classes himself as an Independent but hoped to gear the Democratic machine for a liberal movement, helping the democratic socialism and progressivism he passionately believes in.

Maybe Democrats of 2016 weren’t ready for that and frankly, standing against Hillary Clinton, who in my view was the most qualified person for the job, he was at a disadvantage from the beginning. Maybe Democrats of 2020, and a U.S. electorate feeling underwhelmed by the failures of the Trump presidency, will gift the White House to Bernie Sanders.

Michelle Obama

Hours after Trump’s victory, social media was abuzz with citizens across the world pleading for the current First Lady to throw her hat into the ring in four years’ time. There’s no doubt that her eight years as First Lady will have given her great experience.

As well as being married to a two-term president, Michelle Obama is also a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. She has also had substantial roles at the University of Chicago and the University of Chicago Medical Center. In the early nineties she also served as Assistant to the Mayor of Chicago and as Assistant Commissioner of Planning and Development.

She has easily charmed the Democratic voters who would no doubt be happy to support her candidacy. The DNC may also like her “celebrity” status to battle an incumbent Trump, as well as a way to engage many African-American voters who did not vote in 2016. Would she want the job? That will probably depend on Trump’s policies.

Hillary Clinton

Now that she has finally come out of hiding, what are the chances that in 2020 we see a re-run of this year’s campaign? It wouldn’t be the first time two candidates have battled in two separate elections: Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams duelled in both 1824 and 1828.

In 1824, Jackson, like Clinton, won the popular vote, but didn’t win the presidency. Adams was chosen as president by a contingent election of the U.S. House of Representatives as no candidate secured the majority of 131 in the Electoral College – at the time there were four. Interestingly, Jackson received the most Electoral College votes too, and 1824 is the only election where the candidate with a plurality of electoral votes did not become president.

However, in 1828, Jackson returned to contest the next election against Adams and won 178 Electoral College votes and the popular vote as well. It was one of the dirtiest campaigns in U.S. political history. Could Hillary, who has already suffered a range of health issues and been dogged by scandal (Jackson survived the scandal surrounding his wife, Rachel, who was married when she absconded with Jackson – Rachel would not) put herself through yet another election?

If Trump delivers policy that is anathema to her and the Democrats, she could be seen as the champion of a resurgent liberalism. Over a million more people voted for Clinton than for Trump. That’s got to mean something.

The Rock

If you smeeeeeeeeeelllll... what The Rock is cooking.

Nothing is for certain these days, and multi-millionaire actor The Rock wouldn’t be the first wrestling affiliate to run for – or become – president. Donald Trump is currently a member of the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) Hall of Fame, including being part of WrestleMania 23 and receiving a Stone Cold Stunner. So it’s not THAT farfetched.

Couple this with the recent articles making their way around the media that The Rock – real name Dwayne Johnson – ‘wouldn’t rule out’ running for the presidency, this is becoming an actual possibility. As a registered Republican, the question is whether he would challenge the incumbent president for the Republican nomination, or run as an Independent, or even a Democrat. Bernie Sanders ran on the Democratic ticket whilst considering himself an Independent.

Do you think The Rock should be president?

IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK!

Ron Perlman

You may know him better as Hellboy, the horned demon from the film of the same name. Yet soon you may know him as Mr President.

In a video on his Facebook page recently, Perlman declared his candidacy for President of the United States in 2020. Whether or not this is a humorous post in light of Trump’s victory, or whether he genuinely wishes to become U.S. president, this could be the beginning of a new trend in American politics where celebrities use their charisma, wealth and following to become leader of the free world.

Worrying, isn’t it?

Jimmy Carter

The twenty-second amendment limits the presidency to two full terms (or, in the case of a promoted vice-president, less than half of a continued term, plus two). James Carter served as President of the U.S.A. from 1977 to 1981. He is, therefore, eligible to stand as president again should he wish.

The likelihood is that Carter, now aged 92, will probably not be alive by 2020 – but if he is, he may not be in a state to stand for election. If he is, he could rally the Democrats around him in a final battle against Trump. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, and has recently worked to create drinking tubes to fight Guinea worm – appearing recently on The Daily Show.

History will be kind to Carter, who was seen by many as a feeble president but who has, in recent times, been demonstrated as one of the greatest single-termers of the United States presidency. Unless he wins another...

Boris Johnson

The Constitution states, apparently, that only someone born in the U.S.A. can become president. Guess who was born in New York, New York?

Johnson as Foreign Secretary may be trying to soak up as much knowledge of the United States as he can, whilst secretly plotting to gain U.S. citizenship. Would he be allowed to run as president in 2020? Probably not.

Nevertheless, there’s nothing stopping Trump trying to amend the Constitution to allow foreigners to stand more easily for the presidency... Not that I believe Trump is likely to expand the rights of foreign people...

Bruce Springsteen

If being born in the U.S.A. is so important, who better than the man who epitomises that phrase?

Springsteen is a world-famous performer with almost universal popularity. In the recent election he supported the Clinton campaign, and even performed at a rally in Philadelphia. This week it was announced that he would receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom – the highest civilian honour.

But would Springsteen consider the presidency? No doubt he has the required patriotism, and as he supported Clinton he will likely oppose the Donald’s policies. If Trump’s presidency is so divisive it may prompt even someone with such miniscule political participation as Springsteen to make himself available to oust Trump.

The Triumvirate

The presidency is usually only held by one person... but surely it’s time to break with tradition – and probably some constitutional rules – and let three men hold the position: Josiah Bartlet, Arnold Vinick and Matthew Santos.

It may seem unlikely, considering all three are fictional characters, but this team of men, who all have logical thought patterns, could really pull something off. Imagine them sharing the Oval Office. Arguments and laughter abound!

In reality, there’s nothing stopping Martin Sheen, Alan Alda or Jimmy Smits from running for a triumvirate presidency under the banner of The West Wing. They could even entice Aaron Sorkin to write their speeches. I couldn’t think of any three men better suited to uniting a country that appears to be disintegrating than these.

It would also appeal to the Bible Belt: three wise men...

Feel free to comment and suggest any more candidates you feel could stand in 2020 and represent America.

[bespectacledbellman]

Trump’s Triumph - Why?

I have had two hours sleep over the past 36 hours. For the first time in my life I stayed awake all night to watch the U.S. Presidential Election results televised live in the UK. I occasionally still feel the need to pinch myself to ensure I didn't drop into a deep slumber at midnight. No, I am awake.

Yes, Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States...

(continued after graphic)

It serves as a sombre addition to the pattern unfolding: that we seem to have turned a corner in democracy, with various national and party polls throwing up strange and unusual results everywhere: Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn and the rise of Marine le Pen to name just a few. This is described by some as a turn against the Establishment - that faceless entity that is believed to comprise of politicians, businessmen, bankers and anyone else deemed a member of the upper echelons of society.

Yet I wonder if this is true.

Donald Trump's victory was a huge surprise for pollsters who had taken America's temperature and decided that Hillary Clinton was the prescribed medication for the nation's needs. Political commentators and scientists in the U.S. and elsewhere similarly surmised that Hillary Clinton would win. All of them wrong. Although the answers are not very straight forward, I have a few suggestions: firstly, that the polls were asking the wrong demographics; secondly, the polls' entire strength is built upon honesty and those being polled may have lied, and thirdly, the electorate change their minds. That's not including the most obvious answer of the bunch: no reasonable person could imagine Donald Trump in the White House.

I was first introduced to Donald Trump as a teenager watching WrestleMania XX in 2004, the highest-grossing annual wrestling show of the WWE. Trump was sat in the front row at the event in Madison Square Garden and was interviewed by Jesse "The Body" Ventura, a former wrestler and former Governor of Minnesota. Ventura suggested that there should be a wrestler in the White House in 2008. Would Donald give his financial and moral support? One-hundred per cent.

Ventura did not run for the presidency in 2008, but a seed may have been planted in Trump's mind.

A couple of years later, Trump was guest-starring as a manager in a "Battle of the Billionaires" with real-life friend and owner of said WWE, Vince McMahon, at WrestleMania 23 in Detroit. During the match, Trump struck McMahon down with a clothesline, and would proceed to shave McMahon bald as part of the wager of the match. Afterwards, Trump would celebrate with renowned star "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, drinking a cold beer, only to be met with a signature Stone Cold Stunner...

I would find out later that Trump had hosted WrestleManias IV and V (1988 and 1989, respectively) at his Trump Plaza in Atlantic City as well.

I've never seen the American version of The Apprentice, but from what few clips I've glimpsed, Trump comes across as an extension of his own persona. A characterisation of his own character. A parody of himself. What worried me throughout this whole election was that he continued this act, to the point where I didn't - and in all honesty still don't - know if Trump's persona is an act, or is his true self.

Trump's other appearances are numerous, including playing himself in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) and an uncanny premonition of him as president in The Simpsons.

Something else to be known about Trump is that he is listed by Forbes as being the 324th wealthiest man on the planet, with a global property empire began in 1971 when he took over his father's real estate and construction firm. His name has been plastered on the side of buildings. Politically, Trump has been a member of the Democratic, Republican and Reform parties. Most recently he rose to prominence as part of the ghastly "birther" conspiracy.

Why do I list all these things? Well, it's quite simply to repudiate the frankly outlandish view that Trump is not an Establishment candidate. He is as Establishment as it gets: a multi-billionaire, courted by politicians, consistently in the media for at least thirty years, renowned enough to be spoofed on the world's most famous cartoon show. How the hell is he not an Establishment figure? I suppose it depends on your definition, but if Trump isn't included in it, I'd suggest you seek medical help.

Therefore, why does everyone see him as an anti-Establishment hero?

I don't know. Perhaps it's because that's what the American people want at this time. They want a political superman to sweep through Washington and to tear things up and make Washington work again. I'm not sure Washington has actually stopped working, or recall a time where its function was any more efficient than it is now. The entire point of the U.S. government is that it consists of checks and balances, meaning that neither Congress nor a president can unilaterally govern. When two separate parties inhabit either, there is bound to be deadlock. That's the entire point. That was the Founding Fathers' vision: that federal legislation must be by consensus. So when I hear American voters saying that "Washington doesn't work because they don't pass any bills" I roll my eyes in despair at their lack of understanding of their own government's design.

It is my belief that the American electorate - and electorates across the whole world for that matter - survive not upon stringent political scrutiny courtesy of honest journalism, attendance at meetings, writing to representatives or political dialogue; but instead live off myths about politics fed by a news media that will most likely publish any old tat as long as someone buys it. Anyone who had thoroughly considered Donald Trump's credentials compared to those of Hillary Clinton would have found someone severely lacking in the skills needed to govern. You only have to consider the size of newspaper print, the content of newspapers and magazines, and election turnout to see people just aren't involving themselves fully in politics.

But myths die hard and are promulgated by their martyrs. Many have pointed out the similarities between Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan. Both Republicans, former Democrats; both "celebrities" known for their appearances in films and television; both considered - wrongly - anti-Establishment. The fact is Trump and Reagan have few similarities. Reagan's political life began during McCarthyism, when as president of the Screen Actors Guild, he fed information to the FBI searching for subversive communists. That was thirty-something years before becoming president. Reagan became a spokesmen for many political groups, worked for the election of Senators and served as Governor of California for eight years. He even had an unsuccessful presidential bid before winning in 1980.

Contrast this with Trump, whose political story is almost trivial until the birther conspiracy theories surrounding President Obama, when Trump questioned the president's citizenship, and therefore his right to be President of the United States (only naturally-born citizens can stand for the presidency). Of course, this was ridiculous. Yet it gained him international headlines and media attention. When it came time for the U.S. electorate to find someone who "stood up" to the Establishment, who better than this radical billionaire who tried to take down the President of the United States single-handedly?

The problem is that the Americans who voted for Trump attached to him the ideals of old. They harkened back to Reagan and attached their nostalgia for him onto Trump; when Trump spoke of returning industry to the Rust Belt states around the Great Lakes, older voters attached more nostalgia and a sense of national industrial, as well as personal productive, pride onto Trump; when they idealised a leader they believed could shake up Washington, they projected this onto the blank canvas of Trump. Did you ever wonder why his policies were about as detailed as a kindergartner's drawing?

The tendency to vote for someone seen as anti- or non-Establishment is not a new one either. Look at Woodrow Wilson in 1912 - the academic who stood against the perennial sitting president William Howard Taft and former president Theodore Roosevelt; consider Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, the general who had "saved" Europe during the Second World War because of his command over Allied Forces (Ike was courted by both camps until he plunked for the Republican party); even JFK, this young, in-vogue ex-serviceman was thought to be something new, despite coming from one of the most well-off families in Massachusetts. What all of these have in common is that they are all considered as good, if not great, presidents, especially when compared to some of the Establishment leaders of the same century: Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush. But don't forget the Establishment politicians who are also classed as some of the finest in U.S. history: both Roosevelts, Lyndon Johnson, Reagan. All of these men brought different experiences to their presidency, but all had enough experience to get things done - albeit only one of them wanted someone's pecker in their pocket.

If we could project one twentieth-century president onto Trump we'd be hard-pressed to find one more apropos than Herbert Hoover, the disastrous Republican of the late 1920's who met the Wall Street Crash eight months into his presidency and watched as the Great Depression swept vast swathes of the population into poverty-stricken slums known colloquially as "Hoovervilles". Hoover's experience before the presidency was as a mining executive, who believed he could fix the government's economic woes with simple solutions such as the self-explanatory Efficiency Movement. He approved a tariff that saw foreign trade plummet and won the presidency thanks to many of his supporters using anti-Catholic sentiment against Democratic nominee Al Smith. Any similarities there?

I should be fair to Hoover here and note that he, apparently, donated all his federal pay to charities on account of his vast wealth, and served in various government roles before being elected President. However, no self-respecting U.S. citizen is going to remember the miseries of Hoover when considering a president, but instead focus on the "good" qualities of presidents through their personal and national history.

It should be noted that following Hoover, the Democrats controlled the White House for twenty consecutive years...

I'd like to draw this little ramble to a conclusion of sorts now. We'll never really understand the mentality of the near sixty-million people who decided that Trump was who they wanted. But I cannot in all good faith brandish them all as racists, xenophobes, homophobes, misogynists and all-round shits. No doubt many of them are. However, for many others, Trump is seen as a saviour. I believe I have demonstrated why many believe this: by falsely attributing past qualities that the electorate want onto him. It explains why I watched the debates thinking that Trump was bloody awful, only for neutral voters to stand up and say he did a brilliant job. Eh? It explains why people didn't consider Hillary Clinton's overwhelmingly able CV, with the experience and contacts that comes with it. Hillary is Hillary: a definable quantity that everyone knows. Trump is a mystery. And human beings like to fill in the gaps any way they can.

Just like they've filled the presidency.

[bespectacledbellman]

Then and Now: Is Britain Doomed to the Path of Weimar?

In 2016, 17,410,432 people voted to leave the European Union for reasons including immigration of foreign nationals, perceived loss of sovereignty from a European elite, and in general protest against the political establishment. In 1933, 17,277,000 people voted for the National Socialists for reasons including immigration of foreign nationals, perceived loss of sovereignty from a European elite, and in general protest against the political establishment. I don't know why the similarity hadn't struck me before now. I am not stupid enough to make any ridiculous statement about the existence of seventeen million neo-Nazis in the United Kingdom. That is completely untrue. Then again, there weren't seventeen million Nazis in Germany in 1933 either. People often forget that Adolf Hitler was elevated to the Chancellorship on the back of successive election results. Although he wasn't democratically elected to the position of Chancellor he was appointed by the democratically elected Hindenburg. I've covered this fact in previous posts. The object of this article is instead to look at the Weimar Republic in the 1920s and the rise of nationalism, compared to the UK today. For those unfamiliar with the Weimar Republic, it was the state that existed in Germany from the fall of the Kaiser at the end of the First World War to the rise of Nazism and Hitler in the 1930s. In its short existence, the Weimar Republic was a chaotic mess with rampant inflation and, contrastingly, deflated sense of identity. Let's begin with political chaos. In 1919, socialist revolutionaries declared independence in Bavaria to create a short-lived Soviet Republic, eventually quashed by the Freikorps, a volunteer force in contact with, but independent of, the Weimar government. The next year the Freikorps occupied Berlin and installed their own right-wing Chancellor in the Kapp Putsch. This prompted further armed rebellions in the Ruhr region, Hamburg and Saxony. Most infamous, perhaps, is the Munich Beer Hall Putsch led by Hitler in 1923. Although it failed, Hitler and other leaders received puny prison sentences. Then consider assassinations. A BBC source states there were 356 political assassinations within 15 years, including a Foreign Minister, Walther Rathenau, and Matthias Erzberger, who served as finance minister. Also included were the Socialists Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. The German people felt constricted by other European powers - the victors of the First World War - who, through the machinations of the Treaty of Versailles, removed territory from the German Empire, restricted the size and strength of the German army, and forced Germany to pay war reparations. The situation in the UK isn't anywhere near as bad as Weimar, but I can't help but be scared by the startling comparisons being seen. Firstly, the assassination of Jo Cox is the first murder of an MP since 1990, and only the eighth in history. As the assassination is under investigation I will say little, though perception is this was motivated from the right-wing. It is devastating that this should happen in the twenty-first century, in this country. Secondly, political turmoil. In the immediate aftermath of the EU referendum we have had the resignation of the Prime Minister and an attempted coup in the Labour ranks, with the establishment in the Labour Party ignorant of the democratic will of its members. They say Corbyn has lost the support of his MPs, but let's not be kidded: he never had their support in the first place. On the opposite side there are claims of backstabbing with regards to Cameron, Johnson and Gove. This political mess is nothing compared to the insurrections and attempted coups d'etat in Weimar; but is nonetheless an alarming beginning. The UK in a few months will have an unelected, right-wing Prime Minister. The Opposition is meanwhile in death throes. I foresee the imminent split of a party that has never given its elected leader a chance. Weimar Germany suffered from hyperinflation, and while the UK has had an economic downturn since the referendum, hopes are this will be stabilised by the actions of the Bank of England. Hyperinflation may never happen because of the strength of sterling and the financial institutions of London, but inflation and the rise of interest rates are a stark possibility. Then there is Scotland that is bidding once again for independence. Will they get it? In Weimar, various parts of the nation were parcelled off to other countries, developing a sense of revanchism throughout Germany. Should Scotland become independent, would a revanchist regime bid for reunion at all costs? Would a Freikorps of Unionists overthrow the Republic? When it comes to European sovereignty vs UK parliamentary sovereignty, the situations of the two countries are similar: a vast amount of people in both countries feel that they were signed up to European controls without their consent by a political elite not in touch with their beliefs. However, Germany lost a war and had to suffer the consequences. The British won two wars, and many British people haven't yet given up that idea of being top dog, ignoring the geopolitical developments of the seventy years since VE Day. This, in both nations, breeds nationalism. The fear I have now is that we are heading towards the installation of an anti-Europe, anti-immigrant, revanchist regime of the nationalist right. I hope that it will maintain a sense of quintessential "Britishness" about it that will deny any new breed of Fascism. Even Farage, considered one of the most extreme mainstream politicians of today, has a sense of fairness and a "British way". Will the cloak of Britannia prevent the danger of history repeating itself, and prevent Britain from following the path of Weimar?