Thinkin’ Indy

Posted on April 22, 2017 by Guthlac

Oh the time when there was nothing like high res inkjets – instead there was very cheap printing…so this inspired me to take another look at some recent images.  Interesting the effect seems to work on certain types of images

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No energy for anything – Bad Day

Posted on April 21, 2017 by Guthlac

Its the end of the world as we know it!

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Things to watch over the next seven weeks

Posted on April 19, 2017 by Guthlac

So the vote has been held and the motion has passed and the General Election 2017 is up and running, pending the Queen’s consent.   Over the last 24 hours there has been a lot of speculation as to what the final result will be.  I have heard some people suggest that there may well be a swing of over 20% to the Conservatives from Labour, which I have to say is a bit far fetched but you can’t discount it entirely.   If this were to happen, and assuming a uniform swing then we are looking at another 150 plus Conservative MPs and that would really change everything and wouldn’t necessarily be in the best interests of the United Kingdom as a whole.   I suspect that things will be somewhat more complicated because we no longer live in a simple Conservative v Labour world but a much more pluralistic environment.  Given this I think that there are a number of things to watch out for as the election develops:

How big is the size of the UKIP collapse?   2015 was the high watermark for UKIP.  They had a  significant share of the vote even though they didn’t gain any MPs.  How different things look in 2017.  The party itself is in utter disarray for the one simple reason: Britain is leaving the European Union. If this is the case then what is the point of voting UKIP?   It doesn’t help that the party is collapsing before everyone’s eyes:  Their one nationally known figure, Nigel Farage, is intent on building a career outside of UKIP;  Their main donor, Arron Banks, is refusing to cough up anymore money and is talking about forming UKIP 2.0;  Their new leader has been shown to be less than honest when it comes to his claims and their only MP has resigned from UKIP, although many would argue that he was the least UKIP UKIP member going.   All in all the party is in disarray.

That being said there is still a hard core of voters that probably will vote for UKIP should they get the chance and the size of this will really matter as many Labour marginals have a large UKIP vote.   Given the current state of UKIP there is a possibility that they may well be unable to field a candidate in a number of constituencies but even if there was a candidate just how many votes would Labour gain from a UKIP collapse?   If they don’t gain any the most likely place for the UKIP vote to go to is the Conservative party as they have stolen most of the UKIP arguments.  If this were to happen then the size of the labour representation in the House of Commons could become so small as to threaten the chance that they would form the official opposition as they could be looking at losing 150 plus seats – mostly to the Conservatives – this seems unlikely but cannot be discounted at this time.

How big is the size of the Liberal Democrat revival?  If 2015 proved a high water mark for UKIP then the reverse is the case for the Liberal Democrats.   Constituency after constituency show a double digit swing against them.   This is unlikely to be the case in 2017 as the results of local elections has shown that the swing to the Lib Dems has been in the positive column which if this were the case could be a mild irritant to the Conservative but could prove to be another nail in the coffin of Labour as it is reasonable to assume that there are fewer Conservative voters who would move back to the Lib Dems than Labour voters.  If this assumption is correct then any Lib Dem surge in Labour marginals would be disastrous, especially if the UKIP vote moves to the Conservatives as well.   The most likely places where the Lib Dems pick up seats is in the South West of England and London.  There is an outside chance that they might make a gain in Scotland – see below.

How many seats will the SNP lose?  The biggest single winner from the 2015 election was the SNP.  They all but swept the board in Scotland and whilst I am sure they will claim that they will keep every seat it is unlikely given how the Scottish political landscape has changed since 2015.  Nonetheless the SNP are a formidable political machine and it would be foolish to discount their ability to present any change at the UK level in a light to support their overall claim for Scottish independence.  This being said there is a reasonable chance that they may well lose maybe three seats which would hardly be disastrous but could be awkward if they go to the Conservatives as the SNP are likely to frame their appeal by painting the Conservatives as the enemies of Scotland.   Again this may be aided by any swing back to the Lib Dems.  Indeed if the swing back to the Lib Dems is significant, say 10% they may find that they win back a couple of seats in the far north.

So having looked at the data it would seem that any likely Labour revival is remote.   The SNP are likely to lose some seats but will still be the largest party by far in Scotland.  What happens to the UKIP vote is probably the key to just how bad things get for Labour.  If it holds up then they have a chance to keep some of the seats in the north of England.   However, if there is no UKIP candidate then there is only one place for most of the UKIP voters to go, assuming they turn out at all, and that is unlikely to be the Labour party.   Just to add to the Labour worries any revival of the Liberal Democrats would also draw votes away Labour which could make many more Labour marginals very unsafe.   As for the Conservatives this may well prove to be up there with 1983 when they really do sweep all before them only this time the opposition will be splintered so will make their win even more sweet.

It will be very interesting to revisit this analysis on Friday June 9th to see just how things worked out because there is only one thing that can be predicted now – elections are unpredictable and what looks certain at the start may well change over the next seven weeks.  Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

Labour Target Marginal Seats

Conservative Target Marginal Seats

2015 Election Results

 

 

Posted in Conservative Party, General Election 2017, Labour Party, Politics, Scottish Independence | 4 Comments

Here we go…Here we go…Here we go…

Posted on April 18, 2017 by Guthlac

Back in September 2016 I sketched out a possible path towards Jeremy Corbyn becoming the next Prime Minister.  I have to say it was just a little bit of fun and quite honestly I can’t see it happening any time soon…that was before a General Election was called and now all bets are off, although at the moment that is because the bookies don’t think that Corbyn will be the next Prime Minister.

It would seem that Theresa May wants this election to be all about Brexit.  She claims that her reason for this is that she needs a strong government to negotiate with the EU over what form Brexit takes.   She claims that the opposition are doing their job and opposing and so she needs to make it clear that she is firmly in charge and so she can drive a coach and horses through any opposition she may get should she win.   I am not sure she was being too honest about which opposition she was talking about.  I suspect the opposition she is really trying to dispose of sits behind her on the Government benches in the House of Commons.  If she wins big then the true Brexiteers will have a little chances of opposing the messy compromise she will bring back from the negotiations with the European Union.  That is the plan – will it work?

Probably but there a number of reasons to wonder:  Firstly, Theresa May is by far the most popular UK leader that cannot be doubted but that doesn’t mean that she can fight an election that she wants.  The recent Richmond by election was supposed to be fought on the Heathrow expansion but in the end became all about Brexit and so the sitting MP lost.   If Brexit is discounted then the Tories may well be in trouble as they are in a mess over all sorts of things;  Secondly, there is the question of the South West of England.  Here we have a raft of seats that were won from the Liberal Demonstrates by the Conservative Party.  Most of them have very small majorities and it will only take a very small swing to the Lib Dems for many seats to fall.  If this is the case then this could eat into the slim Tory majority in the House of Commons;  Thirdly, if the election is fought on Brexit then this could make a number of other Tory seats vulnerable  as the sitting MP was a Brexiteer yet their consistency voted to remain;  Forthly, Scotland.  The assumption is that the SNP will hold onto their seats but what if they don’t?  What if two or three fall perhaps to the Labour party – we are living in a political looking glass world so never say never – what then?  Finally there is the unknown unknowns and by this I don’t mean that the Korean war is resumed, although that would certainly make things far more interesting, but something that comes out of the blue what then?

As with all elections it is far too easy to assume you know what the outcome will be at the start, just ask Hillary Clinton or David Cameron, and that would be a grave error here.  There is just an outside chance that Jeremy Corbyn may well become the Prime Minister of a coalition government – now that would really be the biggest political upset by far.

One final thing – UKIP have already excelled themselves in making a rather silly comment as it would seem that a General Election is somewhat undemocratic if it leads to an abandonment of Brexit.  I really don’t understand that – my understanding of the way the constitution works is that a mandate from the people at a General Election is the only thing that counts no matter what any previous advisory referendum might say…I could be wrong it has been known to happen before.

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Lets all walk away now

Posted on April 18, 2017 by Guthlac

Thankfully things seem to have calmed down just a little on the Korean peninsula.   It is reasonable to assume that if the Americans were serious about taking military action against the North then they wouldn’t have sent the Vice President to South Korea and he certainly wouldn’t have taken his daughter along.  The second reason to be just a little more relaxed about the whole thing is that I always thought that should America really want to do some serious damage to North Korea they would need at least one more carrier group in the area.   Just before the weekend there were reports that the Eisenhower carrier group may well sail for Korea – if this proved to be the case then I think we may well have been much closer to the resumption of the Korean war.   As I write this I don’t believe it has been dispatched so that is a positive sign.

However, before we start to breath a little easier there are now reports that both Russia and China are sending naval ships to the area to monitor what America is up to.   Both of these are symbolic of course but nonetheless having so much hardware in relatively close proximity to one another isn’t something to welcome.   Of course the biggest unknown in all this is just what the North Koreans are going to do, with or without China’s permission/interaction.   Their foreign minister has made the usual bellicose noises about more missile tests et al.   Whether they take place is another matter but this is yet another complex uncertainty to add to the whole mix of threat/counter threat back channel pressure.   This of course assumes that the person sitting where the buck stops in Florida (these things always seem to happen whilst the President is taking yet another golfing holiday at his, sorry his son’s – silly me for thinking that the resort still belongs to the President of the United States of America, Palm Beach country club) is a rational and thoughtful person with an eye for the detail and nuance that high stakes diplomacy requires.  I will let you decide whether that description describes the current President of the United States – personally I have my doubts.

So that has cleared that up in much the same way that Sean Spicer cleared up his missteps last week about Hitler.   This really is a long distance runaround.

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Where did you go?

Posted on April 18, 2017 by Guthlac

Don’t know what I’m going to do?

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All Yours

Posted on April 17, 2017 by Guthlac

 

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How did we get here?

Posted on April 16, 2017 by Guthlac

For the millions, no billions of christians around the world today is a day to celebrate – Christ has risen – Rejoice!   This happiness however must be tinged with just a little apprehension as this weekend is also the time when we all must look on and wonder – just who will blink first – the Donald or the Dear Leader?   Or should that be the Donald or President Xi?   At least two of those people in this menage a trois are at best unstable so the chances of a misstep can’t be discounted.

This crisis seems to have creeped on the world  without few people being aware of it.   Just 10 days ago everyone was still contemplating just how President Trump would handle the forthcoming meeting with the President of China and then everything changed – America lobbed a few missiles, by the standards of the United States arsenal they really were nothing to talk about, at Syria and before we know it the war in Korea is about to restart.  A week in the Donald Trump world is like a whole year in any other.

There are many ways of reading what just happened.   One way would be to see this as a great game played by the master Donald Trump.  In this game he feints incompetence to lull the Chinese into a false sense of superiority as they have a face to face meeting with Mr Trump.   Mr Trump then uses the excuse of a chemical weapons attack in Syria, controlled by his friend President Putin, to demonstrate just how really powerful America is and suddenly the pressure really is back on China.  This is a badass President who you must treat seriously and give what he wants.   Trump then pivots to North Korea, where America has legitimate security concerns and starts some serious sabre rattling in an effort to make China to do something they really don’t want to do – cripple the North Korean economy and thereby destroy the security threat, however theoretical, to the western seaboard of the continental USA.  This would then be a great ‘win’ for the USA and President Trump and his poll ratings will rise.  There is of course another interpretation of the whole thing and that is a President with no plan or understanding of what he really is getting himself into and seeing his Syrian actions getting a poll bump and thinking he can save his presidency by acting tough with North Korea .   I haven’t got the first clue as to which is more likely to be true apart from the following:

  • The power of the United States military is such that it can quite easily handle what North Korea can throw at it.   It won’t be easy but they have been planning for such an eventuality and you have to assume that they know very well where the North Korean assets are placed and have plans to destroy them before they can really do any serious harm;
  • The ruling elite in North Korea may well try and deploy their nuclear weapon in some form or another against South Korea.  However, whether they are able to do or whether there is some form of a coup to prevent such an eventuality is anyone’s guess;
  • There is no way of knowing just how capable the North Korean army really is – there certainly is an awful lot of them;
  • It is unclear what China will do should the Korean war resume – although it is clear that they will not like the humiliation involved but beyond that they have far far too much to loose to let the whole thing go on for long.   This is not the 1950s – China is now part of the world economy and it is vital for China to be able to trade with the world.  This doesn’t mean that there won’t be consequences beyond the Korean peninsular;
  • How Russia would react to a resumption of the Korean war is unclear – however it will once more underline just how unimportant in the modern world Russia is.  We now live in a China/US world and Russia will be just another spectator.  I am sure that President Putin won’t like the world reminded of this;
  • There are too many things that could go wrong for any one person to believe that they are in control of all the circumstances and it would be the height of hubris to think that they do.

I was thinking about all of this yesterday when I made the two pieces.  It then struck me that that somewhere in my subconscious I must have been thinking about the shadows cast by the first nuclear bomb explosion all those years ago in Japan.  I hope and pray that this Easter Sunday we are nowhere near seeing these things again.  I don’t really think we are but I can’t be absolutely certain.

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Also and Always

Posted on April 14, 2017 by Guthlac

Just a few images from my walk around the Yorkshire Sculpture Park the other day.  Some great art and yet again found the outer limits of what the iPhone, in my hands, can do.  So win win.

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Complexity’s complexity

Posted on April 14, 2017 by Guthlac

There was a time when much of Britain celebrated Easter, the holiest Christian festival, at a different time to the rest of Western Europe.   This was due to the way that the monks at Iona calculated the date of Easter in relation to the spring equinox.  The monastery in Iona had been established by monks who had sailed from Ireland and so this is known as the Celtic tradition.  However this in itself is somewhat confusing as the Irish tradition of Christianity was established by a British saint – Saint Patrick.  Just to add one final layer of confusion to this story no one would have used the word Celtic to describe themselves or their church.  Celtic is a greek based word and was introduced much much later and it, in my view, is totally misplaced as ‘Celtic’ does not represent the true nature of the complex prehistoric seafaring culture of the British Isle and the western coast of Europe down to modern Portugal.  It is very unlikely to have seen itself as an off shot of a central European proto germanic people later known as ‘the celts’.  The confusion over the date of Easter was finally resolved at the Synod of Whitby when the Roman rather than the British Isles’ dating system was adopted – yet another example of European law superseding a good traditional British system.  (May I apologise to all those who may be offended by my running roughshod over a complex series of interconnected traditions that go back centuries)

This complex story is very apt at this time as it just about sums up the messy relationship between the British Isles and mainland Europe – very similar yet all the time just a little bit different.   Of course Europe isn’t made up of a homogeneous people but many differing views and aspirations not just reflected by the current arrangement  of borders – most modern countries of Europe are very very new – the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (modern Germany) is one of the most recent established in  3rd October 1990.   This tale in a way just shows how complex Brexit will be for all sides – although the Holy Roman Empire, roughly modern central Europe was dissolved simply in 1806 and the constituent parts continue to trading and deal with one another much as before (surely this is the Brexiteers dream scenario).  Of course as with everything in history it was far more complex and many of those complexities took the best part of 150 years of wars to resolve – something that the Brexiteers would like you not to dwell upon.

These strange juxtapositions were going through my head yesterday after reading a wonderfully written article by Lord Pannick QC about the relationship of the British Supreme Court of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) after Brexit.  The nub of the article was how should the Supreme Court use the rulings of the ECJ in their business going forward after Britain has left the European Union as they relate to European rules that will become British rules as a result of the proposed Great Repeal  Act?   Now this may seem a very arcane thing to write about and typical of a lawyer who can’t see the great opportunities that the country will be offered by leaving the European Union.  The problem with this gloss is that as was shown just before Christmas arcane legal arguments can come back and bit you hard if you haven’t sorted them out.   One of the reasons to take this seriously is that the city of London earns a huge amount of money by being the defacto place to sign international contracts.  This is due, inpart, to the English legal system being seen as one of the least corrupt systems in the world and for Britain to succeed we need to keep this business which I am sure we will but this issue will need to be clarified.  I am sure that it will but it needs to be added to the very very long list of issues that need to be  sorted out by the end of March 2019 – just over 700 days away.

I don’t recall any mention of the complexities involved  being mentioned by any of the Brexiteers during the campaign – campaign in poetry indeed govern in prose  – only problem is they weren’t campaigning to govern just to dump a right mess on all of our laps.  Of course all of these issues will be sorted but don’t expect things to be straightforward indeed to quote a leading Brexiteer – ‘There will be a few bumps in the road’.   I suspect the frequency of these bumps will be much greater than a few but this is what we voted for so we have to make the best of this pig’s breakfast.

With those happy thought coursing through your heads may I wish you a happy Easter.

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