Kakistocracy
Government by the least qualified or worst persons.
There are no words. Just really there are no words for the mess we’re getting ourselves in.
And really what is this year doing to us?
First, the Great British people vote, in a non-binding referendum, to take the UK out of the EU, and the government treats the result as binding. As someone near me observed the other day, never overestimate the intelligence of the great British public.
Then earlier this week the American people elect Trump — a self-confessed misogynist, racist, bankrupt, megalomaniac bully — to be their next President.
What is it about people that has caused such apparently idiotic choices?
Well it seems to me that it is partly down to the fact that too many people these days feel deeply pissed off, abused and disenfranchised.
Add to that the fact we are tribal — however much we like to think we aren’t. (I wrote briefly about racism and tribalism a while back in my Five Questions series.)
This means that when people’s backs are against the wall they will default to following their tribal instincts: xenophobia, racism, aggression, bullying. And, as a gross generalisation, the less intelligent people are the easier they find it to slip into tribal mode; those who can (and do) think are more able to rationalise and counteract such tendencies (although, of course, not all do as they may give a higher weighting to protecting their vested interests).
Thus, it seems to me, when people are so deeply pissed off, they will tend to vote for the more right-wing (Fascist) choice. This, they think, will satisfy their emotional and tribal needs. Hence another UK Conservative government, hence Brexit and hence Trump. And that’s despite the fact that such situations are so often the ones which will disenfranchise people further.
There is another factor at play here too. It’s “we don’t like what we’ve got so we’ll vote for something different”. We’ll have a change — that’s any change! — as it must be better. In an essentially bipartite democracy (UK, USA) that just means whoever isn’t in power. [Although this doesn’t explain the current UK Conservative government.]
So maybe we shouldn’t find the current mess quite so surprising.
So what next?
Well if, as the old wives tale has it, “things come in threes” and the year isn’t over “until the fat lady sings” we have about 7 weeks to survive. We’ve had Brexit (with its fallout), now Trump. What’s going to be the third almighty cock-up we can inflict on ourselves?
Keeley on Facebook has suggested the third cock-up is the Columbians voting down the proposed deal with FARC. I don’t know — I don’t know enough about this to be able to judge — but it could well be a good contender. We shall see.
Meanwhile just hang on in there and push back against racism, abuse, bullying wherever you can; ‘cos 2017 just has to be a better year.
And 2016: May a thousand monkeys dance sideways on your grave!
Another in our very occasional series thinking about some of the aspects of the “Brexit mess” the UK is now in.
[Note: What follows are largely my thoughts on the legal landscape as I see it, based on various legal items I have read over recent days and weeks. I am not a lawyer. This is not legal opinion. It is my ramblings.]
I am heartily sick of all the misinformation and stupid comment which is pervading the media waves at present. So in the wake of yesterday’s court judgement on the constitutional issues surrounding Brexit I thought a few (legal) facts about the mess we’re in were in order. These thoughts will be uncomfortable and unwelcome for the unthinking masses.
Conclusion: What we have in the UK at present is a political crisis, of the Government’s making, and not a constitutional crisis.
Now will everyone STFU and act their age not their shoe size. Yes, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and others, I’m looking at you.
So, as usual it seems, we’re now being told that the bill for Heathrow Runway Three is going to be much higher than is being said. Worse, that extra cost is going to fall on the taxpayer and not on the private enterprise (the airport). Yesterday’s Guardian reported former Transport Secretary as the person raising the concern:
“There will be a number of specific things we will be doing for Heathrow. The government and Heathrow need to come clean on what the cost to the taxpayer is going to be.” … While the [Davies] commission report estimated a £5bn bill for new roads and rail links, Transport for London put the potential cost as being as high as £18.4bn.
Heathrow said it had earmarked just £1bn, and that it only accepted direct responsibility for works to the M25, which the third runway would cross, and a few minor roads. The airport contends that it will be cutting traffic, despite adding up to 55 million passengers a year, and that revenues could offset the bill.
Oh? Pray tell me how adding 55 million passengers a year will reduce traffic.
Moreover:
Heathrow confirmed on Wednesday that executives would be paid bonuses, for securing a new runway, that would be expected to run into several million pounds.
And there’s even more …
Campaigners have highlighted an apparent admission that pollution is likely to rise in parts of London with a third runway, which they say potentially makes the scheme illegal.
The report, produced by Parsons Brinckerhoff for the DfT, said that Heathrow was “at risk of worsening exceedances of limit values alongside some roads within greater London, but this would be unlikely to affect the overall zone compliance”.
However, this is likely to be contested. Legal opinion obtained by the Clean Air in London campaign, from Robert McCracken QC, states that worsening pollution in any areas that already exceed legal limits would break the law.
That’s alright then, bugger the law. Oh we’ve already done that.
And don’t you just love “at risk of worsening exceedances of limit values”. WTF language do they think they’re writing? Can’t be Vogon; we’d stand a chance of understanding that.
So as usual it seems we’re not being told the whole story; there are hidden vested interests and conflicts of interest. And the whole funding situation is being fudged so that in years to come it will be too expensive (financially and politically) to scrap the project so it is completed with money we don’t have, provided by central government and filched from the pockets of the already screwed taxpayers — or worse borrowed on the never-never. (See HS2 and London’s proposed Garden Bridge for similar current likely examples.)
It’s another plane crash (in so many ways) waiting to happen. And government don’t get it. In spades. FFS!
PS. I know I live near Heathrow (though not under the main flightpaths) but I don’t care where this runway is going to be built. We shouldn’t be doing it. And we certainly shouldn’t be doing it — like most major projects — in such an underhand way.
So yesterday, quite predictably and after years of dithering, the government decided that it is going to build a third runway at Heathrow Airport.
They still don’t get it, do they? See a number of earlier posts hereabouts.
So why do they do it? I suspect it is a combination of (A) vested interests (ie. the business lobby and politicians share portfolios), (B) the fact that governments (like senior managers) have to be seen to do something and almost anything will do especially if it distracts from the real problems they should be fixing, and (C) vanity. And that, of course, is all that matters. Bugger the environment etc. etc.
Not that any work is likely to be done for 4 or 5 years. There is still to be (another?) public consultation followed by parliamentary approval. Add to that all the planning decisions, every one of which you can be sure will be appealed by someone, causing even further delay. Meanwhile the whole of west London — already a disaster jungle of concrete — has another Sword of Damocles (in addition to that of HS2) hanging over it.
So there is still plenty of chance the third runway will never happen, and even by the time it can happen some people will have got the message that (a) it will be an environmental disaster (wherever it is sited) and (b) we really should not need to be flying people around the world the way they do.
As someone commented yesterday, we suddenly seem to be building big things — most of which we really don’t need (eg. runway three, HS2). Moreover we cannot afford them — we have no money, at least so we’re always being told. Nor do we have the labour to either build or operate these facilities as unemployment is at historic low levels. So where do we find the cash and the workers? Oh yes, of course: inward investment and immigrants, neither of which will happen after Brexit.
There is still time for common sense to prevail, but don’t hold your breath.
Gawdelpus!
In a comment piece entitled Climate change means no airport expansion — at Heathrow or anywhere in yesterday’s Guardian, George Monbiot has got his knife out again.
His thesis is that:
The inexorable logic that should rule out new sources of oil, gas and coal also applies to the expansion of airports. In a world seeking to prevent climate breakdown, there is no remaining scope for extending infrastructure that depends on fossil fuels … While most sectors can replace fossil fuels with other sources, this is not the case for aviation … Aviation means kerosene.
Essentially The UK cannot meet it’s climate change commitments now and building another airport runway (whether at Heathrow, Gatwick or anywhere else) is only going to compound the problem.
We have to fly less — for both business and leisure. Business has to wake up to the fact that it doesn’t have to fly people around the world — or even drive them around the country — to meetings. We all have to wake up to the fact that we cannot afford — environmentally, and probably soon financially — to jet off around the world on holiday several times a year.
I know I keep saying it, but it really is time to wake up and smell the coffee at home!
[And no, Monbiot doesn’t make this stuff up. There’s a fully referenced and linked version of the article at http://www.monbiot.com/2016/10/19/the-flight-of-reason/.]
Law and Lawyers reports that the House of Lords EU Select Committee has issued a new report, Brexit: Parliamentary Scrutiny.
There are three key findings:
But critically, as Law and Lawyers quotes from the report:
The forthcoming negotiations on Brexit will be unprecedented in their complexity and their impact upon domestic policy … it seems … inconceivable that [the executive] should take the many far-reaching policy decisions that will arise in the course of Brexit without active parliamentary scrutiny.
[The government must] recognise a middle ground between the extremes of micromanagement and mere accountability after the fact.
Within this middle ground, Parliament, while respecting the Government’s need to retain room for manoeuvre, should be able both to monitor the Government’s conduct of the negotiations, and to comment on the substance of the Government’s negotiating objectives as they develop. Only if these principles are accepted will Parliament be able to play a constructive part in helping the Government to secure the best outcome for the United Kingdom. Such scrutiny will also contribute to a greater sense of parliamentary ownership of the process, strengthening the Government’s negotiating position and increasing the likelihood that the final agreement will enjoy parliamentary and public support.
Which, in my view, is quite correct. However I perceive two flies in the ointment:
Honest, open and considered Parliamentary scrutiny is essential.
After halting everything for a few weeks to allow time for a review, Prime Minister Theresa May has now given the go-ahead for the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.
So, Joanna Lumley and Thomas Heatherwick’s pet vanity project, London’s so-called Garden Bridge, is coming under increasing scrutiny. And it seems to me rightly so as the whole thing appears to have been stitched up behind closed doors with a total lack of transparency, especially around the financing.
Finally London’s Mayor, Sadiq Khan, has instigated a full review of the project. Khan had previously declined to commit further public money to what is basically a private, commercial, project. The review is to be undertaken by Margaret Hodge MP, the former chair of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee.
While we don’t know the details of the review’s terms of reference, it has to be a good thing providing Margaret Hodge is, and can remain, independent and unbiased.
Meanwhile London blogger Diamond Geezer has taken a somewhat cynical (and sarcastic) look at the project.
In my view it is high time this appalling project was kicked irredeemably into touch.
PS. I decline to (re)post images of the bridge design etc. but if you want some pictures of the location then do look at Diamond Geezer’s post.