On Quick Updates in April

[danieldwilliam]

Time for a bit of a catch up.

1) Rugby - rugby is going well.

We were at a festival in Stirling at the weekend. Stirling County RFC are one of the other Super Six clubs in Scotland, so they have a pretty large and well organised set up. Nice festival. 8 teams in our age group. Played 7 games of 9 minutes long (quite short). Definately a festival spirit, the referees weren't keeping score.

I thought we played lots of good rugby, lots of good support running, lots of good passing out or, or before, contact. Defence was a bit patchy, particularly towards the end. However, it's not something we can't fix. We're struggling to deal with the spearhead approach. Often other teams will pick a good runner, ususally someone who is quite fast, has decent evasion skills and is crucially pretty big, they get this kid to stand 5 yards back from the scrum-half at a restart. They run up, on to the ball, and through the defence. It's effective but it's not pretty to watch, it won't work next year when the tackling and the defensive structures are better and I'm not sure it's helping the kids learn to play rugby. For the record, I largely don't care about winning P4 rugby games. I may care when the kids are Under-16's or Under-18's. So long as they aren't getting whalloped I'd rather they learned the instincts of quick passing, good running, playing together, being a team, how to read and manage a game rather than knowing that if Kid-X starts with the ball they will probably score a try.

Good refereeing by the SCRFC folks. Biggar RFC P4's stand out for their organisation in defence and their sportsmanship. They are both nice club. Stirling's ground is very picturesque, being by the Forth River, between the castle and the Wallace Monument.

Briefly met my old school friend who now lives in Ayr. She was up with her son who plays in P6.

The Captain had a good festival, lots of tries, lots of good running, lots of tackling. He's great to watch. Particularly when he plays with the rest of his team.

2) Work. Work is busy. Interesting, but busy. I'm deeply invovled in two quite large projects on top of my usual work and some succession planning stuff too. It's busy. Good, but busy.

3) Family -

BB is planning her post-graduation life in  Bristol. She submitted her dissertation. Now only 3 exams and a powerpoint presentation stand between her and graduation. 

My brother is finalising his separation from his wife. That is sad but necessary.

My parents are okay, although dad seems care worn by, well I guess by the care he's giving his friends.

MLW is working incredibly hard, even by her own standards.

We have booked a summer holiday in Northumberland. Mostly so we can go to BB's graduation in July. I'm not entirely convinced that the holiday venue is great. It seems like a sort of cut-price CentreParcs. We'll see. Mostly I am looking forward to having a little clear down time.

4) UD -we've just agreed a budget with some exciting expansion plans. I hope the extra resource allows us to break through in to a period where we're doing more campaigning, gaining more members, increasing our funding, and being more effective and that doing more of all of that means we can do more of all that in some sort of virtuous circle.

5) Brexit - I have joined, but am not actually active in, the Edinburgh pro-EU campaign group. I am releasing my food stockpile to general stores and will re-stock if the political situation becomes fraught. For the first time I think Brexit is now probably not going to  happen.

6) Entertainments,  I am reading some books about Greek myths by Stephen Fry. They are jolly good. I may even go to see him in the Festival. I have a new real time grand strategy game on the PS4. This is taking up quite a lot of time and I need to do less of it so that I'm not too tired. Currently watching the Umbrella Academy, Sabrina and Only Connect and about to start on American Gods, Ozarks, Good Place and Star Trek Disco

7) Cottage is in good shape and now has a new heating control system user interface which should make it both better and cheaper. Currently thinking about new boilers for the central heating system. I'd like to replace the standard sized boiler and tank with a very small (10cm by 10cm by 100 cm ) flow boiler and reclaim the corner of the kitchen. Summer is well booked, no big repairs are currently pending.

Comments

[notasupervillain]

I've never been through a European election before and I'm very confused about what to expect.

[danieldwilliam]

I'm also confused, this Euro election will be quite different from usual.

Euro elections in the mainland of the UK use the D'Hondt method of closed, party list PR in multi-member regional seats with between 3 and 11 members. Which means a de facto threshold of about 10% to win a seat in most constitutencies. Mostly the Euro elections are about UKIP and the Greens doing surprisingly well, with the Greens not quite doing as well as they would like. One of the Tories or the Labour Party do surprisingly badly. No one pays much attention because Europe is over there and isn't percieved as having a huge impact on the UK.

Turnout is around 35% compared to closer to 70% for a UK general election

This time it will be different. Looks like Leave inclined Tory activists might boycott the election. Remainers seemed fired up to make the election a mini-referendum on Remaining.

[notasupervillain]

I'm excited about the prospect of voting for Change/Renew/the artists formerly known as TIG. I don't know anything at all about the Green's stance on Europe?

[danieldwilliam]

Greens (GPEW) pretty solidly pro-EU. Jenny Jones who used to be a Green Lexiteer has come round.

Greens (SGP) - I've not seen a Lexiteer in evidence. The Scottish Greens are pretty much solid on the idea of an independent socialist Scotland within the EU.

I have some reservations about voting for the TIGgers. Your mileage my vary.

I'm a bit sceptical about their politics.

They are pro-EU - very explicitly so.

So far so good. But they are arguably pretty centrist and so far pretty policy light.

Lead by a former Tory and organised by Chucka Umuna, who was about as far to the right as it was possible to be in the Labour Party and not catch fire. Don't get me wrong, I like and rate Umuna as a politician. I'd rather he were PM then either May or Corbyn because he understands things like "mutually exclusive" "how many beans make 5", "if A = B and B= C then A = C" and "the linear nature of time". Perhaps centrist (or triangulating - YMMV) rather than liberal, and centralising - not awful but we are dealing with a group of people who left their centre-right and centre-left parties and thought the Liberal Democrats were too liberal and democratic to join (or too tainted, or didn't want them).

Secondly quality controll of candidates.

They may suffer from the same sort of quality control issues that UKIP and the SNP have - fast growth and unexpected election success means they accidently had elected a bunch of shysters, crooks, incompetents, idiots and people who appear to have wondering from some other party by mistake.

If the pro-EU campaign is successful and we stay in the EU the folk elected in May's European elections will be MEP's for 5 years. They will represent me for five year and help elect or appoint various EU officials.

Thirdly, electoral system and tactical voting. The Euro elections use D'Hondt for the elections. So closed, party-list, X-voting. De facto threshold for representation is about 10%. One needs to be mindful of spliting the vote and the need for tactical voting. It would be different if this were an election using preferential voting systems where I could rank all the pro-Eu parties, then the Tories, then the fascists. I don't have that nuance here.

For me, there's no decision to make as I'm in the Scottish constituency where my first preference vote is also the party most likely to beat the sole UKIP / Brexit Party MEP.

[notasupervillain]

You're very right about candidate quality for small/new parties. It's part of why I never voted Green in Canada - the local candidates were always, um, kooky.

I am very jealous of Scottish politicians. But then, I don't know enough to have a side in the separatism fight, and the politicians I like best in Scotland are all separatists.

I'm in the North, I think in quite safe Labour territory. In the general, 7000 people showed up for Corbyn's rally here. My goal in voting for TIGers is mostly to encourage Labour and Lib Dem politicians to defect, rather than because I expect them to win.

[danieldwilliam]

North of England is strongly Labour but also, for the European elections UKIP country. The North West Constituency has 3 Kippers, 3 Labour and 2 Tory MEP's. It will be interesting to see how the UKIP / Breixt Party split impacts tactical voting in the North West.

I saw this morning that Steven Dorrell, who used to be Health Secretary under John Major has defected to Change and is interested in being selected as a Euro candidate for them. That perhaps allays some of my concern about kooky untested candidates. (See also Natalie McGarry).

The independence question is one of those - how long is a piece of string? well how long is your ruler? type questions. My fundamental view on it, (as a supporter of independence) is that an independent Scotland will not obviously be better in a way that dominates being in the UK for all people in all situations, but it will be different and therefore, depending on whether one likes the differences one may experience Scotland as being better or worse. Also, people are emotionally attached to their concept of people and place and nation and that's true even if it's entirely subjective. It's a wicked problem, and one involving apples and oranges.

Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, is at least a reasonable human being, her bison riding antics aside. Sturgeon is a class act. Patrick Harvie has some pasion about him (althought I prefer Alison Johnons, the SGP's co-leader, I think she's cannier). Richard Leonard, the current Labour leader is a cipher. I miss Kezia Dugdale. Willie Rennie, I would not have Willie Rennie's job for all the tea in North East Fife. But we are blessed. MLW was remarking a few days ago that a big difference between the 2011 Scottish Independence referendum and the 2016 EU referendum is that the Scottish one felt exciting - full of positive choices. The EU process just feels painful.

As an aside, using the word separatist in Scotland would mark you out as having picked a side and being quite gung-ho about that side.

[notasupervillain]

Before I accidentally get myself into trouble*, what side does the word separatist mean? And what's a neutral word that someone who's from another country and doesn't feel comfortable weighing in on other people's identity issues should use?

*In Canada, "double-fisting" is a term for a drink in each hand. In a sentence, "Sorry I'm late to the pub guys, guess I'll have to double-fist to catch up." I have been informed that in Newcastle, it does not mean the same thing.

[danieldwilliam]

Using the word separatist in Scotland indicates that you are Unionist. A fervant Unionist. A Unionist who denies that there is any problem with the Union that needs talking about. A Unionist who does not give the other side much credit for being sincere and motivated by genuine, if misplaced, goodwill. Perhaps the type of Unionist who thinks that Nationalists are only interested in making trouble in order to advance their own career. The sort of Unionist who is about one step away from calling someone a traitor and meaning it.

I'd stick to something like "the issue of Scottish independence" or "constituational questions". Constitutional questions is a good one as it reminds everyone in the conversation that independence isn't the only option under consideration and the question isn't just a Scottish one.

[notasupervillain]

Noted.

In Canada, saying Quebec separatists means that there are people in Quebec who want to separate. It's not a value judgement. Or if it is, it's on the level of microagressions, not pushing someone over and standing in front of them saying "hey you think you're tough enough?"

This is not a mistake that I want to make.

[danieldwilliam]

I was wondering what the language usage in Canada would be.

and I wonder if the slightly different implications are just chance or if they originate in differences between French and English.

[notasupervillain]

I suspect chance? Though I'm not an expert on the topic by any means.

And while I personally oppose Quebec separation, I wouldn't conciously be rude about it. You can't bully someone into being your friend. So the word choice is one I think is polite. I've never talked to someone who supports separatism* so I can't be certain how it's heard by the other side, though.

*I mean I almost certainly have, but it hasn't come up in conversation.

[danieldwilliam]

What makes you oppose a change in the constitutional status of Quebec?

I'm not sure how much of a current issue it is in Canada. IIRC there were two votes on, neither of which passed and the second of which was more of a win for the current relationship but that was some time ago I think.

Indeed on the bullying people.

I think being rude about these things is more about signalling to your own side that you are really really on their side.


Politeness is more likely to get more information about the other person's position - which can only be useful, interesting and enligtening - unless they turn out to be a stone cold racist.

[notasupervillain]

Half my family is anglophone Quebecois (Jewish Montrealers - the latest of which arrived in the early 1900s) and while our roots are not quite as deep as the quarter of my family that immigranted as part of New France in the 1600s, we're still a part of Quebec society. And the sepratists don't have a great record on trying to preserve cultures other than their own (see, language education). I understand why they feel their culture is under threat, my grandfather didn't learn English at school and I can barely stumble through a sentence in French, but the situation is more complicated than a binary.

French-Canadians don't all live in Quebec. There are lots of towns in Ontario with huge French populations. There is a big French population in Manitoba. If Quebec separates, those populations will be left to dry, when right now there's a substantial effort made for - not integration as homogenization, but integration as a mosaic. See point three.

3. English-Canada really, legit is trying to be better. All federal government services have to be offered bilingually. My lack of French ended up closing tons of doors when I lived in Ottawa, and that's a good thing (though, not for me personally). Speaking French is a requirement for anyone aspiring to be Prime Minister, and a significant portion (50%?) of the Supreme Court comes from the Quebec legal system which is somewhat different than the one in the rest of Canada. It's by no means perfect. There's a lot of old problems to overcome (see: my grandfather deliberately didn't teach his children French because he wanted them to be successful in life, and everyone knew teaching French would just confuse the poor child). And maybe when the Liberals launched their campaign to raise support for Canada in Quebec in the 1990s, a bunch of the money ended up in their backers' pockets. These things happen. But there is an effort being made.

This should be a dying issue. The separatists are getting older and the young don't want another referendum. The separist parties were going the way of UKIP.

Except then New Brunswick (tiny province, with a significant portion of the population French) went and elected a racist Premier. But no, he couldn't settle for ordinary xenophobia like most politicians. He had to be explicitly anti bilingualism. He decided to "save money" by cancelling a major French sporting event, fucking with French education, etc. And I'm worried that this is going to reignite a debate that ought to be dead.

[danieldwilliam]

Interesting, thanks very much.

[notasupervillain]

I get why people feel the other way, especially if anti-francophone sentiment kicks up in the rest of Canada. But hopefully things will settle down and we can continue along a path of mutual respect with everyone benefiting from each other. That's the dream, anyway.

[notasupervillain]

May I ask why you favour Scottish independence? Explicitly not Scottish constitutional questions, because at least in Canada that is a distinct question from Quebec independence and one I could barely attempt to explain to you. (I don't think that Quebec ever signed the repatriated Constitution, and there is the issue of the notwithstanding clause, and Quebec constitutional questions right now seem to mostly be about making women take off their hijabs which is STUPID this is Quebec, 4 months a year everyone is wearing a scarf covering everything except their eyes to protect from frostbite and somehow civil society exists but no, when it's a woman making a choice about her own body that's not okay.)

[danieldwilliam]

Broadly, I think my country would be better run if it were independent. It's not driven by any strong sense of Our People, Ourselves Alone.

There is an ideological element to it as well.

More particularly

Span of Control and Scalar Chain

Large countries are exponentially harder to run than small countries. Partly this is because smaller countries find it easier to have internal alignment and solidarity. Partly this is just down to considerations of span of control and scalar chain.

For example, an independent Scotland would have 7 or 8 management layers between a bobbie and the First Minister. The US has two layers of government plus all the management layers between the President and a beat cop.

An independent Scotland ought to be able to get closer to its own problems and get closer to its own solutions and create broad and deep and sustained agreement and action on those problems. Being a few percent better at running a counrty compounds nicely over a lifetime.

Constitutional maturity

Scotland is a much more constituationally mature state than England and England's failure to grasp both what constitutional maturity looks like and why it is needed is really getting in the way of Scotland doing what it needs to do. It is obvious (or ought to be) that if you are going to have a semi-quasi-federal structure in the UK with England, NI, Wales, and Scotland (& London) having degrees of autonomy then you need to be having a conversation about a) a separate legislature for England, b) the problems of running a federal system when 1 of the 4 elements is 80% of the Federation.

Largely if you try to prompt that conversation in England you get back a response which is, a more or less sophisticated version of "Eng-Ger-Land! "Eng-Ger-Land! "Eng-Ger-Land! " or a Rudyard Kipling reference. England just don't seem to have processed that devolution and the semi-quasi-federal structure in the UK means that anything about the governanance of England needs to be examined. It's frankly wearing having to keep on having those conversations. The time wasted could be better spent actually sorting stuff out.

Post-imperialism

Britain has a post-imperial problem. We used to be the most powerful country in the world. We then used to be the former most powerful country in the world. We're now a rich, but second or third teir country. We're only going to fall down the rankings as time goes on. (I'm not sure we've spotted this because of Mercator projections and racism - Nigeria will have a population twice the size of ours and half as rich by the 2030.) Britain hasn't quite got its head around that. England struggles to realise that it is even a question. One of their favourite football chants is still "Two World Wars and One World Cup." Again, that mental blocker is just getting in the way of the UK sorting itself out. Which means that Scotland isn't being sorted out for the 21st century.

England, I think, has another 20 years before it realises it has a problem in terms of the constitutional set up and its post-imperial role. That's two decades where nothing much happens in Scotland.

There is an opportunity for an indepedent Scotland to become a country that thinks creatively about the 21st and 22nd centuries, as we will actually experience them.

The Tory Party

Well, the Tory Party. It is a mistake to think that just because the Tory Party doesn't poll well in Scotland that there aren't Tories here, or that we won't have a centre-right party with influence post-independence but there is something so inimicial about the Tory Party and their believe that the interests of the Tory Party are the interests of England and that England is the same as the UK. Particularly when combined with their chimerical approach to their ideology and ethos. Are they Burkean conservatives, radical neo-liberals, small state libertarians, reactionary representatives of Capital or just the political wing of the Anglican Church?

Ideologically

Scotland is somewhat to the left of the UK.

The settled political consensus of Scotland appears to be that we wish to be a liberal social democracy, probably along a Scandinavian model. I'm not saying everyone agrees that this the way forward but I think 20 years after indepedence everyone would agree that that was the model Scotland had picked.

Issues like human rights appear to be contentious in England, and therefore in the UK. Socialised health care appears to be something that England wants to debate. Sure there are social democrats and democratic socialists in England but they are on the defensive. Sure there are neo-liberals in Scotland, as well as fascists and Christian Conservatives.

So, to sum up. I think Scotland will be better run as a small country. There are governance and psychological issues in the UK that act as a blocker on Scotland's aspirations. Those aspirations appear to be different from those of England. I am tired of waiting for England to sort itself out so that we can go forward together.

[notasupervillain]

That makes a lot of sense, and it gives it a quite different valence than the Canadian/Quebec issue. You really are talking about constitutional questions and management issues in Scotland, and I'm talking about identity issues in Quebec.

I've felt for a while that England has a dysfunctional attitude towards the rest of the Kingdom. I mean, I live in Newcastle and I feel that London has a dysfunctional attitude towards the North! I know that to some extent that's true in any country. Canada has issues about Western alienation, where Alberta in particular feels like Ottawa isn't working for them. But it sees especially bad in England. Maybe the legacy of the monarchy, where it wasn't wrong to say that the country should be run for the benefit of a few people who lived in London?

[danieldwilliam]

There are for sure some identity issues in the Scottish independence question.

The SNP have been very explicitely about civic nationalism - that this is a question about like-minded people of whatever heritage coming together to build a decent place to live to a shared vision - rather than a Scottish i identy that is distinct and special and separate from the question of management. But there is some blood and soil nationalism going about too. And there is a risk that our attempts at civic nationalism are looking at England and going "Not that" and not fully developing the model we positively want.

And this is why the use of the word "separatist" irks many supporters of Scottish indepedence, because it implies a desire for identy nationalism, for the Scots to be a separate people, rather than for Scotland to be a separate part administrative unit within the EU.

I think for a long time England never had to consider the differences between England and the UK and England and Wales and England and Scotland because, being a super-power you can buy your way out of that sort of problem and who doesn't want to be on the winning side. It's become harder now that people in Scotland and Wales are questioning what winning looks like. The fact that London is a mega-city and not in the middle of the UK makes that even harder to manage. (The Irish Question is a bit different and was managed by expelling an ungrateful Ireland once its usefulness had passed.)

I don't think it's a legacy of the monarchy per se and Britain is not historically the worst country in Europe for having a closed, powerful elite clustered around the monarch. Perhaps the opposite. The UK has been a constitutional monarchy since before it was the UK. For about six months in the 1640's we had a government in England that was so radically socialist that neither radicalism or socialism had been invented yet. In Scotland we had a radical democratic theocracy. Then we both had Oliver Cromwell. Since the 1640's the powers of the monarch, both personally and embodied in the notion of the Crown have been more regulated than in e.g. France or Russia or the Italian duchies.

The richest person in Britain (perhaps the world,) during the Industrial Revolution was the Marquis of Bute, a Scot who lived in Wales.

In some regards the North South divide is quite recent. Or at least it was different in the past. In the industrial revolution when the North and Scotland and Wales had all the coal, iron, ports, and industry the South was poor, rural, backwards and suffering from neglect. Or you might argue that the divide goes back to the Reformation, the Rising of the Northern Earls and the Elizabethan Reprisals. Or perhaps further back to the Harrowing of the North by William the Conqueror.

Or perhaps its just what happens in a long, thin island country.

But, the British aristocracy (plutocracy?) have been very good at maintaining both actual power and the idea that they ought to be in power.

[danieldwilliam]

I believe I have used the phrase "double-fisting" in both ways, but not on the same night and never in Newcastle.

[notasupervillain]

Prior to leaving Canada, I only thought there was one way to use that term.

[notasupervillain]

I hope that my Renew/Change candidates turn out to be reasonable people. But I'm such a safe Labour seat that I'm not sure they'll waste a good candidate here. I hate voting for someone I don't actually want to do the job.

[danieldwilliam]

A safe Labour seat for UK general elections or for the European elections?

[notasupervillain]

Good point, I suppose those aren't the same thing. I'll have to ask around for the European elections. I keep assuming things will work more-or-less like they do in Canada, but of course they don't always.

[danieldwilliam]

Very large multi-member constituencies elected using the d'Hondt closed party list system for Europen elections vs small single member constituencies elected using Single Member Plularity (aka First Past the Post) for Westminster.


http://www.europarl.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/en/european-elections/european_elections/the_voting_system.HTML

It makes a big difference (see UKIP).

In Scotland we use a different election system for every type of election.

STV for local elections.

Mixed-Member Proportionally for Holyrood.

D'Hondt for Euros and

Single Member Plurality for Westminster.

[notasupervillain]

Oh! Apparently we are doing an unusual voting system for mayor - I don't know what it's called formally but I'd call it instant run-off. I mark two choices instead of one, my top two picks.

This is interesting, given that I was having a hard enough time picking my top pick from the three I'm considering. Picking two will be twice as hard.

[danieldwilliam]

Suplementary Vote?

Mark X for first choice candidate. Mark a second X for second choice candidate. If your first candidate gets knocked out your vote transfers to your second candidate - style of thing?

If so, then, yeah, it's like Instant Run-Off voting but less nuanced. It's used for London Mayoral elections and I think might be the standard for other unitary Mayors in England.

As a political geek / activist there is really no need for it to exist except to delay the day when we have a Green major of London. In many ways involving maths it it worse than Instant Run-Off because the tactical voting is three dimensional and requires time to run backwards.

[notasupervillain]

That's what it is, yes. The tactics are annoying because I'm pretty sure that mathematically, I stand the best chance of getting what I want if I put my second-choice first and my first-choice second. But I don't like to play games like that with my vote.

No Green mayoral candidates in my area, but I assume it's going to hurt the independent candidate.

[danieldwilliam]

The tactics are bizarre and I'm afraid they are very cynical.

Not sure how organised the GPEW is in the North East. They seem to be adopting (or perhaps evolving) a similar canny and ruthless approach to targetting campaigns where they are strong as the Lib Dems have when they are operating well. So London, Brighton, Bristol and there is one other city in England that stands out - Nottingham perhaps, or Leeds.