Clarity (possibly)

The following are some notes tapped out while on the way home from a business trip to the US.  They are as typed on the flight.  The original title was "Clarity", I haven't reviewed them so that may or may not be appropriate, hence the qualifier above...

It’s 4am at home.  Where I set off from, it’s 8pm.  So far as I’m concerned, I’ve no idea what time it is.  The Virgin Upper cabin is darkened, all the blinds are shut and the lights are down.  There is a purple light off to one corner, mood lighting for the bar.  My complimentary headphones are channelling Daft Punk to my ears – Aerodynamic.

I lifted the blind slightly and twisted round on my seat to peek outside.  Greenland was below us, and the sun is either just setting or just rising.  I genuinely have no idea.  I’ll look again later, that should tell me which it was.  If I think about it, I can probably work it out as we’re heading East towards the rising sun, but my head is hurting and I don’t want to.

I push the blind back down and settle into the seat again.  The purple light creates a pattern on the inside wall of the cabin where it ripples in and out between the windows that no-one can look out of without pulling a muscle.  The no-smoking signs are points of light on the roof, creating a regular pattern ruined by the chap to my right with his light on.  His face is lit up white – like me, he’s tapping away on a laptop. 

The cabin crew keep asking me if I want a drink, and there was a nice single malt on the menu.  But I don’t need the warm glow of the Scots coast, I have my own inner glow.  I’m going home.

Harder, Better, Faster Stronger.    

Ever. After. Work Is Over.

Home.

My work is international – one of the most international professions that there is.  We deal with many more countries than most professions, probably by an order of magnitude or so.  My bank manager admitted to me that I’m the client who regularly sets off all his compliance alarms thanks to the amount of money I send out and the sheer range of countries that I send it to.  We deal with the highest common factor - all the countries that figure on the plans of any of our clients.  And from time to time, that means going to say hello, shake hands, secure those relationships.

(They’ve turned the purple light off.  Now I just have the no smoking signs – I’m guessing they can never ever go off.  The bar looks as if it has shut, maybe that’s why they kept asking me.  Suddenly I fancy that single malt…)

My hobby is all about movement.  I’ve loved driving cars since my 17^th birthday, when an instructor turned up at 10am in a white Mk2 Escort to take me for my first ever lesson – a total surprise.  An hour later I was gliding along the A452 at 40mph and loving it.  I started ordering nice cars the first chance I had, and my present to myself on getting into a paid-up partnership was a 325hp, 177mph, open-top, manual-gearbox example of the finest German engineering.  That took me into track days – I soon realised that its abilities were way beyond mine, and that if I tried to learn to use them on the road then the choice was between hospital and prison.  From there I started racing – not in my precious 911, but in a more (shall we say) disposable repairable car.  And repair it I have, several times.

And yet in that moment of inner warmth, I sense what is most important.  Home.

I’m going home now.

Nice

I was at a black tie dinner last night. 

My DJ fitted - with room to spare.  It wasn't even snug, it was positively roomy.

I've never had that experience before...

Changes

It was the accumulation of lots of little hints that told me I had to try this 5:2 thing and lose some weight.  And it's the little things that are telling me that something fundamental is changing as a result.

OK, the fact that the number on the scales is dropping steadily week by week is fairly significant, but (racing aside) that wasn't the prime reason - my long-term health was.  And so the stuff like not being puffed out all the time, having to run for a flight and it being easier than I expected, noticing that my calves have some definition again, they all mean more than does an abstract number. 

But there's definitely something changing at a deeper level.  We went out for a Sunday lunch as a family today - to Prezzo.  Now, I like Italian food.  Spaghetti with meatballs jumped out at me from the menu.  And today is a non-fast day, so I can have what I want.  So I did.

I really liked it.  But I couldn't finish it.  That's the first time I can recall that happening in, oh, about 47 years...

Progress update...

Well, I'm now 16 weeks into this.  I've gone off boiled eggs for breakfast and now have a small scattering of granola, plus an apple for lunch and a much-reduced portion of whatever everyone else is having for dinner. 

It was useful to calorie count at the start, but after a few weeks that became both tedious and unnecessary - having got a rough idea of the portion size needed, I can now serve out a "fasting" portion accurately enough. That means I'm not limited to things out of a packet which has a nutritional statement on the side, which is both useful and healthier. 

That's not the big news though.  The headlines are:

 - I'm 8kg down on where I started.  This includes Christmas, when I jumped about 2-3kg! In terms of my long-term aim, that's about 1/3 of the way.  I've been waiting for the easy wins to fizzle out and for progress to slow down, but that hasn't happened (yet) and it's a fairly steady 1/2kg per week, plus or minus. 

 - I'm wearing trousers that are a size smaller than I'm used to.  The ones I'm wearing today were an accidental purchase a few years ago that had to be put at the back of the wardrobe as they were so uncomfortable that they were unwearable.  I've now had to order a selection of new trousers, as my old size is itself uncomfortable due to all the material gathering up under the belt. 

 - Talking of my belt, I may have to add a new hole.  At the right end, too. 

 - This morning I had to catch a flight and was running late.  Running was actually easy; I'd forgotten that could be the case.

 - It's so easy to stick to that I've moved to 4:3 instead of 5:2, i.e. fasting Monday, Wednesday and Friday.   That still leaves me with the weekend free, and it means that if my fast day doesn't fit around my work diary then I'm still at 5:2 even if I miss one.  This is closer to the alternate-day fasting that Dr Mosley also described but with a weekend and a steady weekly routine instead. 

This really works.  I'm properly chuffed. 

Second fast day nearly done...

Another fast day done!  Same menu of two boiled eggs for breakfast and an apple for lunch.  Supper this time was a tuna & tomato sandwich, chosen because it's a particular favourite that also ticked the right boxes. 

I can tell that I'm hungry, but it's nothing like as distracting as I thought it would be.  Just tapping out this blog is enough to take my mind off it - a day at work is more than enough.  Netflix in the evenings helps, too. I slept well on Monday, so no worries on that score. 

And the big question?  Well, no scores yet for today but Monday's fast took 1kg off - and it stayed off through Tuesday to this morning.  That's probably the low-hanging fruit (as it were), so I don't expect a linear progression at that rate*, but it's really encouraging. 


*partly because if it does, there'll be nothing left of me by the start of March.

First fast day

Breakfast.

Oh lordy, am I posting pictures of food now? At least this isn't Instagram, I suppose...

Also had a glass of water, and a coffee when I arrived at work.  Feeling distinctly OK at the moment; my stomach did query whether that was indeed everything after I finished eating, but there are things here to distract me.

A new direction

Politics is boring these days.  So I'm not going to blog about it any more.  Instead of saving the country, I'm going to save my life instead. 

Basically, I'm 47 and despite years of denial, it is becoming very clear that I can't keep on eating like I did when I was a teenager.  I'm impressed by just how long I've been able to look in the mirror and think things are just fine, but some cartoons are too close to the mark...

(They could at least have left the bald spot out!)

I did have a reasonable amount of success a year or so ago with a diet recommended to me by a good friend.  It wasn't a fad diet or one that needs endless abstinence, just a simple shift of intake away from carbohydrates and towards protein instead.  That appealed, because I am notoriously unable to resist temptation, so substitution worked far better than self-denial.  I lost a fair amount that way - of the order of 9-10kg, and felt rather better for it.  But it bottomed out there at a weight of about 100kg, and I found it hard to get any further.  I remember being 85kg as a youngster, in full RAF fast jet flying kit... so to get back to the low 90s would be nice.  But although I haven't weighed myself for some time, I rather suspect that it has all come back.

Recently, I've come to the view I have to do something.  I've been feeling tired and sluggish, and my trousers are definitely a bit tighter around the waist than is comfortable.  Then I found myself walking back to the office at lunchtime and trying to talk on the phone at the same time, and realised I was getting breathless.  That won't do.  The last straw was seeing a candid photo of me from the side, in a Silverstone garage in my race suit; now, my race suit is fairly flattering from the front, but it isn't from the side.  It really isn't...

These are the early warning signs.  I don't want them to get any louder.

Then there is the racing, of course.  We fanatically try to get the weight off our cars, but I'm carrying somewhere up to 20kg that I don't need. And, coincidentally, my car and I (together) are about 20kg over the minimum weight limit for my racing series.  So if I could lose all that, it would translate directly into faster laptimes. 

A random Twitter link last week pointed me at Dr Michael Mosley, the founder of the 5:2 diet.  I'd seen that referenced a few other times, so knew it was a thing.  So I had a look over his website, and liked what I saw.  The idea of his diet is that you (almost) fast for two days a week, which triggers metabolic changes that help in various ways (as well as reducing your overall food intake).  So I bought his book, and his experiences before starting his regime chimed with mine.  

So, from now on, Mondays and Wednesday are my fast days.  I'll be aiming to get to around 600 calories on those days - a quarter the "ideal" male level.  Tomorrow's menu is:

Breakfast - two boiled eggs
Lunch - an apple, if I feel I need it
Supper - tuna, tomatoes, wholemeal bread

I'll be weighing in tonight before I go to sleep.  I hope to be brave enough to post the figure up here. 

If you've read this far, then please stick around, please comment, please keep me honest.  You never, know, you might save a life ;-)

The supposed benefits of the EU - part 2

Some time ago I posted on the effect that EU membership has had on intellectual property, my specialist field.  That post focussed on effect the EU's interventions had had on costs and timescales.  I promised a second post, looking at the detail.  Here it is...

First, let's rewind the clock and look at the original British system of registering trade marks, as set out in the Trade Marks Act 1938 and as in the early days of the Trade Marks Act 1994.  When you filed an application to register a new trade mark, the Registry looks through its records of earlier pending and registered marks.  If it finds any that are similar, it cites them against you as an objection.  Your application cannot proceed while that objection is there.  You must then either convince the Registry that there is no actual conflict in practice, or approach the earlier proprietor to seek their consent, or apply to revoke the earlier registration, or some combination of these.  Only when the Registry was happy that your proposed trade mark registration did not conflict with anyone else's would your application proceed.

Incidentally, a request for consent was always accompanied by an offer to pay the associated professional fees in advising the earlier proprietor (even if they subsequently refused consent). 

After the application was accepted by the Registry, it was published to let third parties "oppose" the application if they thought it whouldn't have been allowed.  As the Registry had already examined the application, this opposition process was only needed where the Registry had made a mistake or where the opponent had been using their mark but had never bothered to register it.

This system worked well from 1875 until 1996 (although I can only personally vouch for it after 1991…).  It is still the approach that is current in the US, Japanese, Chinese, Canadian, Brazilian, Australian, New Zealand, Indian and other Trade Marks Registries.  In other words, it is the accepted system among the non-EU developed economies of the world.

1996 brought us the EU Trade Marks Registry, which was originally going to work to the French/Italian model of allowing anyone to register anything and leaving it to the Courts to sort everything out afterwards.  We and the Germans resisted this and insisted on an opposition process and an examination for earlier marks; we succeeded in getting an opposition process but the examination as to earlier marks was limited to merely doing a search, telling the applicant what they had found, and telling the owners of the earlier marks that their mark had been cited.  The theory was that when shown an earlier registration of a similar mark, the later applicant would realise that proceeding with the application was pointless and would withdraw it.  In practice, most applicationts carry on anyway.  Faced with a steady stream of EU registrations that were effective in the UK and had not been examined for prior rights, the UK Registry eventually gave up examining and has now adopted the same process as the EU office. 

The EU IPO is currently trying to drop even this step of the process as (in its view) it just gets in the way of registering things quickly.

For the owner of the earlier mark, receiving one of these 'notice letters' is a warning that someone may be trying to adopt the same trade mark as they already own.  They need to look up the details of the later application, come to a view as to whether that is a problem, and (if so) contact the application to persuade them to withdraw.  If they do not withdraw, then an opposition will be needed.  The result has been an approximately tenfold increase in the rate at which applications are opposed, and (for some owners) a need to send a steady stream of opposition threats. Previously, this work was done for them, funded by the application fees charged to new applicants.

This was a deliberate decision at the political level to shift the burden of keeping the register 'clean' off the IP offices and new applicants, and onto the proprietors of the earlier marks.  The intention was that faster and cheaper application processes via a single EU Registry would outweigh the additional cost of forever having to defend the registration.  I would characterise the results against that criterion as “mixed” at best, and the level of understanding of IP application processes among the politicians who made this decision as “non-existent”.

This decision by the EU has had two effects, both of which were entirely predictable.  First, the owners of registered marks have to keep on defending them, incurring costs in the process.  They see the EU IPO taking hefty application fees off new applicants and running large surpluses, and frankly they (and I) do not understand why the EU IPO cannot therefore examine new applications properly instead of just passing the problem on to others.  Second, happy clients who have just been granted a registration ask whether that means they are the owners of the trade mark, free to use it in the EU?  I have to tell them that no, they are not - there could easily be a prior national right which both invalidates their EU registration and also means they cannot use the mark in that state.

The EU's involvement in the trade mark registration process has therefore been to devalue a registration and to place a new burden on trade mark owners, while raking in the cash (see my previous post).  They could have helped businesses, for example by creating a central registry holding searchable details of all the marks in all the EU countries, allowing us to clear new trade marks easily, cheaply and quickly; that would have been a genuinely valuable resource (but would not have been as profitable for the EU).  But instead, they just created another level of complexity for the system. 

And I haven't even got onto the real minutiae of class fee structures and specification drafting - two more areas where the EU's influence has again made life more difficult for businesses.

Suffice to say that I shall be disagreeing with the assumption by my professional institutes that we should vote to stay in.

A positive vision to leave

For decades now, I have argued with people who suggested that it wasn't worth voting.  Same sh*t, different faces was the essence of their argument.  With the Brexit vote looming, and the possibility that we might not vote to leave, I have realised tonight that those people had a point. 

Does it really matter who tells us to do what Brussels decides?  No.  Has Cameron stamped the imprint of distinctly Conservative policies on this nation?  No.  Has he changed the agenda from the liberal-left corporatist centrist lets-just-muddle-through-and-stay-in-power smile-for-the-camera machine politics that we have had since 1990?  No.  Does he even have the power to do that?  No, he's only the Prime Minister.  He doesn't have the authority to change the agenda, because he doesn't set it. 

So let's vote for something positive on the 23rd.

Let's vote to make our politics our own again.

Let's vote to make Westminster meaningful again, to give it the chance to rise to the opportunity.

Let's vote in favour of making voting worthwhile.  

Let's vote to leave the EU.

Before and After

Before:

Membership of the EU helps keep us safe from terrorism.

After:

It's 'not appropriate' to use the terror attacks to suggest Britain is safer outside the EU.

There you have it; a clear statement from our Prime Minister -the Prime Minister - that we should not allow facts to affect our decision on the EU.  

It is a simple and undeniable fact that free movement of people within the EU means that we must all subscribe to the standards of the weakest EU member state.  No matter what we do to improve our border security, we must allow in anyone who has been granted residence by another EU state.  Therefore, our standards are set by whichever is the easiest country to get into.

That made sense when the EU (/EEC) was a small group of close-knit nations with a similar culture and a similar outlook.  But those rules are being carried forward into an era when the EU has 28 countries ranging from the first country to industrialise its economy and the founder of capitalism all the way to a collection of ex-communist states.  On a per capita basis, their GDP is around half ours.  On the World Bank rankings for GDP, EU members span from the 4th largest economy to the 105th largest.  Cohesive?  Similar?  Don't be silly.

I think I'd rather take a leap into the dark and uncertain place occupied by the other 160 countries on the World Bank index.  The one occupied by six of the top ten and fourteen of the top twenty - both clear majorities... 

On the supposed benefits of the EU - part 1

As you may have noticed, I work in intellectual property - I act for clients in applying for patents and trade mark registrations.  That's an area where there has been a lot of European integration over the years, so in the light of the forthcoming referendum I'd like to offer my observations on the impact that has had on the UK and its businesses.  This is the first of two posts - in this post I'll look at timescales and costs, in part 2 I plan to look at some of the minutiae of EU trade mark practice to explain some of the effects of that on UK businesses that no-one ever highlights because no journalists or politicians really understand it.

Now, an unusual aspect of this field is that we do in fact have an interesting form of experiment.  In the field of patents, we have the European Patent Office ("EPO"), based in Munich but with offices in The Hague, Berlin and Vienna.  It is not an EU institution, but was created by nation states acting together to establish an international convention by which they chose to delegate authority to grant patents in their jurisdictions to a common body.  For Trade Marks (and registered designs), we have the soon-to-be-renamed Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) (known as "OHIM") which acts a a central Trade Marks Registry covering the EU member states.  It is an EU body, created by a Commission Regulation.

Discussions as to setting up both offices started in the early 1970s.  The "European Patent Convention" was signed in 1973, and the EPO opened its doors to new applications in 1978.  From the start. the EU stated its intention to proceed more quickly by simply issuing a Regulation of its own that would get things off the ground long before a dedicated multilateral convention could be agreed.  OHIM was in fact set up in 1994, and opened to new applications in 1996.  So there is the first observable effect of the EU's involvement; a delay of 18 years.  In the time it took the EU to set up OHIM, I was conceived, born, educated (sort of), found a job, qualified as a patent attorney, and had almost become a partner in my business by the time I or anyone else was able to practice before the newly-formed OHIM.

So that deals with timescales, and the conclusion from the experiment is pretty clear - if you want something done quickly, do it yourself.  Don't ask the EU Commission to do it for you. 

So, onto costs (and related things).  The EPO is, in my professional view, a huge net benefit to applicants for patents.  As an organisation, it is by no means perfect and I have (from time to time) had some very sharp things to say about it and certain of its staff.  However, most of its staff are reasonable people who reach sensible decisions most of the time, and the cost of seeking patent protection across the European continent via the EPO is a tiny fraction of the cost of doing the same via the corresponding national systems.  The EPO's fees are on the high side (especially the renewal fees), but as it is an independent organisation, they lack any form of governmental subsidy and - when considered in relation to the standard of search and examination that they carry out - are generally reasonable and justifiable*.

OHIM, on the other hand, charge €900 for receiving an application online, looking at it and either (i) accepting it, waiting three months to see if anyone objects, and then issuing a certificate, or (ii) writing two letters to refuse it (both clearly based largely on standard templates).  By way of comparison, the UK Intellectual Property Office ("UKIPO") carries out a precisely equivalent process for £170.

I used to wonder why there was a difference.  In the EPO's case, the reason for the disparity between EPO and UKIPO fees is clear, as the EPO performs a much more thorough novelty search, has linguistics overheads that the UKIPO does not, and has a much more staff-intensive examination process so as to avoid national prejudices and ensure a more considered view of a patent application that is (metaphorically) carrying many more eggs in its basket than a single national application.  There is no obvious reason for this in OHIM's structure, though.  The budget surplus of nearly €300 million that OHIM had accumulated by 2008 did also suggest that its fees were unnecessarily high, too.

I've since realised why OHIM's fees are so high, and it's quite simple.  If OHIM charged (say) €250 for an application, who would ever file a national trade mark application?  Rather than just have a national right, if the cost was similar you'd get much better value by getting a right that covered the entire EU, wouldn't you?  Of course, then the national trade mark registries would all close as they would have nothing to do.  So OHIM's fees are a reflection of the fact that the EU's priority is in protecting civil service staff numbers - not helping business.  In every EU trade mark application they file, businesses are being charged a €650 tax to preserve civil service jobs.

This is a huge shame.  In OHIM, the EU had the opportunity to make a massive gift to businesses, allowing them to protect their brands at a fraction of the previous cost.  Yes, OHIM has made it cheaper and easier than it used to be before 1996, but much of the opportunity has been wasted.

If you want to look at it a different way, you could argue that the fee is set high so as to price out small businesses, forcing them to opt for narrower national rights, while allowing larger businesses to take EU-wide rights that are enforceable against those same small businesses.  Another way, then, that the cost and complexity brought by the EU's involvement discriminates in favour of the established large entities, against the SME businesses that might compete with them and disrupt their market, and contributes toward an inflexible, moribund European economy.

So, compared with the EPO, the EU's "help" in the field of trade mark protection succeeded in delaying the benefits of international cooperation by 18 years and then, when it came, denying much of the benefit  that it could have yielded and (instead) protecting civil service jobs and extracting as much cash as possible out of businesses.

So the conclusion on these issues is clear - we're better off out.  European countries can (and have) come together as nation states to set up the structures that we need, and doing it that way is quicker and better. 

*except maybe the renewal fees... they would ideally come down a bit, or be got rid of completely, I reckon. 

#Out

I've long known of and admired Tony Benn's five questions, and in recent discussions on Twitter I've realised that they underpin the basic reason why I want Britain to leave the EU.  In case you need reminding, the quote is:

“The House will forgive me for quoting five democratic questions that I have developed during my life. If one meets a powerful person--Rupert Murdoch, perhaps, or Joe Stalin or Hitler--one can ask five questions: what power do you have; where did you get it; in whose interests do you exercise it; to whom are you accountable; and, how can we get rid of you? Anyone who cannot answer the last of those questions does not live in a democratic system.”

I can't answer the last two in relation to the EU.  I'm unsure of the third, although I have my suspicions as to whose interests they serve (hint: not the voting public).  But it is the last question that is the killer.  Much as I disliked Blair and Brown and feel disappointed in Cameron, I know what I have to do in order to eject them and (in the cases of Blair and Brown) did precisely that.  So while I may have disliked the fact that Blair was elected into a position of power over me, I accepted the process.  Jean-Claude Juncker is a different matter entirely; I had no say in his appointment and I have no way of expressing my dissatisfaction with his work.

So there, in a nutshell, is my reason for wanting to leave.  I want to live in a democracy. 

That overrules everything else.  Talk for as long as you want about trivia like whether migrants should wait 6 months or 4 years for in-work benefits, I'm not bothered.  I want to have a vote as to who exercises power over me. 

I can understand that leaving will be very disruptive, and potentially quite expensive.  Well, principles are expensive, but you have to get the basics right.  Issues like "are we a democracy" are part of the foundations of our political system; everything else is built on them and it is essential that we get them right.  In time, the benefits of secure foundations will show. 

(Footnote: you may wish to relish this post, in which I praise the utterings of a hard-left politician.  It doesn't happen often.  I disagree with much that Benn said and did, but on the subjects of democracy and parliamentary privilege he was spot on)

Not Enough

OK, I've read David Cameron's letter on the subject of EU reform.  You should, too.  I've thought about it for a bit (yes, you should, too...).  It's not enough; even if he is given everything he wants, I'll still be voting to leave.  And we know, of course, that he won't be given it all, even though he will claim that he has. 

My reason is quite simple; he has approached EU reform from entirely the wrong direction.  He has identified areas that are within the sphere of EU policy and which are - today - causing some political friction.  He then asks for special terms for the UK in those areas.  That is ok insofar as it goes, but this is the run-up to an in/out referendum; it is a once-and-for-all opportunity to look at our position in the EU as an institution.  We last had a referendum on this subject 40 years ago - we should therefore be looking to the issues that may arise over the next 40+ years, the kind of issues that our experience since 1973 shows are likely to arise from the nature of the EU and the way in which it operates.  So we need to be a lot more ambitious than this. 

What we should be doing is the reverse of what Cameron has done.  Instead of identifying areas that we want to push the EU back from, we should be identifying the areas where we agree that the EU should have primacy in policy, and defining those areas carefully.  Then, any area not covered by those definitions is to be automatically excluded.  This is based on simple experience; the progress of the EU over the years has been characterised by a  steady growth in the areas of "competence" of the EU, and our relationship has been one of weary resistance, constant damage limitation.

He hints at this, with the request for an exclusion for the UK from the principle of "ever closer union".  But that highlights my other point; these reforms should be for all, not just the UK.  As it stands, even if he is allowed this, every other member will be committed to ever closer union and that will be the direction of the EU from then on.  The EU will continue to identify "competences" that it should acquire and will work on that.  What, exactly, will the UK opt-out from "ever closer union" mean then?  We will carry on with endless rearguard action, still slipping on the ratchet of integration.

So no, I'm not persuaded.  What would have brought me on board would have been a list of defined areas - trade between member states and the ability for EU citizens to live and work in other EU states (for example) - and a treaty commitment that the EU does not have and is not to seek competence in any other area.  Then, we could have done the same to the UK Government, and to local councils.  We could have renewed our democracy, defined the purpose of our institutions, and reinvigorated them both.  Instead, we just have a list of whinges that we want special treatment for. 

Vote OUT, then.  Let's have a Brexit. 

A Quandary, Surely?

I do have a little sympathy for the senior figures within Labour on one small, specific point.  It must be really upsetting to hold dearly to a set of views which you hold to be true and right, and also to know that when you stand up and honestly tell the world that you hold those views, they reject you:

...but when you spin the truth so as to present yourself as having a different set of views and conceal your socialism, you get elected instantly...

What to do.  Hmmm.  Toughie. 

Same old Labour

So, there won't be a Labour-SNP coalition.  Unequivocally, no.  It will not happen:

"Ed Miliband has ruled out a Labour-SNP coalition in the event of a hung Parliament after May's election."

Well, that's the message he wanted to send, anyway.  But that's just the BBC's summary.  What did he actually say?

The Labour leader said any alliance would "not happen" as there were "big differences" between the two parties

Ah, see, that's not quite the same, is it?  An alliance will not happen because there are differences between the parties... at the moment.  This isn't a statement of principle, this is a procedural point, that the two parties cannot in practice be reconciled because there are policy differences (as of today, anyway).  The day after an election, when the keys to No. 10 are dangling in front of them, who is to say that Ed might not be "persuaded" to adjust his views on areas where Labour and the SNP differ?  Then, the "big differences" between the parties would have evaporated, clearing the way for an alliance.

Then, immediately after that, there is the "clarification" as to what he really meant:

"There will be no SNP ministers in any government I lead"

None of that rules out the two parties co-operating on the floor of the House to secure specific policy aims, and (in particular) to exclude a Tory government.  It just means that Milliband intends to get his way in Cabinet.  This isn't a promise to the electorate, it is the first shot in the coalition negotiations - a warning to the SNP not to set their sights too high. 

So it's the same old Labour that we are used to from the Blair days.  Say whatever is necessary to get into power, but always make sure to leave yourself a little wriggle room.

Driving the technology forwards

I'm a big fan of technology, and its tendency to keep advancing.  I could hardly be otherwise, of course, given that I make my living from that same tendency.  I'm also quite a keen driver (as you may have noticed), so when the two come together you would think I would be doubly keen.  So why am I worried about the prospect of the driverless car?

Many worry that driverless cars won't be safe - that the technology won't be good enough.  After all, Windows crashes all the time, right?  Why wouldn't a Windows-powered car?  Well, I reckon the technology will be better than most drivers.  I suspect it already is, but that's mainly because I've seen what most drivers are like...

There is the old chestnut of driverless cars taking all the fun out of it, of course.  I don't subscribe to that, either; I think that driving will bifurcate into the mundane day-to-day stuff like getting to and from the office and the shops, which driverless cars will do, and recreational stuff like heading for a country pub in the summer with the roof down, for which we will still use sports cars and the like.  The main difference will probably be that the sports cars will all be carefully-preserved classics, which may not be a bad thing at all.

Then there are the ethical concerns, raised in various articles and recently mentioned by His Clarksonness himself in the Top Gear news section.  Essentially, this assumes that the car will have to make choices, and in some situations one of the options might be to sacrifice itself for the greater good.  A situation such as (say) a gaggle of children running out in front of the car, too close to stop in time, and the choice is to rely on the brakes and (inevitably) slaughter many kiddies, or to use the lamppost for additional braking and probably destroy the car and kill the driver in the process.  It would be somewhat galling if the car you paid a lot of money for decided to kill you, but I doubt that would ever actually happen.  Our wonderful lawmakers can be expected simply to slap an ultra-low speed limit anywhere that there might be pedestrians, so that the stopping distance is so short as to avoid the problem entirely.  Ta-dah...!

The real problem that worries me came to mind while I was thinking through the ethical one, and it is this.  At the moment, we teach children to cross the road only when they can walk to the other side before the oncoming cars reach them.  The reason for this is simple, if you think about it; the oncoming driver might be asleep, fiddling with the radio, chatting, on the phone, texting, daydreaming, or any combination of these, so there is a distinct risk s/he might not notice you starting to cross.  Therefore, you need to choose an option that fails safe, so you only walk if you will still survive even if the driver is comatose.

Once we reach a situation where most or all of the cars on the road are driverless,  this assumption will no longer apply.  We can confidently step out, knowing that the oncoming car will brake to let us cross.  The alternative is to program the cars to kill jaywalkers, which I doubt will happen.  Now, let's apply some knowledge of human nature, and think this through.  Imagine a busy town centre high street.  Shops on either side, pedestrians on the pavements, and a busy road through the middle.  How many pedestrians are going to wait for a gap in the traffic, and how many are going to make their own gap by stepping in front?  I think it's safe to say that a lot are going to take the latter option.

So, from the point of view of the driver/passenger, roads like that are going to be a nightmare - emergency stop after emergency stop.  The car's systems, by offering a level of reliability that humans cannot manage, will have effectively handed right of way to any pedestrian who feels like crossing the road.

The result will have to be the closure of all town centre roads, and their conversion to pedestrian precincts.  To keep the shops trading, they will have to provide plenty of car parks at the edge of the pedestrianised areas, and all the towns where the main roads pass through the centre will have to have bypasses built.

Actually, on further thought, that might not be a bad thing at all...

Some free advice for the Conservatives

 Offered on the blog of my MP, Steve Baker, in response to his article arguing that the UKIP surge is actually a vote for disengagement with politics, pointing at the low turnout figure.  He comments:

It is a tragic fact that politicians are once again talking to themselves while commentators encourage them to do so. We have failed to inspire the public even to throw us out.
The challenge after this election is not how to defeat UKIP. It is how to speak truthfully, hopefully and realistically to a population thoroughly disenchanted with the entire political system.

My response:

You're right that there has been a strong shift towards not voting; this has been developing over several General Elections and is symptomatic of a general mistrust of politicians.  There is a cosy stalemate that has emerged between the media and senior politicians, whereby the media limit their questions to ones designed to catch politicians out and trip them into saying something that can be misinterpreted, and politicians avoid saying anything of any substance or meaning in reply.  Both tendencies reinforce the other.  Both lead to people switching off.

UKIP have succeeded in tapping into this and presenting themselves as a break from the old order.  In that regard, by focusing on "gaffes" made by UKIP spokesmen or candidates, the traditional media have played into their hands by confirming that UKIP are not part of the club and that the Establishment is ganging up on them. 

There are opportunities in this for the Conservatives, though.  Labour have shown themselves to be a failure (I think it has been quoted that no opposition party has ever not won a Euro election until now?), so the clear focus must now be on UKIP.  The question is, why have so many Conservative supporters left for UKIP?  My suggestion would be that a general mistrust of Cameron, a feeling that when the day comes he will wriggle out of the referendum promise, and a feeling that he is a highly experienced politician and "one of them", are the main reasons.

To an extent, Cameron's shiftiness on policy has possibly been because he has been hamstrung by the constraints of coalition politics.  But now, with the Liberals effectively dead in the water and the EU staring at a clear mandate for a British exit if current terms are maintained, he can afford to strike out, say what he thinks, and maybe even do it.

In his shoes, I would

(a) Describe the exact form of EU that he would wish to see.  I for one don't actually know what that is.

(b) Set. A. Date. For. The. Referendum.  Also, publish the question that will be set.  That way, it might look as if he is committed to it.

(c) Go to Brussels and ask for his vision of Europe.  Explain bluntly that they can say "no" if they wish but it appears that the UK will leave if they do so.  Point out that there is now a hard, immovable deadline.

(d) Don't be afraid to tell interviewers they've asked a stupid question, or one based on a truckload of false assumptions.  Stop being a Westminster pansy and speak up.  Don't let them dictate the terms of the interview.  The media are not your friends, stop treating them as such.  Show a little steel.

I know of two Wycombe votes that may go back from UKIP to Conservative if this happens.

Nothing Moves Like Music

No politics this time.  I want to talk about the power of music tonight.  It's late, and I can't sleep, because I caught a snatch of a piece of music this evening on a film trailer.

The trailer was this one:


Did you catch it?

It's only brief, about 30 seconds at most.  It is "Speigel im Spiegel", by Arvo Pärt.  Here's the full version:

It's a beautiful piece of music.  I love it, I love the image it creates in my mind of a calm and peaceful place where I am safe and secure, where I can rest and relax and let any and all worries leave my mind.  And every time I listen - every single time - I will well up and I may well cry.  If I'm alone, I'll probably let it out, but if I'm in company I will probably just go quiet and maybe a little distant.  It has done that to me ever since maternal grandmother left this world over ten years ago, because every time I hear it, it reminds me of her. 

I have no idea why.  We never listened to it together, I have no idea whether she ever even heard it.  She wasn't especially into music, but the little music she did have was very, very different.  There is no logic as to why it should be this piece in particular, but it is so, nevertheless. 

There's another piece of music that does this to me.  It's in a rather different style, and a little more recent.  Pärt's piece is moderately highbrow, this very definitely isn't - it is simple, straightforward, and commercial.  It's this:



This one reminds me of Mum.  The link here is even more tenuous - she cannot possibly have heard it, as it was released after she died.   Common sense says the song can have no connection with her, but my own personal logic has connected them; every time I hear it, she is in my mind, and I am back there with her on her sofa in the last few weeks, with her (exhausted) sleeping against my shoulder with my arm around her.

Nothing triggers my memories of these two wonderful, strong women with the intensity of these pieces of music.  I want to hate them both for the effect they have on me, but I can't.

I love both pieces.  I love them for the connection they give me.

Bye bye???

Well, I did predict that online safety filters would be a little bit impossible to run properly. I hate to say I told you so, but it seems that the following sites are blocked:

• The Vatican 
• The British Library 
• The National Archives 
• The National Library of Wales 

and, to make it just perfect:

• Childline

Less seriously, but (spookily) exactly as I predicted also blocked is:

• This blog

I've missed the boat again

I had a brilliant idea for sorting out the EU this morning.  What we need to do is to find an ardent Eurosceptic (I would be an ideal candidate) who can then join the EU bureaucracy and work from the inside to make the EU into a completely ridiculous organisation, one that fails to make any headway on anything of importance, legislates away merrily on matters of no importance whatsoever, and wastes shedloads of money in the process.

A few years of that, and democratic support for the EU will soon evaporate.  And I'll spend those years with a nice expenses account among the restaurants of Brussels.  What's not to like?

And then it struck me. 

I'm too late.  Someone is obviously already at it. 

Whoever you are, I salute you!