Archive for September 2014

Poe’s Law conundrums (Millipede Jr’s 2014 Conference Speech edition)

Is this a typical Gruniad sub-editing fail or have they just repeated the briefing notes verbatim:

The Labour leader’s big six goals are designed to restore a lost faith in the future. They are:

  • Ensuring as many school leavers go on to apprenticeships as go to university.
  • Help working families share fairly in the UK’s wealth.
  • Meet the demand for new homes by doubling the number of first-time buyers from the current 200,000 a year to 400,000.
  • Halve the number of low paid – defined as those earning two-thirds of median earnings – from 5 million to 2.5 million.
  • Create a million more hi-tech green jobs in a bid to overhaul the number of Germans and Japan.
  • Restore the NHS by integrating health and care services, ensuring joined up preventive care to keep the healthy out of hospital.

Whither Scotland

The campaigning is done, the pollsters have retired and the people of Scotland are voting. We shall know the outcome tomorrow.

Personally I think they should go for it. Accept that they will suffer some short-term pain whilst telling two levels of politicians to take a very long walk off a very short pier.

However, if we are to believe the opinion polls, the outcome is too close to call. Are they accurate though? We all know that people lie and/or change their mind and my gut feeling is that, in the end, they will opt for the devil they know rather than uncertainty.

Whatever the result, unless it is a resounding ‘no’, the UK is going to have to make some changes across the course of the 2015-2020 parliament – whether that is negotiating the break-up of the union or substantial changes to how the UK is run.

I don’t though trust politicians or civil servants to do either very well. If it is to be independence, I foresee 18 months of blazing rows between Westminster and Holyrood as each side argues over who gets the CD collection. If not then I expect them to fudge the issue of federalising the UK as much as possible to ensure that all power remains in the centre.

If they do fudge then all they will have done is kicked the can down the road – and I’m not sure the electorate will stand for it, not this time. English nationalism, a generally dormant thing, seems to be stirring and I suspect things could get ugly if it is felt that the politicians have got it wrong. That is not something I want to see.

What I would like to see (but realise won’t happen) is for one of the main parties to grit their teeth and vote for Christmas by promising in their 2015 election manifesto that pretty much everything bar foreign policy and defence will be devolved down to at least the city or regional/county level. Let the major population centres take control. Let county hall or the parish council be more than a glorified talking shop. Decentralise everything.

Sure, there will still be far too many politicians for my liking but it is a step on the road to each person being their own independent nation rather than citizens of an arbitrary set of lines on a map.

Whether the Scots vote for their freedom or not, change is coming. These are truly interesting times.