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  • Brexit and populism

    From View from the EU: Britain ‘taken over by gamblers, liars, clowns and their cheerleaders’, a view from Helene von Bismarck:


    “Populists depend on enemies, real or imagined, to legitimise their actions and deflect from their own shortcomings,” she said. If the EU has been the “enemy abroad” since 2016, it will steadily be replaced by “enemies within”: MPs, civil servants, judges, lawyers, experts, the BBC.

    Oversimplification, lack of nuance are greedily seen as ways of cutting the Gordian knot of complex debate and “getting things done”. There are times and places for such methods, but not permanently in running a country. 


    Also, from John Crace in the same paper (On Boris’s big day, Tories kid themselves this is the deal they always wanted)


    “He had united his party – if only temporarily – over Europe. So it was job done for Boris, as Brexit had mainly only been about divisions within his own party. “

    → 2:53 PM, Dec 31

  • The Brexit trade deal vote and Labour's seemingly intractable position

    Labour had a seemingly impossible decision to make regarding the Brexit trade deal vote in the House of Commons on Wednesday 30th December.

    Labour leader Keir Starmer is quoted as saying:

    “The choice before the house today is perfectly simple. Do we implement the treaty that has been agreed with the EU, or do we not? If we choose not to, the outcome is clear: we leave the transition period without a deal. Without a deal on security, on trade, on fisheries. Without protection for our manufacturing sector, for farming, for countless businesses. And without a foothold to build a future relationship with the EU.”

    To me, the words "perfectly simple" are rather disingenuous. Starmer tried to portray the judgement as a binary choice, whereby all other considerations are neglected. That can be seen as clear leadership; it can also be a sign of a leader uncomfortable with conflict. 

    Fortunately, there was some public debate on the day:

    [Stella] Creasy said in a statement on her website: “Whatever Labour does, the Conservatives will cry foul, suggesting any attempt to scrutinise the deal after it is passed reveals a true intention to fight Brexit. The road ahead will be rocky for all concerned. To abstain is not to refuse to be part of that fight but to refuse to do so on the prime minister’s terms.”

    Also, it seemed clear that, whatever Labour did, the bill would pass, as the Conservatives had a significant majority.

    Kevin Brennan:

    “While I understand the desire to move on I simply don’t understand why it’s necessary for those who believe this is a bad deal to vote for it, and dip their fingertips in this abject failure of national ambition,”

    On the lack of parliamentary scrutiny, Clive Lewis put it thus:

    “false framing, used to hold this house to ransom”

    I presume Labour went through lots of war-gaming of the scenarios, but it doesn't quite seem that way. Their public website doesn't mention the Bill at all, and seems stuck in the 2019 election past:

    Within three months of coming to power, a Labour government will secure a sensible deal. And within six months, we will put that deal to a public vote alongside the option to remain.

    As with my previously denoted rolling of eyes at the lack of apparent decision analysis leading to the political contortions and distortions surrounding Brexit, I fail to recognise any systematic analysis of the situation. Again, I offer a fifteen-minute Decision FMEA structure as a very sketchy outline, which seems better than what we see in the news:



    As we can see, nearly everything under Labour's control is about the messaging and the internal collaboration and consensus-building prior to the vote - it just doesn't seem as if this was done. The ramifications of voting against, or permitting a free vote (or abstention) seem pretty minimal, given the majority that the Conservatives have at this time.
    → 1:51 PM, Dec 31

  • My state of blogging 2020 into 2021

    I’ve had this Diversions Manifold blog for coming up to a decade now and, as is typical for most blogs, I’ve come to it in spurts, let it lie dormant for long stretches, then returned enlightened, enthused and energised.

    (repeat the cycle)


    We’re sometime between Christmas 2020 and the New Year, and I’ve had time to wind down from work, to feel the gradual return of the energy and freedom of mind to actually start writing (and editing) things that are not work emails or documentation, test reports or goals and targets for 2021. So it’s time to review Diversions Manifold, to jot down what its purpose in life is, and to see where I might take it.


    Alongside the where to, it’s pertinent to ask, when would I write? Maybe blogging is principally something for the holidays, when I'm rested and have time to reflect and to write. But for 2021, I will try and maintain a more frequent cadence of writing here. 


    For that to happen, I need to restate (to myself) why I’m doing this (to myself), and what Diversions Manifold is.

    It’s a web log - a document for the now, and for history

    One intriguing aspect of blogging is that, whilst it is primarily a log of our lives and thoughts in the now, it also provides a near-permanent, public archive of our histories. It means that there are many potential readers, types of readers, and even cohorts of readers, stretching far into the future... which makes writing a blog a fun challenge, if you consider both current and future audiences.


    Don’t worry: I’m not self-aggrandising enough to think that my history is important to humanity in general, just for a few humans in the future, perhaps! My children, maybe even their children, might be interested in looking up one of their ancestors, to see what he got up to, what he thought interesting; what he made of the world he lived in, the life he had - at least when the conditions were right for him to actually write about anything.


    Bear in mind the name of the blog: Diversions Manifold. All sorts of things happen; threads, topics and special areas aren’t followed to the bitter end; I end up being diverted onto other paths; enjoying other perspectives - so many, manifold perspectives and diversions.


    Diversions Manifold will involve general observations, notes on interesting things undertaken (not everything, I can assure you of that), thoughts on politics and the environment, a little on my working life and a little on my family life. These latter two are challenging, as I don’t feel free to write about what I really get up to at work, nor to give any details about my children, into the web. They can do that themselves, when they’re ready, without being “outed” here.

    It’s still meant to be read

    There are readers, dear writer! Their / your needs and wants have to be considered, too, even if most of you are either simply imaginary (or progeny).


    I always intend (wish) my writing to be engaging and sufficiently well edited that readers don’t stumble too often on poor grammar, sentences that could read in multiple ways, and clearly unfinished or broken lines of logic.


    This is a large part of why my posting is so infrequent - I spend significantly more time editing and re-writing than perhaps I should, and tend to leave posts in draft form for much longer than I should. If I post more frequently, maybe the practice will help to streamline that process, without me getting too shoddy over it.


    I’m not much of a find-a-link-post-a-link blogger, though some like John Gruber at Daring Fireball do this very well.


    Posting more frequently will also help me to develop a recognisable voice that readers can relate to. It will be a filtered voice, of course, a persona, but hopefully with a consistency of tone and heart that keeps me me. 


    There will be smatterings of wry humour, nothing bawdy.

    It’s open to dialogue...

    … just not here. I’ve given up on comments: one or two genuine comments aside, I’ve had only spammy experiences with comments in my blogs. Moderating comments from unsolicited spammers feels like a waste of time when there’s barely any wheat to be found in the chaff. So, I’m turning off comments.


    I do understand why blog platforms created and continue to permit comments, and why bloggers take the time to moderate and curate them. I’d just like to take the other path, hinted at by Ur-blogger Dave Winer’s guidance over at Scripting News, combined with the original notion of the internet: to recognise that blogs are meant to create dialogue through linking and back-linking, references within posts, tweets and reddits, etc, rather than by keeping comments hidden within the posts themselves.


    Perhaps it is a little bit like people talking across couples at a dinner table, and it does mean that direct interaction can be lost; but the network-of-discussion idea appeals to me, so I’ll set it up that way from now on. I can be tweeted at @diversionsmfold (preferably with a link to the post, so we know what we’re talking about)


    A liberal mindset

    Living as I do, thankfully, in a well-functioning “liberal” democracy, I don’t need to worry too much about getting shot, killed, thrown into prison, or otherwise silenced by such sensitive souls as Presidents Xi, Erdogan, Putin and their tremulous ilk.


    I’ll remain polite, respectful of cultures and other mindsets, but will struggle not to be too dismissive of authoritarians and populist politicians who bellow platitudes and peddle exceptionalism, who distort and devalue truth.


    I mainly read the Guardian for my news.


    My attempts to synthesise opinions about policies or events will be based on my engineer’s training (the “Brexit FMEA” post being a particular case in point), as well as trying to network in opposing views, unless they’re clearly batty and conspiracy-theory based.

    But… But… It's Blogger, it's Google

    Yes, yes, I know. I have struggled with the idea for the duration, looking for alternatives (Posterous (RIP), Posthaven, Wordpress, Medium, Ghost, Typepad, Fargo (RIP), even Jekyll via GitHub and Python (it got messy)…), but I stuck with Blogger because it works, it’s simple enough, I know how to use it, I quite like their dashboard, and it has my history. So, I’ll stick with it in my quiet way.


    Google has killed off a lot of services, but, amazingly, Blogger has not been one of them. I don’t know why, and the Internet is a little unclear on the matter. The most compelling is that it appears to be useful to Google as an in-house communications tool that is used by YouTube and the like - so they might as well keep it. And with their server management, I’m on the safer side of things, without the complexities of self-hosting, AWS and all of those considerations.


    I’ve made my peace of sorts with Google on the data side of things, too; they make data useful, as well as advertisable; since I’ve not switched on advertising here, I’m not a monetising target as such. No doubt they’ll make a note of who visited, and maybe they'll advertise to you: I just hope it doesn't get too obtrusive or creepy. You can always use your adblockers, anti-tracking methods and the like, and keep the web how it was meant to be: linked, not just liked.


    Diversions Manifold into 2021

    This blog, Diversions Manifold, is about me and my experiences. It’s not a professional take on any particular aspect of life, and it’s very limited in certain specific aspects (work, family, as mentioned). That voice of mine here is, then, a public voice. Not too filtered, but… considered. 


    I review and edit my posts before publishing. I can and do revise them after publishing, though I will try to remember to add the [Update:...] information.


    This Diversions Manifold persona can be found on Twitter as @diversionsmfold (was @sebbrowser), and on Reddit as DiversionsManifold. I also blog about the philosophy of engineering at engiphy.net and its related Twitter handle @engiphy


    And there we are: a loose sketch of what this blog can be as we slide gracefully into a virus-free, environmentally aware, open-minded, 2021. Welcoming of our tribes but respectful of and collaborative with others. Democratic, anti-bureaucratic. Erratic. 


    An addendum: 

    You know Blogger is doing something right when it gets blocked at various times by such luminary governments as…


    Cuba

    Fiji

    India (some ISPs in 2012 blocking an IP address put into Federal List of Extremist Materials in 2011)

    Iran

    Kazakhstan

    Kyrgyzstan

    Pakistan

    People's Republic of China

    Russian Federation (some ISPs in 2012 blocking an IP address put into Federal List of Extremist Materials in 2011)

    Syrian Arab Republic

    Turkey

    Vietnam

    Yemen


    (From the Wikipedia article on Blogger: needs citations...)
    → 6:38 PM, Dec 30
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